Designing ICT roadmap for the nation

Md. Anwarul Kabir

The National ICT Policy 2002 was initiated to reformulate a new ICT policy for the country by the Ministry of Science and Information & Communication Technology.
   The vision of 2002 ICT policy was stated as below: "This Policy aims at building an ICT-driven nation comprising of knowledge-based society by the year 2006. In view of this, a country-wide ICT-infrastructure will be developed to ensure access to information by every citizen to facilitate empowerment of people and enhance democratic values and norms for sustainable economic development by using the infrastructure for human resources development, governance, e-commerce, banking, public utility services and all sorts of on-line ICT-enabled services."
   However, even in 2008, in the field of ICT, our achievement is very insignificant and we are still far away from transforming ourselves into a knowledge-based society. In line with Humphrey's proverb, "If you don't know where you are, a map won't help", the ICT Policy 2002 has reached its obvious destiny. Now it has been realised that in 2002, we were overambitious and without assessing the harsh realities of our socio-economic and cultural aspects we envisioned and formulated the ICT policy 2002. So, at the advent of reformulating new National ICT policy, I emphasize on assessing our strength and weakness relevant to development in ICT of the country. For this, with a view to evaluating our status in this respect, I would like to present following relevant factors for the readers convenience.
   A. General Features
   a) Literacy rate: For overall improvement of ICT, general literacy of a country is a crucial issue. Although literacy ranking of Bangladesh is the lowest among some Asian countries as noted in the table, we are not far behind Pakistan and Nepal.
   b) English literacy rate: From different sources, it has been learnt that, English literacy rate of Bangladesh is less than one per cent. Whereas English literacy rate of India and Pakistan are 60 per cent and 20 per cent respectively,
   There is a strong correlation between English literacy and ICT development in the present context of globalisation. Especially, in the arena of ICT, as English has become Lingua-Franca and as we have not localised Bengali in the domain of computing, English literacy is a must for our ICT development. Unfortunately, in this case our position is the worst one.
   c) Per capita income and groth of GDP: According to the latest statistics, the per capita income of our country is $599,. whereas for India and Pakistan, this is $840 and $652 respectively.
   It may be noted that the threshold per capita income for a country's transforming into middle-income country is $750. No doubt, Bangladesh is one of the promising countries to be a middle-income country in near future.
    (2003 to 2008) Source: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BSS)
   The progress of per capita income as shown in the table d,, is due to high growth of remittance. However, this is one of the positive aspects of the country.
   B. ICT Infrastructure
   a) Power deficit: Latest statistics reveals that Bangladesh faces a power deficit of up to 2000 MW against demand of 5000 MW daily. It may be noted that for proper ICT development an uninterrupted power supply is a must
   b) Teledensity: Teledensity of the country is one of the important parameters for developing ICT infrastructure of a country. The following table reveals the tremendous growth of teledensity in Bangladesh.
   It may be noted that the increase of teledensity is mainly due to expansion of mobile networks. But for making cost effective ICT infrastructure and communication we need to have more growth in PSTN.
   c) Network infrastructure: Outside Dhaka, at present a few computer network infrastructures have been developed so far. Apart from some educational institutes outside Dhaka, observation finds that most of the LAN setups are Dhaka centric. This observation reveals the reality of the digital gap even within the country.
   Since 2006, Bangladesh has been connected to worldwide Internet Super High Way through an under sea submarine cable. But this single submarine cable frequently faces disruption resulting in slow bandwidth.
   d) Use of internet: For the ICT development Internet users of the country must be increased. In this case our position is a worst one as shown in the table.
   Table 4: Use of Internet Source: ITU (Data updated in December 2007)
   e) Use of open source software: Many countries (eg. France and Malaysia) on the globe has started to use open source software in ICT development projects for cost effectiveness. Unfortunately, in our ICT development domain the culture of using open source has not yet been introduced.
   f) Networked Readiness: Networked Readiness Index (NRI) measures the propensity for countries to exploit the opportunities offered by information and communications technology. It is published annually. The NRI seeks to better comprehend the impact of ICT on the competitiveness of nations. The NRI is a composite of three components: the environment for ICT offered by a given country or community, the readiness of the community's key stakeholders (individuals, businesses, and governments) to use ICT, and finally the usage of ICT amongst these stakeholders.
   Country Ranking
   China 13
   Japan 14
   India 44
   Pakistan 84
   Sri Lanka 86
   Bangladesh 118
   Table 5: Networked readiness of some Asian countries (2006-7)
   Source: University of Harvard
   In the above table, unfortunately Bangladesh's ranking is one of the lowest among the Asian countries.
   g) Growth in export oriented Software Development: Software exports in the last financial year: $30 million only. This is indeed a very insignificant contribution to the total revenue earning from the country's export sector!
   Domestic market for the locally developed software product too has not been expanded too. One survey (by the author) has been revealed that less than 10 per cent of the BASIS member software firms work only for domestic market.
   C. Governance
   For proper ICT development in a country, establishment of good governance is a must. Since independence, Bangladesh has been critically suffering from ill-governance. Lack of vision, corruption, lack of transparency, weak coordination, undemocratic decision making are the salient features of our government. These can also be marked as the major barrier to the overall progress of Bangladesh.
   (To be continued)

