Local Level Collaborative Governance for Pandemic Responses: Unpacking A Case in Bangladesh

Responsive governance during the COVID-19 pandemic became a severe challenge for countries worldwide. With a relatively poor healthcare structure, Bangladesh performed moderately well in managing the first wave of the pandemic (March – December 2020). With substantive policy and decision-making support from the Centre, local governments collaborated with various relevant actors to enhance their pandemic-related services. In this background, this research used an integrative framework to study a case of local-level collaborative governance – the Saturia Model. Based on the authors' experience, reflections and review, this analysis explores various socio-economic and environmental factors behind the effectiveness of this collaboration in containment policies and providing support services to vulnerable groups. Findings indicate that coordination between state and non-state actors, resource mobilization, access and communication, community engagement and the adaptative capacity of the government are vital for making such collaborations work in a crisis. The lessons are valuable for prospective understanding and policy interventions. Local Level Collaborative Pandemic 218 Local Level Collaborative Governance for Pandemic Responses: Unpacking A Case in Bangladesh 220 Local Level Collaborative Governance for Pandemic Responses: Unpacking A Case in Bangladesh Local Level Collaborative Governance for Pandemic Responses: Unpacking A Case in Bangladesh

His research and writing interests include international development, public policy and governance, climate change and agriculture, gender, and child labour. He is also an internationally acclaimed photographic artist whose works have been widely exhibited and recognized.

Introduction
Within several weeks of its first case being identified in China, the coronavirus disease ( C OV I D -1 9 ) s p re a d t o 2 0 countries worldwide (Khanna et al., 2020). On 30 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized the outbreak as a public health emergency (WHO, 2020). Following the exponential growth of global cases and deaths, the organization declared it a global pandemic on 11 March 2020 (Cucinotta & Vanelli, 2020). Governments across the world realized the severity of the consequences the pandemic could cause to everyday life.
Implementing containment measures and enhancing effective responses became a huge challenge for most low-and middle-income countries. In global pandemic situations, neither the government nor the public sector can tackle the monumental challenge alone (Grizzle et al., 2020;Mangai et al., 2022;Megawati et al., 2020). Previous evidence indicates that effective measures in such emergency pandemic situations require collaboration between state agencies and non-state actors (Coltart et al., 2017;Lai, 2012;Parker et al., 2020;Schwartz & Yen, 2017). These actors include government and non-government health service providers, local government bodies, law enforcement agencies, businesses and community leaders. In the COVID-19 pandemic, the containment measures included strict lockdown and social distancing practices which disrupted the lives and livelihoods of all people in a country. Providing essential services (e.g., food, transport, care) to marginalized and vulnerable groups and those in need were crucial. Citizen engagement during pandemic times is crucial for disseminating credible information to minimize panic, fear, and anxiety and facilitate informed decision-making (Graffigna et al., 2020;Maharani & Andhika, 2021).
In any emergency crisis, supplying social security to all citizens and ensuring government and societal capacity to perform under stress requires a whole-of-society approach (Parker et al., 2020). In this approach, while the government still plays the central role, its role surpasses the traditional bureaucratic boundaries to create a synergy in providing public services (Gao & Yu, 2020). In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, studies reveal that such collaborative efforts have been reasonably effective in extending basic human needs in many national and urban governance contexts (e.g., Huang, 2020;Li et al., 2022). However, while all governments have practised such collaborative approaches, the cases of local-level collaborative governance in developing countries have mostly remained underexplored. This study examines a case of local-level collaborative governance during Bangladesh's first wave of COVID-19.
Among the larger countries (which have over 10,000 square kilometres of land area), Bangladesh is the most densely populated country in the world, with about 1252 people living per square kilometre (Ritchie, 2019;Tama et al., 2018a). In 2019, this South Asian nation had approximately 20.5% of its population (164 million) living below the national poverty line (ADB, 2021). The coronavirus pandemic posed an unprecedented challenge to the country's governance when the first wave hit, with the first cases reported on 8 March 2020 .
Then a strict nationwide lockdown imposed by the government adversely affected the livelihoods and income of many poor and low-income individuals (Bodrud-Doza et al., 2020;Hoque, 2020Hoque, , 2021bIslam & Hoque, 2022 During the pandemic, the Upazila Administration has played the central role of coordinating all actors and stakeholders to create more comprehensive collaboration for achieving common goals. The first wave lasted till December 2020. As of 31 December (2020), 513,510 cases and 7,559 human deaths were reported (Worldometer, 2022). Analyses estimate that the real numbers could be much higher (Tabassum et al., 2020).
However, these numbers were still significantly lower than many had anticipated. In this context, this study unpacks a collaborative governance case at an Upazila named Saturia to shed light on its effectiveness in tackling the challenges posed by the pandemic.
The country is divided into eight Divisions, 64 Districts, and 492 Upazilas as administrative units (Alam, 2020 (Khaton et al., 2018).   (GoB, 2022a;Islam & Islam, 2012;Shamim et al., 2020). The basic function of these bodies is to prepare and implement development programmes and deliver a selection of public services. Local governance system in urban city areas differs from those in non-urban areas.
The urban local government system consists of Paurashava (municipality) and City Corporations, whereas the structure in the non-urban areas consists of hierarchical tiers of Union Parishad, Upazila Parishad and Zila (District) Parishad (Alam et al., 2022;Panday, 2011;Tama et al., 2021). Every Union has nine Wards (the lowest  While responding to a sudden and quirky public health crisis, the government cannot be the sole provider but must work with multiple stakeholders (Gao & Yu, 2020). In such health emergencies (e.g., a viral disease that can affect and infect the whole population of a community in a short period), the local governments and administration need to act within and beyond jurisdiction to interact with parallel organizations, upper and lower level of governance institutions and international agencies to generate a multilevel response (Gao & Yu, 2020). At the district levels, as Dutta and Fischer (2021)  Second, the unique demographic characteristics of Saturia make it an interesting case to explore.
The case offers valuable insights and learning for academics, practitioners, and decision-makers.

