New Agenda
As societies evolve, new challenges and issues arise. Throughout its two decades plus existence, PPRC has been keenly attentive to bringing new priorities to national policy attention. Over the past decade through research and advocacy, PPRC has been a key player in scaling up national attention to three emerging priorities:
Urban Bangladesh
Through a series of studies supported by the World Bank and in partnership with the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, PPRC has been contributing to building a multi-dimensional urban data-base and discourse in Bangladesh. The Centre organized two international conferences in 2012 and 2016 on urban dynamics and urban poverty respectively and has been working to build a meso-level urban agenda in partnership with mayors of secondary cities.
Healthy Bangladesh
In 2015, PPRC with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the World Bank organized the first international conference on universal health coverage (UHC) in Bangladesh. PPRC’s interest in the health agenda arose from the twin realization that health is a poverty driver unless out-of-pocket health expenses are brought within rational levels and that health can also be a growth driver through a holistic agenda of healthcare and social determinants of health leading to a healthier population. In 2017, PPRC facilitated the establishment of a multi-profession civic platform Healthy Bangladesh in the presence of the Health Minister. PPRC has been promoting a grass-root discourse on the multi-dimensional health agenda and preparing an analytical framework on UHC progress indicators.
Road safety
Road fatalities has become a new and terrifying epidemic as Bangladesh plunges headlong into chaotic urbanization and road transportation eclipses other modes of transportation. With support from BRAC, the Centre undertook a holistic and comprehensive research study in 2013 to sharpen understanding of the key issues on road safety and where and how solutions are best pursued. In 2016, PPRC and BRAC fostered the coming into existence of a new civic platform – Safe Roads and Transport Alliance (SROTA) – to pursue national-level advocacy on the road safety agenda. The continuing lack of accountability and enforcement due to entrenched vested interests underscores the formidable nature of the challenge but the issue has now graduated to a critical national concern particularly after an unprecedented protest by school children.
Address:
Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC)
House 15, Road 12 (old 31), Dhanmondi R/A, Dhaka 1209
Phone: +880258155467
Email: info@pprc-bd.org