Promote people’s participation in governance, democratic decentralization, accountability of public services, economic governance, human rights, access to justice, and absolute tolerance of diverse opinions in politics.

WAVE aims to strengthen governance and empower citizens through democratic decentralization, responsive public services, and absolute tolerance of diverse opinions. We are dedicated to promoting good governance, protecting human rights, and ensuring justice to drive development and improve service delivery by involving people in decision-making. We place equal value on trustworthy public institutions and effective government structures for the right to food and nutrition, health, quality education, agriculture services, social protection, local justice, women’s rights, gender equality, and more. To make the local government system and its various services more accessible to the common people, we launched several public engagement programs and campaigns. Also, focus is given to capacity building and empowering marginalized groups who are most likely to suffer from discrimination or are deprived of rights, entitlement, and justice, as well as social security-oriented services for their effective participation in the development process. WAVE believes accountability is a consequence of the complied ‘social compact’ between citizens and their delegated representatives and agents in a democracy. Hence, we encourage the adoption of social accountability mechanisms, which are bottom-up, inclusive, and demand-driven and are powerful tools for ensuring that the needs and concerns of all citizens are taken into account. We strive for consistent and open policy frameworks and laws that are fair, inclusive, and gender-sensitive. We consider the people’s aspiration to review, reform, and enact legislation or legal frameworks while advocating and negotiating change.  

The campaign aims to mobilize the opinion of mass people and concerned stakeholders to support a national decentralization policy and influence the state to endorse the policy. WAVE organized the ‘Democratic Decentralization National Convention’ in 2010, demanding the execution of democratic decentralization in light of our constitution and proposed a draft Democratic Decentralization Policy. As a continual effort, WAVE carries out multifaceted activities through its network to review and finalize the proposed Decentralization Policy. Under the campaign, the organization coordinates networks and alliances, involves LG representatives, policymakers, political leaders, civil society members, media personnel, youth, and other stakeholders, and conducts continuous lobbying with the concerned Parliamentary Standing Committee and policymakers.

The project’s overall objective is to increase access to justice for people in rural areas of Bangladesh, especially women, ethnic minorities, and disadvantaged groups. The project aims to build the capacities of local justice actors to meet people’s justice needs and offer appropriate legal services in the form of functioning village courts. Additionally, it empowers people living in rural areas, especially women, the poor, and other disadvantaged groups, enabling them to access Village Courts to resolve minor disputes. The direct beneficiaries of the project include justice complainants, Union Parishad representatives, Assistant Account cum Computer Operators (AACOs), UP secretaries, and village police. WAVE Foundation is implementing this project as a partner organization in 154 Upazilas, 1495 Unions, and 25 Districts under Barishal, Khulna, and Dhaka Divisions. The project is being implemented under the Local Government Division with the financial and technical assistance of the European Union, UNDP Bangladesh, and the Government of Bangladesh.  

Under the Civic Engagement Fund (CEF) initiative, WAVE Foundation is awarded for Gender Equality Transforms Climate Action (GETCA) project to empower women in climate action by developing leadership skills, implementing gender-responsive approaches, and developing partnerships and networking for effective knowledge-sharing and scalable solutions. The overall goal of the project is to increase voice, representation, recognition, and participation of civil society in decision-making, influencing, holding government to account, and seeking redress for violations. To implement the project, WAVE leads a consortium comprising Barendrabhumi Samaj Unnayan Sangstha (BSDO), DASCOH Foundation, JAGO NARI and Nazrul Smriti Sangsad-NSS across Rajshahi and Barishal divisions in Bangladesh. The consortium incorporates gender-responsive strategies into climate policies, aiming to enhance women’s leadership and community resilience. Key outputs include training of selected women leaders in climate adaptation strategies and climate justice interventions, establishment of community-based climate resilience committees in working areas, and development of gender-sensitive climate policy recommendations. Moreover, project will engage local and national civil society members and government and non-government actors through dissemination of knowledge generated throughout the project period. The project has been implemented in 5 districts (Rajshahi, Naogaon, Barishal, Patuakhali and Barguna), 15 Upazilas and 90 Unions. Current development partners (donors) of the CEF include the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and Global Affairs Canada (GAC). The Fund Management Agency (FMA) for the CEF is GFA Consulting Group, together with Services and Solutions International Ltd. (SSIL) and SEBA Limited. 

The goal of the project is to strengthen climate governance by enhancing civil society participation in climate action process and raising community voices at grass roots. The project aims to increase monitoring capacity of Civil Society Organization, improve knowledge on climate policies, and implementation process, transparency & accountability by increasing people participation in decision making and planning process, increase access of vulnerable community to govt. & non govt. support services of climate scheme, making govt. relevant services more responsive and strengthening coordination among the stakeholders. The key interventions focus capacity building for CSO and journalist group for advocacy and lobby at local and national level with relevant department, ministry and local govt. Institute as well as conduct social audit by Civic Forum in order to find out the gap and malpractice, public hearing engaging Civic Forum and relevant GOB stakeholders on Climate Action, orientation on national and international climate policy for CF and journalist groups better stakeholders coordination. WAVE Foundation has been implementing the project from October, 2024 in 4 sub districts of coastal area in Patuakhali and  Borguna. It is a multi-country project under Green Accountability Platform (GAP) supported by World Resources Institute.  

The major objective of the Right to Food & Nutrition Campaign is to share the experiences of civil society’s movements, strengthen contact with all concerned organizations, institutions, partners & networks, and ensure the right to food and nutrition for all the country’s people. It aims to promote investment in agriculture and food systems by accelerating coherent and transparent policies, laws, and regulations based on equitable, inclusive, and gender-sensitive governance structures in the context of Bangladesh. Right to Food Bangladesh Network is conducting this campaign and undertaking multifaceted activities to accelerate the Legal Framework on `Right to Food’ and other relevant issues by engaging different entities with their perspectives and strategies while the WAVE Foundation is playing a significant role in coordination.