Local government The local government in Bangladesh consists of three levels: Union Parisad, Upazila Parisad, and the District Council. These institutions have the power to prevent land grabbing and ensure the security of the indigenous communities. It will be productive to engage all of these levels to prevent the violation of the IP customary land rights and to sensitize them on indigenous peoples’ land ownership system and motivate them to engage the indigenous community in development planning and implementation. Donor agencies and international institutions There are several bilateral and multilateral development agencies playing an important role in development programs and projects through grants and loans. For this, the Local Consultative Group (LCG) was formed to ensure dialogue and coordination between the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) and Development Partners (DPs) on development issues. Some 21 bilateral and multilateral development agencies are members of the CHT LCG working groups. Many of these members, such as Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), European Union (EU), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), ILO, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Food Programme (WFP), also have their own policies for indigenous peoples to guide the context of development cooperation involving IPs to enhance their participation in the process of development. However, the plain land indigenous peoples are not getting any attention from the development partners. There is no formal mechanism like LCG that deals specifically with their issues. But generally, a number of development partners are raising the issue of the IPs’ rights and development in their dialogues and interfacing with the Government of Bangladesh. Indeed, many development agencies are playing a more positive role in promoting indigenous peoples’ rights in Bangladesh. ILO in Bangladesh, for example, is working to build the capacity to promote ILO policy on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples – IRO 169. The main objectives of the program are to advocate for the Government of Bangladesh to ratify the ILO Convention No. 169 and to sensitize the relevant stakeholders the IP issues to including the promotion and protection of their customary land rights. On the other hand, UNDP has a special project for the CHT and many bilateral development partners – such as European Union, CIDA, Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), Norwegian Agency for International Development (NORAD), Japan International Agency (JICA), and Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) – are supporting the promotion of development and confidence building in CHT. The policy advocacy work towards the Government of Bangladesh covers issues such as the implementation of the CHT Accord and building capacities of the Land Dispute Resolution Commission and the Internally Displaced Persons & Refugee (IDP & R) Task Force to build the peace. There are also some development programs that are supported by bilateral agencies for both the plain land and the CHT to promote human rights in these areas. Lok Niti 19