Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ICT Adviser Sajeeb Ahmed Wazed Joy on Tuesday said the government has developed its own methods, own innovations for implementing ‘Digital Bangladesh’ initiative for simplifying and digitising services. “Digital Bangladesh’ initiative was an innovative and learning experience for the government as it developed the necessary systems for materialising it," he said.
Joy said this while taking part in the panel discussion of the South-South and Triangular Cooperation in scaling-up innovation in public service delivery organised by Bangladesh and UN office for South-South cooperation at the conference room of UN Headquarters.
"The overall goal was to digitise government services while the real goal was to provide benefits to citizens with the services and make the citizens’ lives and interactions with the government easier, efficient and more simplified," he said. The ICT adviser said the government then decided to do it in a simple and cost-effective manner to reach the services to citizens in remote villages and islands. He referred to the introduction of webcam and Skype to reach the community healthcare services to the remote areas which is easy, cheap and cost-effective way to deliver services.
As one of the big constraints always for the government is the budget, Joy said one of the models it came up was the Public Private Partnership (PPP).
He cited that each of the countrywide digital centers has three private entrepreneurs who run those, and the government is no longer paying their salaries except providing the initial trainings.
Speaking on the occasion, ITU Secretary General Houlin Zhao said Sheikh Hasina's extraordinary leadership has brought success in the ICT sector.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also spoke at the function and proposed establishing a ‘South-South Network of
Public Organizations’ to develop a broader understanding and exchange of public sector innovations among the
global South.
Moderated by PM's Principal Secretary Md Abul Kalam Azad, the panel discussion was also addressed as panelists by Gina Casar, Executive Director, of Mexican Agency for International Development
Cooperation, Ms Judith Karl, Executive Secretary of UN Capital Development Fund (CDF), Vincenzo Aquaro, chief of the knowledge management branch of Division of Public Administration and Development Management, UN-DESA.