Research Questions
Exploring the case of UA in Saturia allowed the authors of this study to understand how such collaborative work functions to create positive impacts in fighting a pandemic in a local governance context. As mentioned above (also highlighted in the following research gap section), to the best of the authors' knowledge, very few studies have focused on such locallevel collaborative governance cases to reveal its effectiveness in managing a global pandemic or identifying the impediments and challenges in doing so. By studying the case of Saturia, this study aims to produce knowledge, insights, and lessons valuable not only to lay out a template for fighting future pandemics but also to create guiding references for new administrative government officials aspiring to use such collaborative frameworks in achieving more effective responses in similar emergencies. Therefore, this research set out to address two questions -(i) how did UA of Saturia apply collaborative governance in tackling the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic?
(ii) what were UA's impediments and challenges during this application?

Response
The concept of governance is defined and understood in a variety of ways. Kaufmann et al.

Integrative Framework for Collaborative
Governance Bryson et al. (2006) argue that crosssectional collaboration for effective governance may be necessary and desirable, but making it happen is complex and dependent on various favourable factors and conditions. In recent years, several frameworks have been developed to study, understand, and look at collaborative governance practices. Some mentionable frameworks are -the collaborative planning model (Bentrup, 2001), collaborative model of public management (Agranoff & McGuire, 2001), cross-sector collaboration framework (Bryson et al., 2006), collaborative governance model (Ansell & Gash, 2007), integrative model for collaborative governance (Emerson et al., 2012), and performance matrix of collaborative governance (Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015). However, while studying a specific set of collaborative This system context influences the dynamics and actions of collaboration over time and helps to commence and set the direction for CGR.

