The four-year academic research styled 'e-Government for Bangladesh: A Strategic Pathway to Success' was launched on October 18 in Dhaka.
The research work was funded by Australian government's AusAID Public Sector Linkage Program (PSLP) and conducted by National Centre for Information Systems Research of the Australian National University.
The study found that the highest number of its respondents (26 percent) identified 'lack of knowledge' about ICT among public sector stakeholders as the major hindrance to e-government adoption, followed by 'attitude and mindset', which was ranked as second important barrier.
The research identified 11 major barriers to introducing e-government in the context of Bangladesh. The other barriers include lack of political will and leadership, lack of planning and strategy, weak infrastructure, lack of expertise and professionals, bureaucratic business process, lack of laws and rules, lack of citizen demand, and lack of championship and model.
In Bangladesh the issue of introducing e-commerce and e-government was talked about much in the last few years, but these are yet to take off to the right direction.
E-government in general term implies the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to improve the operation of government and dissemination of government information and services.
"The traditional business process and piles of documents that we usually see at a government office could be eased if we start to reengineer some of the selected activities within government agencies by introducing e-government system," said Ahmed Imran, key author and the project manager of PSLP eGov Capacity Building.
Imran said in the 21st century's globalised economic environment no government would be able to avoid the idea of e-government if it wants to survive as a modern government. "The letter 'e' of e-government will be irrelevant in future as every modern government will be essentially an e-government."
Now in Bangladesh there is a lack of integration and collaboration in work process between the various government agencies, which should improve inter and intra governmental services.
"Often the government works as a collection of autonomous units rather than one synergistic system," he said. "This lack of collaboration between departments impedes networking procedures and efficiencies, which is critical for e-government to succeed."
Imran and two of his research fellows -- Prof Shirley Gregory and Tim Turner -- presented their research findings and suggested strategies.
About the top-down approach to educate the government officials and decision makers first, Imran said, “In a least developed country like Bangladesh we can't educate 150 million people overnight. But if we empower one decision maker with proper knowledge, sometimes it's equivalent to educating millions, as his one decision may impact millions of people."
"Unless the decision makers and government officials are adequately aware and convinced to embrace the new innovation like e-government, most advanced system is not likely to give the expected outcome.”
About whether Bangladesh's bureaucracy is ready for adopting e-government system as holding files without any valid reason is often very common practice in government offices, Imran said perceptions are changing slowly among the decision makers, and some are very positive.
According to UN Global E-government Readiness Report-2008, Bangladesh improved its position from 162 to 142 among world's 192 countries.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Md Hasan
Quelle/Source: The Daily Star, 26.10.2008
