The Hunger Project Bangladesh has been implementing a two-year project, supported by UNDEF entitled ‘MDG Unions: Building Participatory Democracy from the Bottom Up in Rural Bangladesh’ since May 2013. The project is working for improving governance at local government level (the Union Parishad or UP, the lowest tier of Local Government Bodies) by building the capacity of the elected representatives of UP and uniting it with an active, mobilized citizenry, for working together to accelerate the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The strategy of the project is to create 10 MDG Unions across two districts – Tangail and Mymonsingh – through intensive capacity building and community mobilization, ensuring that each Union Parishad  properly implements four key provisions of the Local Government (Union Parishad ) Act, 2009: holding twice annual public assemblies in each ward, feeding ward level priorities to properly functioning standing committees, supporting the standing committees to create Five-Year plan for the Union and publishing a citizen charter.

The outcomes of the project it generates will be reported to the media and to policymakers, influencing them to ensure proper implementation of these reforms nationwide.