System Context and Drivers:
According to Emerson et al. (2012), the structural forces from the system context (e.g. resource conditions, socio-economic and political factors, network connectedness, level of conflict/trust) create opportunities or challenges for CGR. While collaborating, the regime can affect these forces.
They identify four essential drivers to unfold a collaboration -leadership, consequential incentives, interdependence, and uncertainty.
The leader must commit to collaborating to solve the problem, determine not to impose decisions, and demonstrate impartiality regarding the preferences and choices of the participants (Bryson et al., 2006). Consequential incentives are internal or external problems and prospects that incentivize collaborative efforts. Interdependence refers to when an actor or organization cannot accomplish something by themselves and serves as a condition for collaboration (Thomson & Perry, 2006). Finally, uncertainty is the main issue, the solution of which requires actors to collaborate to reduce and share the risks. mutual trust, understanding, internal legitimacy, and commitment" (Emerson et al., 2012, p. 13).
The capacity of joint action is a newly generated capacity that could not be achieved separately, and it sustains the shared purpose among the collaborating entities. to Emerson et al. (2012), these impacts include creating new social value or technical innovation and can be physical, social, economic, environmental, and political. They may have shortor longer-term impacts and can be specific or discrete. Adaptation is the capacity to transform when needed. Such adaptive capacity is critical to making any collaboration successful. Emerson et al. (2012) feature their framework in ten propositions (see Table 1), highlighting various conditions of its effectiveness.

Situating the Study in the Existing Literature
Many argue that the engagement of nonstate actors in governance is nothing new (Bryson et al., 2006;Donahue & Zeckhauser, 2011).
However, the scholarly recognition and theoretical development of collaboration for effective governance started in the 1990s (Ansell & Gash, 2007). The academic scholarship on collaborative governance mainly focuses on national-level governance in response to emergencies, including natural disasters (e.g., Jayasinghe et al., 2020), environmental crises (e.g., Kallis et al., 2009), conservation needs (e.g., Subatin & Pramusinto, 2019) and public health predicaments (e.g., Bivona & Noto, 2020). Recently, two pandemics  One or more drivers of leadership, consequential incentives, interdependence, and/or uncertainty, are prerequisites for the CGR to start.

Two
The effectiveness of the principled engagement largely depends on the interactive process of discovery, definition, deliberation, and determination.

Three
Iterative and quality interactions will help promote mutual understanding, trust, and shared commitment resulting in positive shared motivation.

Four
Shared motivation helps to enhance principled engagement and vice versa in a "virtuous cycle".

Five
Principled engagement and shared motivation will accelerate the advancement of institutional arrangements, leadership, knowledge, and resources, eventually generating and sustaining capacity for joint action.

Six
The required levels for the four components of capacity for joint action are determined by the purpose, shared action, and desired outcomes.

Seven
The quality and magnitude of collaborative dynamics rely on the dynamic and self-reinforcing interactions among principled engagement, shared motivation, and the capacity for joint action.

Eight
Collaborative actions are more likely to be executed if, (i) a shared theory of action is recognized clearly among the collaboration partners, and (ii) the collaborative dynamics function to make the needed capacity for joint action.

Nine
The impacts derived from collaborative action are expected to be closer to the desired outcomes with fewer unintended adverse consequences.

Ten
CGRs will be more sustainable when they adapt to the type and level of impacts resulting from their joint actions.
Source : Emerson et. al. (2012) frameworks to examine the effectiveness of many

This investigation used a mixed qualitative
approach to conduct this case study and address its questions. A qualitative approach allows researchers to explore and analyze processes,

Critical Reflective Practice
The Reflective Practice is a widely adopted research method which allows researchers to learn through participation (Bilous et al., 2018). This practice was initially exercised as part of student learning in teacher-education settings (Jones & Jones, 2013). However, this work-integrated learning process is helpful in critically reflecting on the researchers' first-hand experiences and actions for continuous learning in the social sciences (Coulson et al., 2010;Fook, 2011). The data collection process in this

Desk Review
Besides the first author's personal experience and critical reflections, a desk review was conducted to meet the data needs of this study.
Several documents (i.e., reports, meeting minutes, official letters, notifications and so forth) and Reviewing the merging evidence and literature regarding pandemic governance in Bangladesh was useful for collecting data that could examine the comparative effectiveness of Saturia's collaborative governance model.

