The World Bank has signed $74m in two financing deals for Bangladesh to improve the country’s e-governance services and air quality.
A total of $29 million was allocated for the Leveraging ICT for Growth, Employment and Governance Project, which will be spent to develop a shared technology infrastructure for government agencies. The money will go to improving efficiency, reducing IT risks and promoting e-government efforts.
Read more: Bangladesh gets $74m for e-governance, clean air from World Bank
Bangladesh has ranked 124th in the United Nations E-Government Survey-2016 among the 193 countries advancing by 24 notches.
"This year, Bangladesh has been ranked 124. In 2014, and 2012 Bangladesh was ranked 148 and 150 respectively," an official of Access to Information (a2i) programme told BSS today.
The Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) plans to expand its structure to cover all the regulatory functions of National e-Government Procurement (e-GP) in the country, reports UNB.
"As per the current structure, CPTU is a wing of Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED). Considering huge upcoming activities of CPTU, plan to restructure it is justified," said CPTU Director General (DG) Md Faruque Hossain.
Bangladesh has occupied the 124th rank among 193 countries in the United Nations E-Government Survey-2016.
The 2016 ranking is 24 notches better than that of 2014 (148), said an an official of Access to Information(a2i) programme on Friday, reports BSS.
The prime need for making the government truly efficient and proactive is to ensure an optimum use of information and communication technology (ICT) in governance matters and service delivery at all levels. The policymakers do also appreciate this need. They are pledge-bound to transform Bangladesh into a digital one by the year 2021; they have already initiated a host of actions, including the preparation of an e-Government Master Plan, keeping this pledge in mind. This plan has been designed to cover proper digitisation of 52 ministries and divisions and 68 public sector departments and organisations. Enhancing the capacity of the government officials is the primary goal of the Master Plan, being drawn up with grant support of the Korean International Cooperation Agency (Koica). Here capacity-building is purported to ensuring better delivery of public services at a fast pace.
Read more: BD: Meeting objectives of e-Government Master Plan