Prospects of ICT in Bangladesh
ICT can reduce unemployment to a great extent and have a multiplier effect on a country�s economy
M I Chowdhury
Bangladesh is keeping tremendous pace to achieving the status of being a middle income country by 2021 over the last couple of years by sustaining a healthy growth rate of 6 percent but nevertheless the country needs to grow around 8% yearly to reach middle income status. Bangladesh has placed poverty alleviation on the top of its development agenda. Being a country with a lions share of population aged below 30; Bangladesh has set youth employment as its one of the most top prioritized areas. Admittedly Bangladesh lacks a great in infrastructure and energy which seems to be a great barrier for setting up heavy industries like automobile or electronics and it is here that ICT has a crucial role to play. Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector can be a great mean to create employment for the educated youth of this country without creating much pressure on its environment and very limited energy resources. ICT can play an important role in women empowerment too in a way that; if Bangladesh further strengthens its ICT infrastructure and facilitate skilled women to tap into the global ICT market, then women empowerment through decent work could be more substantiated here.
Focusing on ICT (Information and Communication Technology) has been one of highest priorities of the government of Bangladesh since 1997 when the government officially recognized that ICT can make an important development impact by deploying an executive committee to scrutinize scopes and opportunities in software export. In 2015 Government of Bangladesh has enacted a proper guideline for ICT and declared it as the thrust sector. It is estimated that within five years ICT sector will contribute 1 percent to the Bangladeshs total GDP and create employment for 150,000 ICT professionals. A National ICT Task Force, headed by the Honorable Prime Minister, has been formed and a hi- tech park in Gazipur is going to be established to attract foreign direct investment in this sector. Prime minister Sheikh Hasinas effort to modernize Bangladesh through e-governance umbrella initiative was highly acclaimed by the world community and she was awarded the South-South Award and South- South Cooperation Visionary Award by the UN as recognition of her work. Apart from that, as appreciation of achievement Bangladesh won the World Summit on Information Society Prize from ITU and Global ICT Excellence Award form World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA).
Government of Bangladesh is not only up to attracting foreign investments and creating jobs for the IT professionals but also burgeoning ICT in the grass root level. Projects of Social Development Foundation (SDF) are good examples of governments endeavor to flourish ICT at the micro level. SDF is an autonomous organization under the ministry of finance and undertakes different types of multifaceted projects for the poverty reduction of Bangladesh through community driven development. In order to ensure smooth operation of community finance activities, computerization system is considered as the most useful means for entering Village Credit Organizations data and information at village level. To this end, SDF has already initiated piloting computerization of community finance activities.
SDF has taken initiative to test run a sub-project on ICT to train a small number of community people on using internet to put information to MIS (Management Information System) database for its new project named Nuton Jibon Livelihood Improvement Project (NJLIP) which would intervene in around 2500 new villages in 12 districts that fall under the poorest areas of Bangladesh. It is expected that at the end of this project 40% beneficiary households would be able to increase income by at least 30% and 25,000 youths would be employed through project facilitation. Deprived community people of SDFs project regions are able to access the information gateway through the ICT sub-project and those who had never seen a computer before are now working with it like any other professional employees. In SDF project areas income generating activities for the local youths are very limited due to scarcity of agricultural land and lack of investments by the local small medium entrepreneurs. Outsourcing is quite a lucrative income generating activity for the youth cohort of Dhaka city in contemporary time and it is time to introduce this to the village level too. Youth project beneficiaries of SDF may find income generating opportunities through freelancing and outsourcing once they are fully equipped with proper training. Youths of the community especially feel very encouraged to use laptops and the data entry work as they consider it as a possible opportunity of future employment. Shahinur from Rangpur, a marginalized woman and a project beneficiary of SDF, expressed that the laptops given to the community by SDF are true symbol of women empowerment as people who used to neglect her as a poor woman, now pay enough heed and count her as a considerable person as she has been bestowed with a great responsibility of record keeping with a laptop.
ICT can reduce unemployment to a great extent and have a multiplier effect on a countrys economy. For instance, Bangladeshs ICT industry has developed over the past decade and generates around $300 million revenue yearly. Bangladesh has an enormous potential in this sector but it is long way to reap the harvest of global ICT revolution like the neighboring country India and China. The need to invest in ICT infrastructure and build up the skilled ICT human resources is therefore crucial.
The writer is the Chairman of Social Development Foundation and former Secretary of the Government of Bangladesh
