Dr Imran is one of the leaders of a project to build e-government capacity and knowledge in Bangladesh.
The project team has developed a five-year e-government strategy for Bangladesh. They have also produced an e-government management handbook for government officials, delivered training to more than 100 high-ranking and mid-ranking officials and developed a rigorous curriculum for e-government management to be run at Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC). The group is also developing a text book that will be first of its kind for developing countries.
"e-government strategies and approach differ from country to country, based on the socio-economic and environmental contexts," Dr Imran said. He explained that the project was targeting the upper ranks of public officials.
"It is an almost insurmountable task to educate 162 million people in Bangladesh at once, as the majority of the population is below the poverty line, deprived of education. Yet they're heavily dependent on government. If we educate or empower the decision makers, they can make an impact on millions."
Dr Imran argued outdated business processes and information systems have negative consequences for the entire Bangladesh economy, pinning back efficiency. He said these approaches are increasingly incompatible with global information systems.
"There is a fear that digital systems will undermine established bureaucratic hierarchies, taking power away from officials and making many more people out of job," Dr Imran said.
The researcher recalled one government official telling him 'people come to me because I have the file here. If I give away everything then nobody will come to me and I will be redundant.'
Dr Imran said digital systems lead to productivity increases, new opportunities and new jobs.
"It's more efficient to start tackling the problem by improving communications in government departments, as this will have flow-on effects for the private sector and the general populace," he said.
Mr Imran said: "Our project is different from many other IT projects. First, it was triggered by applied research where donor agencies had no particular imposition and restriction."
He also said compared to many other IT projects, it is a low-budget initiative that is strongly connected to respected universities.
"Secondly, it has no techno-centric tangible outcome. Rather, it focuses on long-term capacity building of the institution and aims to create a conducive environment for successful adoption of e-government projects in future," he said further.
Dr Imran said the e-government course had been developed and trialed with the extensive involvement of local counterparts and experts. He said this meant the Bangladesh faculty were learning the method and would then be able to offer the training on an ongoing basis.
Dr Imran said moving the entire bureaucracy to e-government will be a big task, so the project team has taken a block-by-block approach, aiming at incremental change. He said more coordination and cooperation are needed to reach a consensus to work in that direction.
"The value of e-government will be realised after a few years quite clearly, when the public sector officials and decision makers will be equipped to exploit the opportunities provided by ICT (information & communication technology) driven knowledge-based economy."
e-government interactions can be within layers of government (G2G), between government and citizens (G2C) and between government and business (G2B) .
"Bangladesh is one of the world's least developed countries, where 98 per cent of people do not have internet access and struggling to get the basic essentials of life," Dr Imran said. "This means that to begin with online services at the G2C level may widen the gap between 'have and have nots'.
"The overarching strategies and policies on e-government should be designed to give benefit to the majority of the 162 citizens of Bangladesh and not to the small number of urban people who can afford to contact government often through their laptop at their own comfort sitting in the home," he further said, "This will surely increase the divide."
"Also, in terms of value generation, G2C is not very significant, as in many developed countries with top ranking in e-government, a large number of people still use channels like face-to-face meetings, the postal service, telephone and so on to contact government agencies."
Dr Imran describes G2G interactions as the nerve centre where the majority of e-government operations take place.
He said innovations at the G2G level are more feasible and realistic for countries like Bangladesh, where some simple process innovation can bring value for all the citizens of the country.
Dr Imran gave the example of a routine licence being available over the counter within a day - instead of within a five-to-six-week period - as demonstrating how applying e-government will benefit citizens even before computers are widely available.
Dr Imran said: "It's just a matter of priority and focus, based on where we can achieve more value. When the core structure will be built inside, online channel can be extended easily just as another outlet. But we won't get much value if we don't change the core business process."
The project grew out of his PhD research at The Australian National University (ANU) and is funded by AusAID's competitive Public Sector Linkages Programme.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Nazia Ansar Khan
Quelle/Source: The Financial Express Bangladesh, 05.03.2012
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