EquityBD has been established during August 2007, since then there are several discussions in convening committee on its governance and wider constituency building based on past experiences. Taking the vision and mission in view, members are envisaged for “building a civil/people society movement which should be credible and sustainable.”

EquityBD believes that there should be governance basically to get guidance on the basis of experiences and commitment to the vision, mission and core values; make a check and balance in the organization so that there will not be only influences of few / limited people and it should also to get greater support in respect of funding and mobilization.

EquityBD also believes that, it should have a wider constituency in countrywide and also in abroad, with varieties of categories so that as much as possible committed people will be accommodated, it is needed to influence as much as possible in effective manner in view of its vision and mission.

Along with civil society we are also using the terminology of “people society”, because of some reasons. Widely in whole world except of political parties there are non partisan citizen movement has developed which is being named as civil society. But in our part it has image as an activism of white color middle class educated people, mostly driven by donors, it is  because of the limited interaction of this “civil society” with vast majority of rural and mass populations, who are mostly illiterate, deprived and in most cases they lives in outreach, but they are also citizen, they must have voice and to be active to make a poverty and exploitation free society. So there should be an effort to make balance with this civil society with (i) developing activist who will be organizing groups of people in view of different profession / economic classes struggling against exploitation and (ii) there should also be inclusion of individual committed activists who has strong credibility and influences among peoples and locality.  

So, equitybd is not solely looking of NGO based and donor driven civil society only, it will be a civil society comprise of committed and credible NGOs, along with activist who are organizing peoples especially marginalized peoples in view of specific profession / economic classes and struggling against exploitations and also including individuals who are committed, with strong credibility and has influences toward policy makers and masses.

 The group has reviewed their past experiences taking the line of envisaging for credible and sustainable civil society / people society building, the group do like to take following policies in implementation in respect of framing an institutional arrangement.

• There must be criteria, clarity and careful selection of all level of members with proven track record. So that there will be inclusion of individual who are ideologically committed, integrative to the management, especially with the people who want to sacrifice and contribute so that the group and activism will gradually be able to sustained. There should not be any membership especially in leadership level who is also member of a group who has similar vision, mission and values, as to avoid duplication of inputs.

• The group might not believe in standardized activism in any level, even in district level. So the group strongly believes that especially in local / district level, if any activism it should be with own initiatives of the members of  district level  with their own creativity. The group intends only to provide support in respect of alternative information, sensitization, linkage and capacity building.

• There must be an effort of balancing in present composition of civil society, which mostly dominated by NGO personalities and NGO initiatives. But there are a lot of individuals and leaders of informal organization / groups, who want to raise their voices. So the group believes that there must be a balance, in this regard a proportion could be developed that there should not be more than 50 % of NGO leadership, there should be also minimum 30 % of women membership, there should also be membership of activist who organize marginalized professional / class, individual activist could also be a member, there should also be inclusion of journalist and other professional groups too.

• Secretariat of the group should be small in size and in expenditure too so that there will be little problem to rise fund whatever it is from country or from abroad. In fact it should be based around Secretary General others are supporting him. There are scarce to get committed staff or a staff with right philosophy that the group wants to promote. Experiences shows that, maintaining management discipline for productivity is worthless rather costly if it is toward un committed staffs who is working simply for salary and at the end it became a input to his/her mere career building. EquityBD and his Secretary General should not loose their valuable time and effort in this regard.

• Horizontal or flat manner of communication is a fundamental to promote understanding and initiatives. To make the network active, always the communication have to alive or all the time there are some communication and sharing.  It is observed that, hierarchical and inflexible nature of management / institutional framework hinders such a communication. So, although there will be a structure for management of the network but in respect of communication, it should be flat and horizontal, all possible technological aspects should be utilized in this regard

Taking above principles in mind there are following level of committees to take different types of decision.

Decision should be taken in the process of consensus building, if there are differences then there should be a process of voting, while decision will be taken with simple majority.

Simple minutes which should only contain the decisions of the meeting, should be drafted by Secretary General, which should be confirmed in next meeting. Minutes should be signed by both by the Chairperson and the Secretary General.

The process might be limited implication in the meeting in operation or in secretariat level.

Apart from these committee structure there would be an Advisory Committee with the prominent person who has commitment on EquityBD vision and mission. Membership of the advisory committee should be picked to develop strategic and international linkages and to get advice on campaign planning. The Executive Committee should sit with the Advisory Committee at least once in a year.