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Our Special Correspondent On the backdrop of recent crisis in overseas employment markets, Bangladesh Better Business Forum (BBBF) stresses for establishing a national Council of Skill Development to produce effective manpower and enhance the earnings of the expatriates.
   The BBBF already formulated a set of recommendation for improvement of the skill which put special emphasis on learning communicative English to avail a better job abroad.
   Seeking media cooperation in promoting the agenda, Saklahuddin Kashem Khan, Chairman of AKTEL Bangladesh told a recently held discussion meeting that a National Council of Skills Development and Training (NCSDT) had been established long ago but could not even held a meeting in last two decades. The Council had 19 government officials representing the public sector while President of Employer's Federation represented the lone member from Private sector.
   Now the BBBF wants to use the existing platform and legal framework, but with a reconstituted committee. By using the existing infrastructures, the Skill Development Working Group (SDWG) wants to overcome the disparity between rural and urban areas in terms of skill development. According to SDWC, the government received their proposal with a positive gesture.
   According to Laila Rahman Kabir, a tea industrialist, development of skill of our workers can help increase the annual remittance from the present annual volume of about US $ 8billion. She said that an improved skill can also help people get better job positions and better wages.
   Members of the press representing different local and foreign media took active part in the discussion held at Sorargaon Panpacific Hotel on July 27. Representatives from the Department for International Development (DFID) and IFC Bangladesh Investment Climate Fund also attended the meeting.

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WB's $130.7m loan for education project

Special Correspondent The World Bank (WB) has approved a US$130.7 million IDA credit to the Government of Bangladesh, designed to improve the quality of secondary education, systematically monitoring learning outcomes, to increase access and equity, and ensure greater accountability at school level.
   The credit from the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank's concessionary arm, has 40 years to maturity with a 10-year grace period; and it carries a service charge of 0.75 percent.
   The Secondary Education Quality and Access Enhancement Project, approved by the World Bank's Board of Executive Directors in its meeting July 31, 2008, will finance activities in 121 upazilas aimed at improving education quality, and poverty-targeted stipends and tuition to girls and boys to increase access and retention.
   According to World Bank observation, Bangladesh has recorded impressive achievements in the education sector. Since 1980, enrollments in secondary school have increased three-fold and female enrolments have risen seven-fold. This has been achieved partly due to a unique system of public-private partnership at the secondary level where more than 98 percent of secondary schools are managed and operated by the private sector with financial support from the government.
   Female enrollment in the secondary schools also increased from 1.1 million in 1991 to 4.4 million in 2006 after an innovative World Bank financed initiative 'Female Secondary School Assistance Project' was launched in 1993. Schools and families received cash incentives under this project to keep girls in secondary school through completion. This helped Bangladesh to achieve the MDG of gender parity in education ahead of time.
   Despite these achievements, significant challenges remain. Completion rate at the secondary level is as low as 20 percent and many poor children, especially boys, are still left out of the secondary school system. Overall improvement in gross enrolments also masks large disparities by poverty status. For instance, in 2005, the secondary school Gross Enrolment Rate among the richest fifty percent of the population was 75 percent, compared to 38 percent for the poorest 50 percent.
   "Achievement of high quality secondary education is a critical foundation for higher levels of education and skills which are likely to have a significant impact on economic development," said Xian Zhu, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh. "This project will ensure that poor children are not left out of the secondary school system. Importantly, it will also enhance secondary teacher and student performance, as well as in making schools more accountable to the community."
   The project will also strengthen the institutional capacity of the Ministry of Education both at central and local levels, and establish an effective monitoring and evaluation system. It will measure learning levels by administering internationally comparable and national curriculum-based numeracy and literacy testing.
   Another $50 million for Sidr
   Meanwhile, the government of Bangladesh signed a credit agreement worth US$ 50 million with the International Development Association (IDA) to help restore assets and livelihoods for families affected by cyclone SIDR.
   The US$50 million in additional financing for the Social Investment Program Project (SIPP) would support rehabilitation of the cyclone affected families. The additional financing would scale up support to the Government in developing effective financing and institutional arrangements to empower the poorest and most vulnerable and improve their access to small scale local infrastructure, assets and livelihoods. SIPP, which has already benefited over 1,000 villages across Bangladesh, was identified as the best instruments for quickly channeling funds to support livelihoods restoration at the cyclone affected areas.
   After the devastating cyclone SIDR, the World Bank offered US$250 million short and medium term support to help the millions of affected people to recover and to strengthen disaster mitigation systems. Already US$ 100 million was quickly disbursed as budget support in the last financial year. Another US$ 100 million support is under preparation for delivery in FY 09.

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