IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

Rural people, especially the unemployed youth and women, should be considered assets in national development. The present government could decide as a policy priority to outsource functions such as digitisation of land records, data entry operations, collation of local data, and local resource mapping to the information kiosks run by self-help and community interest groups with the support of civil society organisations. Upazila and Union Parishad institutions could use connectivity to provide accountable and transparent local governance.

Various government data of relevance to the public, including birth and death certificates, other registrations, and pension documentation, could also be made online to facilitate usage. Outsourcing from urban to rural Bangladesh would be a powerful method of bridging the rural-urban digital divide.

This would also help to bridge the gender divide, if women are enabled to manage the rural knowledge centers.Relevant social messages in health, education and governance-related issues can be effectively disseminated through knowledge centers and information kiosks in rural areas. The government should outsource designing and developing e-governance content and services to civil society and professional organisations that can benefit wider communities.

A number of expert organisations in agriculture, nutrition, livelihoods, animal husbandry, post-harvest technology, health, environmental issues, should be identified to support e-governance programs. A civil society group should be constituted to monitor the e-governance policies. Such a group can advise the government on appropriate methods of automating government processes and offering ICT-enabled services and applications for rural communities.

A low-interest rate lending to rural entrepreneurs, self-help groups, common interest groups and nominees of local government institutions to establish knowledge centers and information kiosks should be considered. Such loans can be issued via banking institutions to encourage rural entrepreneurship. A venture capital fund may also be established.

The task of taking the benefits of the Internet and space age to 68000 villages may appear to be a formidable one. However, seemingly impossible tasks can be achieved by harnessing the power of partnership and by bringing about synergy between technology and public policy, as pledged by the ruling party by 2021 through Vision 2021 - Charter of Change. The initiative being launched by our ruling government by the help of our civil society today marks the beginning of a bright chapter in Bangladesh's tryst with destiny.

---

Autor(en)/Author(s): Gopal Sengupta

Quelle/Source: The New Nation, 03.09.2010

Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit: