The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), established in 1993 by Rehman Sobhan, its Founder chairman, with support from leading civil society institutions in Bangladesh, is mandated by its Deed of Trust to service the growing demand originating from the emerging civil society of Bangladesh for a more participatory and accountable development process. CPD seeks to address this felt-need from the perspectives of marginalised stakeholders, by way of organising multistakeholder consultations, by conducting research on issues of critical national, regional and global interests, through dissemination of knowledge and information on key developmental issues, and by influencing the concerned policy making processes.
Focus
CPD is an independent think-tank with local roots and global outreach. CPD focuses on frontier issues which are critical to the development process of Bangladesh, South Asia and LDCs in the present context, and those that are expected to shape and influence country's development prospects from the medium-term perspective. CPD's current programme portfolio includes research activities, holding of dialogues, publication and dissemination, and networking-related initiatives. CPD strives to enhance national capacity for economy-wide policy analyses, foster regional co-operation, and addresses issues which relate to Bangladesh's effective integration into the process of regionalisation and globalisation.
CPD activities also focus on challenges for regional co-operation and integration in South Asia. Moreover, CPD engages its capacity to analyse and highlight factors affecting socioeconomic progress in the LDCs. CPD has been organising Indo-Bangladesh dialogues on a regular basis where high level policymakers and representatives of key stakeholder groups of the two countries discuss issues of bilateral interest. CPD is also actively involved in the Kunming Initiative which strives to foster co-operation among Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar. Among other things, CPD regularly organises international fora of the civil society organisations to advance the interests of the LDCs in the UN, WTO and other multilateral institutions.
Target Groups
CPD's target groups are diverse and include both global and local policymakers. CPD seeks to provide voice to the interests and concerns of the low-income economies in global development discourse. In doing so, CPD involves all important cross-sections of the society including public representatives, government officials, business leaders, representatives of grassroots organisations, academics, development partners and other relevant interest groups. These different groups are engaged in exchange of views in all the three phases of the CPD process: identification of socially relevant issues, generation of inputs for policy analysis, and validation of policy recommendations.
Operational Modality
CPD's civic activism in policy-related areas is operationalised through various means which are implemented by way of concrete initiatives. These include:
Knowledge generation through research and analysis, creation and management of data and information base. Policy appreciation through dialogues, networking, information dissemination and mobilising support of the civil society for concrete policy agendas. Policy influencing at national, regional and international levels, by involving policymakers in the dialogue process, and by contributing to preparation of global policy documents and national policy briefs. Capacity building by way of organising policy appreciation workshops for policymakers and other important stakeholder groups.
Dialogue
At the core of CPD's activities lies its dialogue programme. CPD designs the dialogue format in such a way as to stimulate constructive engagement and informed exchange of views. Since the CPD dialogues are not intended to be merely academic, but tailored towards implementation, the discussions are designed to come up with specific recommendations reflecting stakeholders' views in terms of redefining the policies and ensuring their effective realisation on the ground. These recommendations are then placed before current and prospective policymakers of the country as inputs to the policy making process. One of the major CPD initiatives of recent times was the Bangladesh Vision 2021, a document prepared under the initiative of the Nagorik Committee (Citizen's Committee), based on a wide-ranging consultation held in Dhaka and several district headquarters of the country.
Beyond issues of national importance, CPD dialogues also focus on those that concern regional and global interests of the country and other LDCs.