This was revealed by the Bangladesh Governance Report' 2007, published yesterday by the non-governmental research body Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) with the assistance of NGO apex body Manusher Jonno.

The report was prepared on the basis of national governance survey 2006.

Out of 4530 persons participated in the survey conducted for preparing the report the armed forces were termed most trusted institutions by 81 per cent respondents. While 73 per cent respondent termed RAB as most trusted institutions.

Sixty four villages 30 secondary towns 10 districts and two metropolitan centres came under the survey.

The Bangladesh Governance Report' 2007 also presented a nine point strategic agenda before the government for ensuring good governance in the country.

The agenda are breaking the culture of impunity, fostering quality institutions, improving quality of political process, promoting champions or drivers, a local government approach to decentralisation, focus on micro- governance window, re-kindling public ethics, informal flow and annual outcome monitoring.

The report titled 'unbundling governance' was formally launched yesterday through a ceremony at the auditorium of local government and rural development (LGRD) at Sher-Bangla Nagar.

Former adviser to the caretaker government Akbar Ali Khan, Prof Rehman Sobhan, country director of Asian Development Bank (ADB) Hua Du, Dr. Mushtaq Khan, executive director of Manusher Jonno Shaheen Anam, Afsan Chowdhury, Asif Nazrul and Quzi Mesbahuddin Ahmed took part in the discussion.

Chairman of PPRC and editor of the report Hossain Zillur Rahman presented the highlights of the important findings in the report.

Participating in the discussion Akbar Ali Khan observed that the country is in a paradox that the governance index went down but the economic indicators were going up. He pointed out that the World Bank and donor agencies are always on the process of governance instead of benefit of the governance.

He said to reach the benefit of good governance to the common people the system of punishing criminals and rewarding achievers should be introduced.

He pointed out that the Bangladesh government do not have the capability to impose too many reforms programme at a time.

Hua Du said the ADB would consider the suggestion made by the report while taking projects for good governance.

There is a gap between policy makers and the need of the people. The governance report would help in bridging the gap, said Shaheen Anam.

The survey disclosed that only five point five per cent expressed strong optimism about the future of the country.

On the other hand, eighty one per cent respondents were worried over price hike of essentials and 43 per cent were worried about poverty and 36 per cent on the question of corruption and 34 per cent for unemployment.

Dr. Mushtaq Khan pointed out that not a single country in the world introduced good governance first then achieved development. The development achieved due to dynamic action on some 'critical things' which is different from one country to another.

The most important task of the leadership of a country is to find out the 'critical things' through cross country study which would bring development for that particular country, he observed.