Ward Shabha is the lowest deliberative platform within Bangladesh’s Union Parishad structure, legally mandated to convene citizens and elected representatives at least twice a year under the Local Government (Union Parishad) Act, 2009, yet its functioning on the ground remains poorly understood at the micro level. This study adopts an in-depth qualitative case study approach to examine how Ward Shabha operates in practice in Islamkati Union, Tala Upazila, Satkhira District, a union purposively selected because it had most recently convened such a meeting. Data were collected from four wards through twelve in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, four key informant interviews with Union Parishad representatives, and a review of official documents, then analyzed using combined deductive and inductive thematic coding. The findings show that Ward Shabha functions at the intersection of formal institutional obligation and informal political calculation: meetings are organized largely in response to administrative pressure and legal compliance, while their timing and conduct are also shaped by post-election publicity and partisan considerations. Citizen participation is driven by expectations of accessing resources, gaining recognition, and maintaining ties with local authorities, but is constrained by financial limitations, elite capture, low public awareness, and entrenched gender and social hierarchies. Despite these constraints, the forum persists as one of the few institutionalized spaces for direct citizen–representative interaction. The study concludes that regularization, dedicated financial provisioning, and safeguards against elite capture are needed for Ward Shabha to evolve from a procedural formality into a substantive mechanism of grassroots democratic participation.
Authors: Prapti, Anika Tasnim; Al-Mamun, Md.; and Hossain, Faruq
Type: Report
Publisher: BIGD
Year: 2026
