Background

Strengthen liberal values and enable citizens to use their Right to Information thereby promoting governance, accountability and transparency in line with RTI Act. 2009.

Bangladesh has been achieved tremendous development in the last decade and becomes an emerging developing country. Economic growth and standard of living style are now at a satisfactory level but the humanitarian growth is still a bit behind the expectation. It’s happening due to the lack of awareness on civil rights and the existing law i.e. Right to Information Act 2009. As a result, people are not getting services and entitlements because of ignorance about their rights, service delivery points, service providers, and procedures. They are searching the supports here and there and knocking at the wrong doors. This is one of the big barriers to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) too.

In a democratic society, people should know about their rights, entitlement, and the procedure for the service delivery process. Due to many limitations, people along with related stakeholders in Bangladesh are still not much aware to nurture the “Right to Information Act 2009” in daily practice. So, the benefit of the Right to Information Act 2009 is still beyond citizens’ reach.

The project aims to fill up the gaps and serve the community interest in line with good governance through sensitization and engagement of both urban and rural stakeholders (business and industry, politics, government, academia, community people, and media) and other relevant actors to improve their readiness, protect rights and empower them to address this limitation immediately.

BNNRC since its inception has been struggling to bridge the gaps, providing means to access information and creating a conducive platform for the marginalized and hard to reach communities living in the periphery of Community Radio Stations and build awareness about Right to Information.

RTI Act 2009 was approved by the parliament in 2009. But still, most people do not know about the benefit of the Act in their daily life and its procedure as well. Besides, government officials are not much clear on the same, most of them have limited knowledge and clarification. As a result, the general mass is not able to get the benefit of the Act properly. In this context, a mass campaign on the RTI Act 2009 could give a clear concept on RTI Act 2009 to all stakeholders which could minimize the gaps related to the service delivery system.

The objective of the training workshop is to animating all stakeholders to exchange views on the Right to Information Act 2009, which included democracy, social justice, human rights and protection issues, equal opportunities towards good governance to promote a peaceful and inclusive society.

Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio & Communication (BNNRC), with support of FNF Bangladesh, organized a two-day long workshop on “Right to Information” for the government officials, CSOs, journalists, and community representatives of the broadcasting areas of Community Radio Lokobetar, Barguna, Barishal on June 23-24, 2021.

The workshop was facilitated by Dr. Aliur Rahman, Media and RTI Expert & Chairperson, Dept. Of journalism and Media Communication, the Green University of Bangladesh and Mr. Amin Al Rasheed, Media and RTI Expert & Editor, Current Affairs of Nexus Television.