Promoting E-Governance and digitisation in Bangladesh

Rezwan Alauddin
Aug 28, 2017 · 4 min read

Bangladesh has recently been ranked 5th amongst its SAARC neighbours and 148th globally in the United Nations E-Governance Development Index. Given the government’s drive for a digital Bangladesh, there hasn’t been any significant developments made in this sector over the last few years. Having been involved in the initial phases of the governments plans to promote the use of technology and automate various government agencies a decade ago, it is frustrating to see so little progress being made in most government departments.

In 2004, I was involved in drafting various proposals for the ICT initiative of the Planning Ministry to come up with solutions to automate processes at places such as the Education Ministry and the Passport Office. At the time, there was a lack of understanding on how technology could enable the government to deliver effective and efficient services to the people. You may argue that given the context of Bangladesh it is not in the best interest of the government officials to embrace change which would bring transparency and efficiency in the system, but that is a factor which is beyond the scope of a technologicy discussion.

Technology landscape

The technology landscape in Bangladesh at the time was very different too, internet penetration was limited to the major cities, connectivity and bandwidth were scarce resources. Although many government departments had computers and dial up internet connections, these were mainly used for menial tasks such as word processing and email communication. I remember working with an NGO who were piloting e-Kiosks in Mirzapur, Tangail, it was an innovative programme attempting to give the rural population access to the internet and government services — the pilot involved setting up radio links between the kiosks and a mobile phone base station. The success of the e-Kiosk programme at the time was limited to the significant connectivity and infrastructure costs at the time.

Connectivity and infrastructure costs are no longer a barrier to technology adoption, with the widespread availability of mobile internet across the country and the advent of handheld tablets over the past decade, getting technology to the doorstep of the people is no longer the major limiting factor.

Successes

Given the challenges, it has to be noted that there has been a number of E-Governance initiatives that have been successfully implemented, most notably the National Voter ID database overseen by the Bangladesh Army and the Chittagong Port Authority Automation which was a public-private partnership (PPP). The National Voter ID database is a significant step in the governments push towards a digital Bangladesh, if implemented correctly, it could form the backbone of all e-services offered by the government and public/private sector organisations. The National Database could be opened up to give access to authorised third party systems, allowing organisations to carry out background checks, verification of individuals trying to access any number of services.

The Chittagong Port Authority automation project should be showcased as a successful IT project which has delivered significant benefits to the country’s trade and industrial sectors. Massive gains such as an 80% reduction in documentation time and a 50% reduction in the cost of doing business should be highlighted to government departments who aren’t as keen on adopting technology. The lessons learnt from the project should be used as key drivers for any e-governance projects which face pushback from officials afraid of change and transparency.

Approach

Having worked in the finance technology sector over the past five years, I can see a number of similarities between large financial organisations and government departments. Large organisations are always trying to maximise efficiency and minimise costs; they do this by constantly reviewing the way they do business and are continuously trying to improve their business processes. The same can be applied to government organisations, before we attempt to use technology to provide government services, we first need to see how we can improve existing business workflows.

The primary aim should be to have well defined workflows which make the most efficient use of available resources and provide the maximum benefit. Again this is a point that will most likely face the most push back from government officials but with out having well defined processes it will be difficult to implement technology solutions. The governments drive for a digital Bangladesh should help in this regard as a top down approach should filter to the levels where the actual work takes place.

A suggested approach would be to target government departments which are least efficient and provide front line services to citizens. After reviewing and redefining existing processes, the technology solutions could be implemented. It must be noted that technology is not the limiting factor in this whole process, as workflow and e-governance technology solutions are widely available in the industry.

Technology options

Browser based web applications would be the most viable solution for any e-governance solution. Web based applications provide a scalable solution which can run on a wide range of hardware such as desktop PC’s and handheld devices. Mobile data connectivity could be used for these web applications in more remote locations where fixed broadband lines are not available. The focus should be on open source software and low cost tablets for government departments.

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Rezwan Alauddin

Written by

technology analyst working in the finance industry

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