Activating Village Courts in Bangladesh Project-Phase III

Project title: Activating Village Courts in Bangladesh Project-Phase III

Duration: July 2022-June 2027

Funded By: Bangladesh Government, European union and UNDP Bangladesh

Implemented By:  Local Government Division

Partner Organization: YPSA-Young Power in Social Action

Area coverage: 1391 Unions of 141 Upazilla from 15 Districts

Chattogram division: Chittagong, Cox’sbazar, Feni, Noakhali, Cumilla, Chandpur, Lakshmipur, Brahmanbaria

Sylhet division: Sylhet, Moulovibazar,Sunamganj,Hobiganj

Dhaka Division: Narayanganj,Munshiganj,Kishoreganj

The specific objectives of the AVCB III project are:

  1. Capacities of local justice sector to meet the justice needs of the population and make local authorities more responsive to address local justice needs and offer appropriate legal services in the form of well- functioning village courts are improved;
  2. People living in rural areas, especially women, the poor and other disadvantages group are empowered to access village courts to resolve minor disputes.

Project Summary:

UNDP with the funding and technical assistance of the EU and GoB, implemented the piloting and replication phases (phase I and Phase II) of the Activating Village Courts in Bangladesh projects (from 2009-2022). Based on the successes, GoB leads for the sustainable phase (AVCB III, total budget USD 50.01 m) with the funding assistance of EU and UNDP for the next five years (2022-2027) throughout the country (4457 UPs, except 121 UPs of CHT). This state-led rural dispute resolution system will be functioning through Union Parishads under the guidance of the Local Government Division. The scaling up of this Project across the country would allow the Village Court system to reduce the backlog of cases in the formal courts and also ensure a quasi-judicial system to resolve petty disputes in rural areas in an amicable fashion.

Through this project, YPSA will assist to activate village courts in the new 1013 unions and provide maintenance support to 378 unions already covered in the previous phases as AVCB I and AVCB II.

Activities:

  • Capacity building on Village Courts service providers;
  • Mainstreaming project activities to the GoB staff to ensure that village court function is sustainably taken over by the Government by 2027;
  • Legal and Policy framework
  • Digitalization
  • GoB monitoring capacity for evaluating VCs performance
  • Understanding of community people about the roles and functions of the VCs
  • Maintenance of performance of the existing VCs activated in AVCB-I and AVCB-II