Designing e-Government for the Poor - Tanzania Development ...

SUMMARY OF COUNTRY REPORTS
On the first day of the workshop, participants presented reports on
the current ICT and e-government developments in their countries. The
following section includes a summary of each country’s report.
A. Bangladesh
Summary of Country Reports
ICT has been declared as one of the thrust sectors by the Government
of Bangladesh. The prime minister heads a national ICT Task Force
that includes members of the government, industry, and academia. The
objectives of the National ICT Policies are to achieve transparency in all
sectors of society, promote good governance, facilitate use of ICT, and
develop, and deploy a large pool of world-class ICT professionals. The
National ICT Policies aim to promote use of ICT by providing special
allocations for ICT projects in the public sector, and training decisionmakers
in ICT use. The Government of Bangladesh aims to establish a
legislative and regulatory framework for ICT issues such as intellectual
property rights, security and protection of data, digital signature, and
electronic commerce. The goals are to extend Internet facilities to all the
district headquarters and subdistrict levels; provide the Internet in educational
institutions and libraries; and ensure public access to information by
setting up cyber kiosks in all post offices, subdistricts and union complexes.
Bangladesh has begun to pave the way for the implementation of egovernment
services. For example, the Finance Division has developed
customized software for budget planning, sensitivity and impact analysis,
and financial projections. The Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information
and Statistics (BANBAIS), the statistical wing of the Ministry of
Education, has created a geographic information system (GIS). This map
based software provides information on the density of educational institutions
and other useful educational statistics. The Planning Commission has
also established an Intranet file sharing facility through LAN, video
conferencing, electronic notice board, and a digital library that stores
policies. There are service centres for telecommunication in 64 districts and
464 sub-districts.
However, rural areas still lack access to adequate telecommunication
services. Proper initiatives will have to be taken to utilize ICT systems in
agro-based industries and agricultural research for dissemination of agricultural
technology and agro-business development. A step-by-step plan is in
operation. Numerous actions are planned to facilitate the introduction and
implementation of e-government.
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