This paper began with a brief overview of how a “good-enough governance” approach to incremental reforms in public policies, regulations, and public services has improved social outcomes and state legitimacy in Bangladesh, starting in the late 1970s. It went on to suggest links between the improved outcomes, advances in decentralization, and the growing prominence of civil society. It then reviewed a case study of the LGED, and how it was given the political
space to continuously improve its performance in the context of wider decentralization reforms to better contribute to these outcomes since the mid-1980s.