Limitations
The readers must know a few critical limitations while reading and using this research. This research only focused on the collaborative practices that aimed to minimize the negative impacts of the pandemic in a specific period.

Results and Discussion
After coronavirus was declared an international public health concern on 30 January 2020, the government of Bangladesh followed the

Implementing Lockdown Policies
The greatest challenge for UA of Saturia was administering the government's lockdown policy effectively and taking measures to ensure that general people have access to essential daily goods. A few factors made enforcing strict lockdown and social distancing policies critically challenging for implementers. First, the general population was ignorant about the virus' vicious potential and kept ignoring the rules (Mahmud, 2020). Second, being a densely populated nation, social distancing was challenging for many people, including urban slum dwellers, commuters, and poor daily wage labourers (Anwar et al., 2020).
Third, online sales and home delivery of goods facilities were unavailable in the country's semiurban and rural areas. Many people still had to travel to supply and purchase essential goods and services (e.g., medicine, food, care). On 15 June 2020, a complete shutdown was declared across the identified red zones. As a result, residents of these areas could not get out of their houses. UA set up an online Bazar application named "Nitya Bazar" to collect home delivery orders for essential goods and deliver them to residents. Several volunteers were employed to deliver the ordered goods across these red zones. During this one-month shutdown period, over six hundred orders were placed from red zones through the application and volunteers delivered goods against all those orders. Several local newspapers reported positive feedback from those who received products through this service.

Team Saturia regularly monitored
On 5 December 2020, as part of the International Volunteers Day celebration, three volunteers from each Union were recognized with the "Best Volunteer" award by UA for their voluntary and courageous contribution during the pandemic.

Quick Response and Support Mechanism
The government provided vulnerable and distressed people with food items and financial support during the lockdown period. Farmers were asked to pay a fixed wage (600 Bangladesh Taka per day) to each individual labourer. The wage was BDT (Bangladesh Taka) 200 lower than the standard. Finally, some poor, vulnerable widows, and physically challenged farmers could not bear the wages. Upon receiving a request from UA, the volunteers and Ansar/ VDP teams helped their harvesting at no cost.
Eventually, the harvesting was accomplished by the deadline.

Effectiveness of the Saturia Model
Saturia's collaborative governance framework adopted Emerson et al.'s (2012) IFCG model, and this evaluation of the model has been carried out based on its ten propositions (refer to Table 1).
T h e C OV I D -1 9 p a n d e m i c b ro u g h t unprecedented uncertainty for all. As this disease is highly contagious and no remedy had been invented, collective efforts were critical to

Challenges and Limitations
As a sub-district level administrative unit, UA of Saturia responded promptly with a collaborative governance framework to this unprecedented pandemic situation. Although the applied framework delivered good results, reflecting on key challenges and limitations of this collaboration can generate critical lessons.
A significant challenge was to manoeuvre the coordination among state and non-state actors.
Most partners did not participate in national decision-making but were instead engaged in implementation. Therefore, local customization and convergence of their goals were challenging. The scarcity of necessary resources was also a significant constraint. At the beginning of the spread of the virus, there was hardly any protective equipment (e.g., PPE, hand gloves, goggles, N95 masks). Moreover, support from the government was limited to the local demands.
The lack of experience of health personnel in dealing with COVID patients and managing the consequences of the pandemic by the government at all levels was another severe challenge.

Conclusion
Although the pandemic was primarily a public health concern, the consequences challenged all spheres of state and society. Third, resources will always be insufficient. The regime must be prepared to optimize the use of limited resources. Finally, local social, religious, and cultural beliefs play a critical role in such situations. Therefore, any interventions must be cognizant of local contexts and involve community participation.