Cities Alliance Joint Work Programme for Equitable Economic Growth in Cities Institutional Enabling Environment Report Sylhet, Bangladesh April 2017 BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) BRAC University Institutional Enabling Environment Report Sylhet, Bangladesh Cities Alliance 2017 Rue Royale 94 1000 Brussels Belgium www.citiesalliance.org [email protected] Technical Coordination and Supervision Ajay Suri (Cities Alliance) BIGD team Dr. Sultan Hafeez Rahman, Executive Director Dr. Shanawez Hossain, Research Fellow Mohammad Sirajul Islam, Senior Research Associate Syeda Salina Aziz, Senior Research Associate Md. Mahan Ul Hoque, Research Associate Raihan Ahamed, Research Associate Nabila Zaman, Research Associate Nadir Shah Nadim, Research Associate Nazneen Ahmed, Programme Officer About the Report This report was produced by BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) at BRAC University as part of the Cities Campaign of the Cities Alliance Joint Work Programme (JWP) for Equitable Economic Growth in Cities. The JWP is chaired by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), and its members are the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), UN-Habitat, Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF), Ford Foundation, the Institute for Housing and Development Studies (IHS) at Erasmus University Rotterdam and the World Bank. Disclaimer The views, analysis and recommendations of this report are those of the author(s) alone and do not represent the position of Cities Alliance or its members. ii Institutional Enabling Environment Report Sylhet, Bangladesh Table of Contents Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................. iii List of Boxes...................................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures .................................................................................................................................... vi List of Tables ..................................................................................................................................... vi Acronyms ........................................................................................................................................ vii Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................... ix Section 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................................1 1.1 Objective ............................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Structure of the report ........................................................................................................................ 2 1.3 Data sources and methods ................................................................................................................. 3 2.1 Legal framework for political authority and governance structure of city corporations ................... 9 2.1.1 Legal framework for political authority of local governments in Bangladesh ............................. 9 2.1.2 Governance structure of city corporations ................................................................................ 16 2.2 Evolution of political and governance frameworks of urban local government in Bangladesh ....... 18 2.3 Political and governance frameworks: positioning Sylhet ................................................................ 19 2.3.1 Political authority ....................................................................................................................... 19 2.3.2 Governance structure: Internal and external organizational set up ......................................... 20 2.4 Key findings ....................................................................................................................................... 20 Section 3: Functional Mandates and Responsibilities ........................................................................ 24 3.1 Legal framework for public goods provision ..................................................................................... 24 3.2 Role of city corporations and its relationship with other government agencies ............................. 26 3.2.1 Pricing power for services .......................................................................................................... 26 iii Institutional Enabling Environment Report Sylhet, Bangladesh 3.3 Geographical fragmentation and land use ....................................................................................... 27 3.4 Norms for fresh capital investment and maintenance of assets ...................................................... 27 3.5 Key findings ....................................................................................................................................... 29 Section 4: Municipalisation Criteria .................................................................................................. 30 4.1 Legal framework for municipalisation .............................................................................................. 30 4.1.1 Policies, acts, rules and regulations for city corporation boundaries ........................................ 30 4.1.2 Authority of city corporations to extend boundaries ................................................................ 31 4.2 Criteria for classifying urban authorities as city corporations and pourashavas .............................. 31 4.2.1 Criteria to assess the classification of city corporations and municipalities/pourashavas ....... 31 4.2.2 Change in ward boundaries ....................................................................................................... 32 4.3 Key findings ....................................................................................................................................... 33 Section 5: Fiscal System .................................................................................................................... 34 5.1. Framework and composition of existing revenues and capital grants of city corporations ............ 34 5.2 Trend and composition of annual income generation ..................................................................... 35 5.3 Own Source Revenue in SCC ............................................................................................................. 38 5.4 Process of fiscal transfers to city corporations ................................................................................. 40 5.5 Borrowing framework and procedure for city corporations ............................................................ 42 5.6 Key findings ....................................................................................................................................... 45 Section 6: Public Space ..................................................................................................................... 47 6.1 Agencies to manage public land and social space in cities ............................................................... 47 6.2 Legal framework for the management of land and public space ..................................................... 49 6.2.1 Legal framework for land classification, conversions and valuations ........................................ 49 6.2.2 Legal framework for public space access and usage ................................................................. 50 6.3 Management of public land and open spaces .................................................................................. 52 6.3 Key findings ....................................................................................................................................... 54 iv Institutional Enabling Environment Report Sylhet, Bangladesh Section 7: Findings and Conclusions .................................................................................................. 56 7.1 Political and governance framework ................................................................................................ 56 7.2 Functional mandates and responsibilities ........................................................................................ 57 7.3 Municipalisation criteria ................................................................................................................... 57 7.4 Fiscal system ..................................................................................................................................... 57 7.5 Public space ....................................................................................................................................... 58 7.6 Conclusions ....................................................................................................................................... 59 References ....................................................................................................................................... 60 Annex .............................................................................................................................................. 64 v Institutional Enabling Environment Report Sylhet, Bangladesh List of Boxes Box