NGO Profile• Name of the NGO: Nagorik Uddyog (The Citizen’s Initiative).• Established In: 1995• Head of the NGO: Zakir Hossain (Chief Executive).• Board of Directors: An executive committee consisting of 10 members including

the chief executive.• Basic Areas of Operation: Providing justice, women development, human rights

awareness, information rights providing etc.• Working Areas: Working on 9 different districts and among them on 92 different

regions.• Address: House # 8/14, Block-B, Lalamatia, Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh.• Email: nu@bdmail.net.• Fax: 8802-9141511.• Phone: 8802-8115868.• Website: www.nuhr.org

SOCIO ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF NAGORIK UDDYOG

Access to Justice• NU believes in the necessity of more affordable and accessible systems of justice

than that inherent in Bangladesh’s existing formal court and judicial systems. The lack of awareness among poor people of their civil rights compounds the issue. NU thus strives to see an increase in administrative participation and stronger representative structures at the grassroots level, giving poor people improved access to justice and other social services irrespective of gender or social class.

Table: - Status of Monetary Realization (2009-2010).

The Particular Project undertaken to serve justice to people

Women Empowerment• Women remain among the most vulnerable and disempowered groups in

Bangladesh. Cultural practices such as early marriage, polygamy, dowry, female seclusion, and arbitrary (oral) divorce contribute to women’s subordinate status; while religion has been used to sanction these practices.

• NU has arranged the activities of Leadership capacity-building of grassroots women’s group leaders, enhancing effective participation of women leaders in the local development, Initiating women’s group meetings to develop awareness of legal and human rights, extending the provision of legal aid to women etc.

STRENGTHENING THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT

• To improve the local government, NU has developed an improved service delivery system. NU assists in functioning of different committees of Union Parishad. NU is also trying hard to Increasing role of female representatives of UP. Necessary steps have been taken to insure and increase people’s participation in local government.

• The following project is undertaken for this particular purpose

HUMAN RIGHTS AWARENESS

• To promote human right awareness NU have arranged training facilities for the young peoples, established network between various groups of young peoples, leader-ship building strategies and motivate youth’s participation in national and international activities.

• Understanding the importance NU has arranged a project for this purpose

URBAN INFORMATION SECTOR

• The main objectives of this activity are mobilization of urban poor groups to make effective demands on public agencies, o build a coalition of women-headed organizations, to raise the level of women workers’ income in the informal sector, rehabilitation of slum dwellers and promotion of their housing rights etc.

• There is a project which is undertaken to facilitate these activities

RIGHTS TO INFORMATION

• People’s right to information is a key focus of NU’s advocacy efforts. With the equal input of five other organizations, NU thus initiated CCRTI as a means toward helping to ensure that legislation established to protect people’s right to information is enacted and enforced.

• As this is a very important activity the following project has been undertaken

ADVOCACY, RESEARCH AND COMMUNICATIONS

• Nagorik Uddyog contributes through participating as advocates in other NGO’s, they also do necessary research for the development process and communicate with GO-NGO’s for further implementation of laws and policies.

Environment, Climate Change and Disaster Management

• NU has been involved with the campaign of protecting environment; create awareness on climate change issues as well as responding to the disaster affected people. During various disasters that hit upon the country, NU is among the first to help the distressed peoples.

DONOR CONTRIBUTION AT A GLANCE

Access

to Justi

ce

Strength

ening The Lo

cal Govt

Human Righ

ts Aware

ness

Urban In

formati

on Secto

r

Rights

to Inform

ation

0

10

20

30

40

Million

Million

RECOMMENDATION

Based on the contribution of NU and our own observation we can recommend some crucial points that are needed to be considered by NU.

• Though operating in Bangladesh for a long time, they didn’t yet contributed in any

important or significant sector rather scattered activities. They should try to focus on the major sectors as well. And extend their activities.

• The economic information’s, like total budget, total expense etc. aren’t clearly viewed or described. NU should provide as much information’s as possible.

• Their annual report lacks much important financial information’s. Their audit reports are also not up to standard. To prove their viability, they must provide the necessary information’s in their annual reports and ensure proper audit reporting.

• We’ve also observed that majority of their projects are financed by the donor agencies, and there is a lack of accountability. They also should check this matter.

• They are basically focusing on those activities that are normally left alone by the popular large NGO’s. That is a very good sign for them and the nation. We recommend that they carry on these activities.

CONCLUSION

• We’ve analyzed all the activities of the NGO Nagorik Uddyog and found that they provide a wide range of activities and their contribution the both the economic and social sector is very much convincing.

• But, along with their activities we’ve also found some drawbacks of them. Lack of information, accountability, very limited area of operation these are the factors that are ruining their achievements. If they can manage their negative sides, we can sure hope that Nagorik Uddyog will be a true form of NGO and it can be the role model for other NGO’s to follow.

“THANK ALL OF YOU FOR BEING WITH US”