The prevailing governance status in Bangladesh continues to pose major challenges for the country’s economic growth and social development. Hence, this component will provide critical e-Government technological foundations for the country’s governance agenda for the years ahead, and build the human capacity leveraging technology for governance reforms.
e-Government refers to the use of ICT to transform government by making it more accessible, effective and accountable. It is a powerful tool for public administration reforms as it enables more efficient, effective, and participatory government; facilitates convenient government services and greater public access to information; and increases transparency and makes government more accountable to citizens. On a deeper level, e-Government opens up predominantly inward-looking structures of administrations toward a focus on services rendered and on delivery of results, fundamentally affecting the very processes by which these services are produced. In this way, e-Government allows administrative reform efforts to make dramatic, fundamental and radical changes in form, and not just changes in degree. These changes further reinforce other reforms, helping countries to better compete in the global economy by strengthening markets and individual choice which, in turn, promote economic growth and poverty reduction. The Government also recognizes the need to leverage ICT for governance, but the public agencies have systems and services that are largely silo-based, replicative, insufficiently secured, and do not leverage electronic services (e-Services) sufficiently in support of public sector reform efforts. Hence, this component will establish the critical e-Government technology foundations such as shared datacenter, interoperability framework, information security governance, and enterprise architecture; and build the capacity of IT-related personnel in the public sector.
