Reasons to attend the policy analysis course and my two cents for Development

Professionals.
Nazmun Naher (she/her)
Country Coordinator, Bangladesh Water Partnership
nnazmun.mita@gmail.com
I am a person who is trained in civil engineering, and practice technical knowledge in
academic and professional sector. The main perk to start this course is to learn about social
and political science. Therefore, when I saw the call for application, I applied without any
hesitation. However, there is a challenge for the non-government officials as the duration of
the course was 10 weeks. Not every supervisor would agree to spare her/his colleague for
such a long period. In this situation, being a development professional, I was always
encouraged to participate in such programs where government and non-government
cooperation can be enhanced viz a viz participation from non-government and private sector
will create an opportunity for the stakeholders from government sector to know about the
work culture and communication mechanisms of these sectors. In this regard, BIGM can
consider a specific time schedule targeting participants from non-government and private
sectors. However, my fellow colleagues from the non-government sector, you will have to
work hard, sometimes by adjusting your time to avail yourself on the job training to attend
such an excellent program. I can assure you that you will not regret it, but you will learn and
experience a lot of things by compromising a little comfort. If you want to see yourself as a
policy analyst, there should not be any second thought rather than attending this fully packed
training program and getting in touch with renowned professionals from diversified sectors.
From the very beginning of the course, I was excited and thrilled to know about political
science, social science, public administration and so on. I was always curious and used to
think about how the states were formed, why we do need policies, how policy formation
started and what’s the right thing to do. This thought process led me to watch lots of
YouTube tutorials like Michael Sandel from Harvard University, and to listen pod casts.
Enrolling for this course has added the value to reach my objective which is to know about
the policy analysis. As I mentioned earlier, I am a development professional, and my area of
specialization is Water Resources. One of my job responsibilities is to analyze the policies in
line of water, gender, climate change and to advocate with the Government of Bangladesh.
Though, going through big fat reports, research findings and listening to think tanks do not
work well to identify the core message for advocacy. The triangulation method to screen the
policy in terms of context, actors and process is the thumb rule that I discovered through my
thought process from the entire course. Now when I start to read any new policy, I start by
looking at the context, then verifying the sector actors, and lastly reviewing the suggested
process, before coming up with the solutions and recommendations.
Here, I would like to share my experience beyond border as well. I spent several years in
Canada for my higher study and professional purposes. I always used to think how a country
runs everything so smoothly and how a state ensures the rights and wellbeing of every
citizen.
The difference of governing policies between Bangladesh and Canada always provoked me to
compare the systems and means adopted to run these two countries. I have realized Canada
ensures inclusion, positive discrimination, globalization, and people diversity for its best
interest. Practicing of professionalism, following transparency in terms of sharing
information and maintaining proper communication channels are the key principles followed
by Canada. This approach can be a point of reference for Bangladesh as well. Instead of
keeping clauses only in the documents, it is high time and Bangladesh may avail the human
resources with multiple citizenship to adopt their competences and to inhibit brain drain.
Oh, one more thing I must admit before ending this write up; I met the most important person
of my life in this course. Yes, I am talking about my spouse. He proposed to me in classroom
# 203 in the presence of our wonderful friends. That was one of the memorable moments for
both of us. Apart from our friends, faculties from BIGM also wished us luck and showered
the love and blessings, which we will relish rest of our life. Hey, we didn’t only have great
personal achievement here, but also, we worked hard to bring our paper at the top list.