- The Association for Land Reform and Development (ALRD) is the federating body of 273 NGOs, peasant’s and landless organizations, which work to establish land rights, rights to food and to livelihood, and the rights of the indigenous people of minorities. ALRD was set up in 1991 to respond to the problem of landlessness and is currently the main organization working exclusively on land reform issues.

ALRD’s activities include:
> Advocacy for agrarian reform, with a focus on  appropriate and effective administrative and judicial reform in relation to land administration, management and resolution of land disputes.
> Co-operating with the government to implement agrarian reform. The Land Reform Ministry, in consultation with ALRD and other civil society organizations has developed new policy guidelines on how to distribute land to the landless. District and local level committees have been formed involving civil society organization representatives. ALRD has begun to work with the Ministry and has started a pilot programme of workshops in three districts.
> Building and mobilizing organizations and linking grassroots with other sectors. A specific focus is on developing the capacity of newly elected women Union Council members to establish the rights of women to own land.
> Documentation and information dissemination on land reform experiences, tenurial questions and other agrarian concerns (27).

- Samata Samaj Kalyan Samity is a local non-governmental organization (NGO) active in helping the landless to gain access to government khas land through leases. This activity involves campaigns and mobilization, training, support in filing applications for land assignments, promotion of participation in local decision-making institutions. Samata has provided education and training to increase farmers’ knowledge so to enable them to actively participate in the agrarian reform programs of the government (28).

- PROSHIKA, founded in 1975, is an organization focusing in the three areas of people’s organization building, microcredit and savings services and social and natural resources development. Rural and urban people living in poverty are encouraged to organize themselves into groups and form group federations at village, union and upazila, sub-district, levels. After their formation, the groups go through a process of empowerment involving various savings plans and skill development training, and engage themselves in different income-generating activities with credit from PROSHIKA. The group federations play an effective role in achieving greater alliances and protecting their interests at all administrative levels. So far, 149 016 primary groups have been formed, of which 97 562 are women's groups. http://www.proshika.org/

- Rangpur Dinajpur Rural Service (RDRS), founded in 1971, works in empowering the rural population of Northern Bangladesh. RDRS presently works with the landless and marginal farmers, aiming to achieve sustainable increases in their living standards. RDRS’ Development Programme reaches some one million villagers. http://www.rdrsbangla.net/

- The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) is a civil society think-tank established in 1993, which promotes dialogues at local, regional and national level, to address important policy issues on development.
In 2000 the centre held a dialogue on the theme of Gender Perspectives on Land and Livelihood in association with ALRD (26). It also contributed to carry on a public dialogue on land reform before 2001 elections (15). http://www.cpd.org.bd/index.asp

- BRAC is a Dhaka-based organization active with rural development programmes in 70 000 villages and 2000 slums throughout the country. BRAC focuses especially on rural women by making small loans available to them for income generating activities. It also provides livelihood, development training, microfinance and support to adolescent girls to empower them to make their own choices for the future (26).
http://www.brac.net/index.php

There are two types of local government institutions one for rural and another for urban areas. 

The local government in the rural areas is a four-tier system consisting of: i. Gram Parishad; ii. Union Parishad; iii. Upazila Parishad; and iv. Zila Parishad.
The urban local government institutions are: i. Municipalities, and ii. City Corporations.

Three seats for each Union Parishad and municipalities are reserved for women who are directly elected by the voters. The number of women-reserved seats for city corporations depends upon population in the respective areas (17).
In 1997, 14 228 women were elected as members of union councils (17).

- Samata Samaj Samity, a local non-governmental organization (NGO) active in helping the landless to gain access to government land khas, organizes training for landless men and women who received government land (28).

- The Association for Land Reform and Development (ALRD) works through seminars, workshops, media campaigns and research publications to advocate land reform. At the grassroot level, it organizes training sessions, public rallies and education campaigns to raise awareness on land rights (27).