## Prospects

In almost all the agreements nowadays, lawyers are routinely incorporating an arbitration clause for settlement of possible disputes. Because of the legal requirements in various laws, parties involved are at least required to attempt mediation to solve the dispute outside the Court room. The government in the recent past has also reiterated on many occasions its plan to make ADR mandatory in certain cases. All these factors taken together, it can be said that ADR has a good prospect in Bangladesh. Before that, however, we need to educate people for the system. Certain recommendations for the system to become more effective are as follows:

## Establishing a state-run parallel authority for ADR

A nationwide network needs to be envisaged for providing solutions through ADR. An apex body viz. a Commission for Alternate Dispute Resolution needs to be constituted to lay down policies and principles for making ADR available to the common man to frame most effective and economical schemes for ADR. It should also disburse funds and grants to different ADR Authorities and NGOs for implementing ADR schemes and programmes for the common man.

## ADR to be made mandatory in certain cases

To successfully bring ADR to the common man while still reducing the backlog of cases piled up in Courts, radical steps need to be taken. It is important that the legislature introduce certain provisions which discourage initiation of litigation in cases where out of court settlements can easily be worked out. 

## Imparting Legal Literacy

Perhaps the biggest roadblock that faces any country is illiteracy. Our government has continuously been trying to eradicate illiteracy and now the new task has become even harder, that is, to impart legal literacy to the literates and illiterates alike. Legal literacy empowers one to be an active and alert citizen, thereby making a population more vigilant about its rights and duties.

## Integrating ADR in the legal education

The legal education of today’s Bangladesh needs to take the ADR mechanisms seriously. Today these mechanisms are taught only as part of specialty courses which primarily focus on the deployment of these processes pertaining to areas of corporate mergers and amalgamations.