Grievance Redress System (GRS)

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Grievance Redress System (GRS)

A platform through which citizens can send formal complaints to the government to express their dissatisfaction with public service providers

Challenges

GRS aims to address the challenges of corruption, lack of accountability, and poor service delivery in Bangladesh. The country has been grappling with systemic corruption, particularly in sectors such as financial inclusion for vulnerable groups, education, healthcare, law enforcement, and judiciary. This has resulted in a lack of trust among citizens in government services and a reluctance to report grievances due to a lack of awareness and confidence. The Grievance Redress System (GRS), which was launched in 1986, has been poorly functioning, and inconsistently implemented across government offices.

Toward a Solution

The Grievance Redress System (GRS) recognizes the above-presented challenges as well as an opportunity to move Bangladesh towards a more accountable, transparent, and participatory approach in public service delivery, leading to successfully curbing corruption. The project aims to provide technical, implementation, and advisory support to the Government in institutionalizing GRS effectively as a monitoring and measurement tool in public service delivery to increase accountability.

The overall objectives of the project are:

To strengthen public institutions through the institutionalization of GRS for enhancing accountability in public service deliveries.
To strengthen institutions to enhance accountability in public service deliveries through people-friendly GRS.

To ensure that citizens can track their grievance application upon filing, a Grievance ID as a tracking number will be provided through email and SMS that can be used to track progress and updates. The system will facilitate grievance reporting by making the SOP available, and further raising awareness of citizens on existing platforms, such as the government online citizen service delivery platform MyGov, Facebook, the Government hotlines (333,106,109), Union Digital Centres (UDC) and through mobile text messaging. The proposed project will be implemented in 7 districts in the Khulna Division. There are 36 Upazilas under the 7 districts, which amounts to 440 government offices targeted for GRS technical implementation and citizen sensitization.

The GRS is a core component in the Government’s efforts for curbing corruption. The Cabinet Division of the Government of Bangladesh has outlined five pillars for improving governance which include GRS, National Integrity Strategy (NIS), Right to Information (RTI), Citizens Charter, and Service Process Simplification.

Activity 1: Improve the functionality of the existing GRS.
Activity 2: Capacity development, training, and sensitization of the government service providers to address grievances to increase GRS use in a number of government offices.
Activity 3: Increase citizen awareness and sensitization to using GRS as their right to information, accountability, and transparency from the Government.

The project is ongoing and currently we are working to upgrade the present GRS System. So far, the outcomes include:

Increased civic participation;
Increased grievance filing & redressals;
Multiple access points added to GRS;
Improved equality in public service delivery;
Strengthened redressal capacity of agencies; and
Enhanced SDG-aligned activities.

The project recognizes the United Nations and the Government’s aligned priorities towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and aims at contributing towards targets 16.6 and 16.7 under SDG 16.

To further leverage productive collaborations, UNDP will explore strategic partnerships with Facebook and Google for work on the social media front to implement GRS as a tool on social media and raise awareness. UNDP will also explore opportunities with the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission and Mobile Network Operators. GRS is one of the important pillars of Good Governance, which is supervised by the Cabinet Division of the Government of Bangladesh. The GRS Cell, under the Reforms and Coordination wing of the Cabinet Division, implements, operates, and monitors the system. This initiative has the potential to be replicated in other countries facing similar contextual challenges.

A lesson learned so far from the implementation of the project is that to ensure buy-in and effective implementation of the project, all government offices in the country need to be integrated with the GRS platform.

CONTACT INFORMATION
AHM Mahfuzur Rahman, Deputy Secretary and G2B Digitization Expert, Aspire to Innovate (a2i) Programme

SDG
16 - Peace and Justice Strong Institutions

SUPPORTED BY
Cabinet Division, Government of Bangladesh

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