e-Governance has been an issue in Bangladesh, some government offices have taken innovative steps on certain e-Government projects.
Bangla GovNet Project
In the era of information society, many developing countries have looked at ICT as a major tool to solve problems of poverty, bad governance, and sluggish economic growth. While the developed countries have been able to benefit greatly from the wide use of ICT, many developing countries are still holding to consider carefully how ICT fits into their problems. Since this is a
new concept for government officials who are used to familiar methods of work, the growth of e-Governance is met with resistance and fear, among other infrastructural problems. But the government is taking e-Governance very seriously. Bangladesh government has put great emphasis on identifying challenges in the implementation of nation-wide e-Governance and on initiating pilot projects in various sectors of the government. The Government of Bangladesh has been actively adopting of e-Governance in order to improve public service through improved decision-making processes, as well as promoting transparency and accountability of the government’s course of action. Various legal and policy frameworks have been developed to expedite the adoption of e-Governance in Bangladesh. Other than the legal and policy frameworks successful e-supports the connectivity between all government agencies with a centralized data management system, which can support data processing, sharing and coordination. The infrastructure must also provide adequate security features to protect the integrity of government data from various vulnerabilities. The Government of Bangladesh is also getting substantial foreign cooperation in terms of financial assistance and technical collaboration for realization of e-Governance at a national scale. In the background of increasing demand for the improvement of government’s efficiency and transparency, a Feasibility Study Report was prepared in May 2006 in the name of the Project “National Infra-Network Project for Bangladesh Government (“BanglaGovNet”)”. In addition another Feasibility Study(FS) was done by the Korean Exim Bank in June 2008. To support the growing demand of the ICT sector, appropriate ICT infrastructure should be established both in public and private sector. The project pursues major improvements in Bangladesh Government’s efficiency, transparency, effectiveness, and quality of services. It will expand already identified fundamental governance and public management reforms by reengineering public sector work processes for strategic use of ICT. To have a Government wide Network to ensure delivery of citizen services through the effective implementation of e-Governance towards achieving a Digital Bangladesh by 2021.
