LEX LOCALIS - JOURNAL OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 933 - 953, October 2013 Towards Good Urban Local Governance in Bangladesh: Lessons learnt from Japanese Local Government System to Overcome the Challenges MOHAMMAD NASHIR UDDIN 6 ABSTRACT Rapid increase of size and demands of the urban population are causing manifold challenges for urban local governance in Bangladesh whereas Japan has successfully tackled similar challenges during last half century by adopting various policy measures at considerable cost. Among those, Bangladesh might easily consider several for her urban governance and development. This paper attempted to find out some policy options that Bangladesh could adopt from Japanese practices and experiences. Accordingly, an explanatory-descriptive design has been employed for content analysis in order to draw logical arguments regarding local autonomy, city governance, local assembly, financial autonomy, environmental and disaster management. Finally, the study concludes that lesson learning is essential but is neither sufficient nor indicative of an exact path to follow. KEYWORDS: • urban local governance • regulatory issues • local government finance • administrative/management • environment and disaster management • Bangladesh CORRESPONDENCE ADDRESS: Mohammad Nashir Uddin, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Shahjalal University of Science & Technology, Department of Public Administration, Sylhet-3114, Bangladesh, email: mnuddin-pad@sust.edu. DOI 10.4335/11.4.933-953 (2013) ISSN 1581-5374 Print/1855-363X Online © 2013 Lex localis (Maribor, Graz, Trieste, Split) Available online at http://journal.lex-localis.info.