First committee of the EquityBD will be treated as Convening Committee, within first maximum of 15 months the committee will convene the first Annual General Council, where the Executive Committee will be formed.

Executive Committee should be formed for maximum 3/5 years, after 3/5 years at least 50 % of the EC membership should be changed, it means after six years there will be complete new members in the EC, except the position of Secretary General.

As the group envisaging for larger campaign constituency building, if it is in 64 district, where number is not less then 300, then also looking for separate student and other professional groups, then it is larger a group, which might hinder the easy decision for mobilization and policy making. So taking this in view, there might be a intermediate forum could be developed, in making a representational focal point from each district and might also be from  each of the student / professional groups. Taking them in board there might be formation of a Campaign Council; this campaign council should meet on six monthly basis. But such a focal point or district coordinator should be elected / selected after recruitment of campaign members.

So far the dominant view of the CC is to implement the EquityBD programs as a component of COAST through SG with the guidance from Convener who is also Executive Director of COAST.

The members should have time for concrete understanding, confidence and agreement on what will be best approach. Till then the CC has given authority to COAST to raise and manage fund. It is already agreed in COAST Board of Trustee (BoT) meeting dated ….., COAST will fund and support the EquityBD until it is able to establish secretariat and it will take accountability responsibility for any external donors too.

Meantime COAST is hosting office of the SG, and channeling all funding and other support through SG with monitoring and audit support to maintain different statutory standards (especially in respect of accounting, monitoring and auditing). It should be noted that COAST Executive Director who is also the Convener of the group is reportable to the COAST BoT. There will be separate audit report for EquityBD which is also integral part of the COAST global audit report

NGO executives who will be the member of the group in any capacity have to sign following charters of principles in respect of organizational development. The group will develop further indicators, standards, assessment and certification process in this regard so that the organization will have fair, credible and progressive governance in local level. Upon membership of the group the members have to submit a two year self prepared a plan in this regard which will also be reviewed in General Council.

• My humble submission to accountability

As an executive I will submit my accountability and reporting to a board which is free from conflict of interest, committed and credibility to the locality, the board process will be transparent and rule based.

Our organizations will have specific vision, mission, and value orientation with long term planning. We will make it open and orient all staff and beneficiary members for achievements of those, with periodical review and updating.

Our accountability is not only to the partners, board and staff, it is also toward the beneficiary members, for whom the organization is exist for. As government is the biggest representation of the people, we are also accountability to them, where the local government is our important stakeholders.

Our organizational management is transparent and rule based, especially in respect of human resource and financial management. In respect of expenditure we maintain some ethics respecting the value that the money we received and earned is basically for poor.

We believe that, the person who implement a decision, he has the right to participate in the decision making process in prior. So, we prepare and implement a regular meeting system in the organization for sharing the learning, review the implementation and prepare planning in such a way that, all level of staff will have regular space of participation.

We establish and encourage norms of free flow and cross level of communication as a matter of betterment of developing human potentiality and organizational management. But our decision goes with line management. We maintain complain system in all level open for all and we address those with appropriate respect and dignity to the complainers.

Although there are difference of salary and responsibility of different professionals in our organization, but in respect of giving and receiving honour, we are all equal. As because all we believe that, we are striving for society of equity and justice.

                                                                                
We do and establish system for monitoring, review, learning and initiate changes in those principles in our governance and organizational development to strive excellence, as we believe this is a matter of dynamics.

11. Membership duration and basis and process of renewal.

We believe that one member might not be able to keep commitment in same level in all the time. Each of the membership is for two years duration only. Renewal of the membership is based on following.

We will except two commitment and compliance planning / action commitment from each of the Campaign Members while he is inducted, there are following plan they have to submit, (i) operationalization of charter of principles in respect of organizational development, and (ii) expanding education on human rights, democracy and pro poor economy.

They have to pay the annual subscription too.

Members will be invited in orientation session prior to prepare such a planning; this will be called as Compliance Planning / Action Commitment

There will be review of this plan implementation in member level and in Moderator council level too. Moderator Council (MC) will also review others aspects (e.g., performance or integration toward vision, mission and values of the EquityBD). Final decision on membership renewal comes from the MC.

If MC has reasons not to provide renewal, prior to take final decision there will be participatory hearing with the members.