Step Together for Inclusive Democracy
Building inclusive democracy through civic participation
Bangladesh continues to face both opportunities and challenges in strengthening democratic participation, civic engagement, and inclusive governance. While democratic institutions provide important avenues for public participation, rural diverse youth and other marginalised communities continue to experience significant barriers to accessing information, participating in civic life, and engaging in public decision-making processes.
Many young people have never received practical civic education or developed the confidence to engage with democratic institutions. Limited awareness of constitutional rights, weak understanding of democratic processes, misinformation, social discrimination, and concerns about personal safety continue to discourage meaningful civic and political participation. As a result, communities that are often most affected by public policies remain among the least represented in democratic spaces.
Step Together for Inclusive Democracy has been developed to help address these challenges by strengthening civic knowledge, democratic participation, community leadership, and institutional engagement among rural diverse youth and marginalised communities.
The project combines civic education, voter preparedness, community advocacy, digital storytelling, institutional dialogue, evidence generation, and collective action. While the upcoming national election provides an important opportunity to encourage informed and peaceful civic participation, the project’s vision extends far beyond a single electoral process. It seeks to build long-term democratic engagement by equipping communities with the knowledge, confidence, networks, and practical tools needed to participate in elections, local governance, public consultations, policy dialogue, and other democratic processes throughout the year.
The project will also strengthen collaboration among community-based organisations, promote constructive engagement with democratic institutions, and generate practical knowledge on pathways for greater political participation at the local level. Through these efforts, rural diverse youth will be better positioned to engage safely, confidently, and meaningfully in public life while contributing to more inclusive and accountable democratic governance.
Ultimately, Step Together for Inclusive Democracy seeks to ensure that marginalised communities are recognised not only as beneficiaries of development programmes, but also as informed citizens, rights-holders, community leaders, and active contributors to Bangladesh’s democratic future.
What the project sets out to do
Prepare voters. Equip rural marginalised youth and diverse voters with the civic knowledge and practical preparation to exercise their constitutional right to vote safely and confidently.
Build collective voice. Bring gender-diverse communities into public view as voters and political stakeholders, and unite community organisations behind a shared national agenda for democratic participation.
Open institutional pathways. Establish direct dialogue with election and human rights institutions, and build lasting mechanisms that keep the door to political participation open well beyond a single election.
Who the project reaches
Direct beneficiary figures for the project period, alongside community members supported through the election safety mechanism.
How the work happens on the ground
Civic & Voter Education Training
Rural marginalised youth learn what their constitutional right to vote means in practice: why this election matters after years of authoritarian rule, how to weigh parties and candidates through a human rights lens, and how an informed vote becomes an act of self-protection.
Voter Preparedness for Diverse Communities
For many diverse voters, the obstacle is not the will to vote but the paperwork and the polling station itself. Hands-on preparation helps participants get their voter records in order, plan for polling-day safety, and know how to raise a complaint with the authorities when things go wrong.
Our Vote, Our Future — Public Video Campaign
Community members speak, in their own words, about what they expect from political parties, candidates, and the incoming government — reframing how the public sees them: not as objects of charity or hostility, but as constituents with demands.
A Shared National Action Plan
Community-led organisations come together to move from scattered, reactive efforts to a common strategy — a shared plan on democracy, political participation, and support for emerging community leaders.
National Advocacy Dialogue
Community political leaders sit across the table from election and human rights institutions, observers, lawyers, and journalists — sharing first-hand experience of contesting elections and formally submitting a memorandum of demands.
Election Safety Helpline
Through the peak election period, a dedicated helpline gives community members somewhere to turn — receiving and documenting threats, harassment, and obstruction, and providing support and referrals when it matters most.
Local Governance Entry Points
An expert-led study identifies where community participation in local governance can realistically begin — published and shared as a roadmap that outlasts the project itself.
The change we expect to see
- ✓Rural marginalised and diverse youth voters go to the polls better informed, better prepared, and safer.
- ✓Thirty campaign videos place community voices — and their expectations of the new government — on the public record.
- ✓Thirty community-led organisations work from one shared national action plan rather than thirty separate ones.
- ✓Formal channels of dialogue open between community leaders and the institutions that oversee elections, anchored by a written memorandum of demands.
- ✓Election-related threats and abuses are documented through the safety helpline, building an evidence base for future advocacy and protection.
- ✓A published mapping report charts realistic entry points into local governance — a resource whose usefulness extends well beyond one election cycle.
A democracy that includes its most marginalised citizens as voters, rights-holders, and future leaders is more representative — and more resilient.