Questions/Answers

In Bangladesh, citizens – mostly residing and working in rural areas – have to travel long distances, often multiple times, incur high costs and endure considerable delays and hassle to access public services. The poor, underserved population has to incur high TCV (Time, Costs and Visits) to avail of basic government services. To address this problem and include the marginalized, poor and underserved population of the rural poor under the coverage of easily accessible government services, Digital Centres were established in all union councils, towns, and cities. As of now, there are nearly 6,000 Digital Centres across the country and within 4 km of every citizen with a wide variety of services at their disposal. They leverage modern technology to provide citizens 150+ public services (land records, social safety net allowance, birth registration, telemedicine, life insurance, passport, electricity and utility bill, overseas job application as well as application to various government services) and private services (Agent Banking, mobile financial services, rural e-commerce, air-bus-railway and launce ticketing, medical visa processing, visa checking, insurance, various types of computer/vocational training, tour guide, data entry etc.). --- (Free and fee-based) Specific Objectives: • To ensure easy access of common people to the public & Private services • To ensure the marginalized and underserved population are brought under public service coverage. • To ensure the free flow of information for empowering the rural community. • To reduce TCVs (Time, Costs and Visits) of people availing public and private services. • To provide a supportive environment for the creation of local entrepreneurs. • To provide entrepreneurship opportunities to the rural poor. • To ensure female employment and empowerment • To support youth employment, education and training.

This innovation is aligned with Category 1: Delivering Inclusive and equitable services for all. This is because the Digital Centres were introduced to address the disparity between urban and rural populations by introducing a platform for access to services for the underserved which are already available to the former. Furthermore, they would be part of an inclusive community where inequalities are reduced and equal access to quality services can be availed by all. Moreover, the initiative is new, unique and innovative in Bangladesh’s context and provides access and equity to quality services to all, meeting the checked criteria as well.

The Digital Centre was initiated by the government with the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in mind. The initiative addresses SDGs 1, 5, 10 and 16. ‘SDG 10: Reduced inequalities’ is primarily satisfied as the purpose of the Digital Centres is to reduce the high TCVs and hassle faced by people from the poor and marginalized communities of the remote rural areas by providing them almost doorstep public services. They are now a part of an inclusive society where they have equal access to quality services. This initiative of Digital Centre is also aligned with ‘SDG 16: Peace Justice and Strong Institutions (Target 16.6 & 16.9)’ since it is strengthening the local public service institutions. It caters to ‘SDG 1: No Poverty’, as it ensures the Digital Centres are operated by two local entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs belong to the poverty-stricken population of the local upazila and they are given income and entrepreneurship opportunities which will further motivate others. The Digital Centres also meet the ‘SDG 5: Gender equality’ as it emphasizes on the importance of gender equality by providing equal income opportunities to both genders by appointing one male and one female entrepreneur.

Socially, irrespective of the social classes it provides services to all the people who are living within the 4km of the centre. As this is a digital service, the social power can not interrupt the delivery or receive of the service. Economically, the Digital Centre is developed on the entrepreneurship model what makes it sustainable by very nature. On the other hand, as it provides service at low cost, this is viable and reachable for the rural and underserved population. This service ensures the less-use of transport and a less-paper office, what make this an environmentally sustainable initiative.

The main focus of the Digital Centre is to deliver inclusive and equitable services for all. But for a long time, access to different government services was seen as one of the obstacles to achieve the agenda of Digital Bangladesh by the government. Due to the lack of resources and trust, the citizens of both urban and rural areas were reluctant to take government services directly rather they chose middleman and intermediaries which used to cost them a good amount of money, and in many cases, citizens ended up getting no service but losing the money. But the idea of Digital Centre changed the whole perspective of the relationship between government and its primary stakeholder – the citizens, as it interlinked them directly. The Digital Centres addressed the disparities between the urban and rural populations, and it introduced them with such a platform that reduces the gap and makes it easier for the underserved people to get the service. Furthermore, the Digital Centres ensured the citizens to be a part of the same community where inequalities are reduced and equal access to services can be availed by all adhering the 2030 agenda of Leaving no one behind.

Establishing a Digital Centre with at least one-woman entrepreneur along with a man is very much relevant to the vision of Digital Bangladesh and SDG 5 - Gender inequality. The picture of female employment is not very favorable in the rural areas of Bangladesh. So LGD designed in a way that would provide employment for women. Now, female entrepreneurs are inspirations in their localities while their decisions and opinions are considered with utmost sincerely. As digital and assisted model of service, it provides both the genders an equal opportunity to access to the services, which has reduced the gender inequalities.

The Digital Centre has created a knowledge-based society by functioning as a local service delivery point to bring various government, commercial and social services to the doorsteps of the poor, disadvantaged, vulnerable, marginalized and hard-to-reach people (including children, women, elderly and disabled people) living in different ecological and geographical regions as target groups. Ensuring a public-private-partnership was the focus of the initiative. While, a number of commercial organizations including banks, insurance, and mobile companies, micro-credit organizations, NGOs and civil society organizations tied up with the UDCs to connect their activities. Government also further connected their programs with UDCs so that UDCs later became more vibrant by providing various government and non-government services including the giving various social safety-net benefits to different social groups, facilitating mobile and agent banking, providing various IT related services including computing, lodging visa, passport, admission and other application. These services directly affected the target groups by ensuring an easy and hassle-free access to information and public services. All these facilities created an environment for ensuring service delivery necessary for creating employment, empowering communities, engaging a large section of hard-to-reach people with the government services and facilities, increasing economic activities, and accelerating the local business.

The Local Government Division (LGD) under the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Co-operatives has implemented an innovative initiative “Digital Centre: Services at Doorstep”. Digital Centers are essentially micro-enterprises run by ‘citizen entrepreneurs’– 1 male and 1 female who leverage modern technology to provide citizens, both free and fee-based access to public services. 11,000+ entrepreneurs of the 5,865 Digital Centers are now deliver over 150 services – both public and private–to an average 6 million underserved citizens every month at a much lower time, cost, and visit. Digital Centres were set up at every union council office, Municipality, Upazilla Parishad and city corporation ward council office. LGD, supported by The Cabinet Division, the ICT Division, assumes the role of central authority to monitor the Digital Centres. While the local and internal offices also evaluate and monitor the operation of Digital Centres. It has been operated in different layers of the government, such as – • Pourashaba Digital Centre (PDC) was established at the municipality level and City Corporation Digital centre (CDC) at the city corporation ward councilor office in the year 2013. • Upazila Digital Centre (UPDC) was established at the Upazila level in the year 2014. • 6 Specialized Digital Centre (SDC) was launched for RMG workers and fisheries workers in the year of 2018. • Expatriate Digital Centre (EDC) was launched for immigrant people in Saudi Arabia in the year of 2018. LGD has developed a ‘ekSheba uddokta’ platform for public-private services under one umbrella. Key features – • Virtual one stop service platform of entrepreneurs for providing services (Government & Private); • 150+ (Government & Private) services integrated and increasing; • Real time reporting about services provided by entrepreneurs; • Payment gateway • Easy way to monitor the activities of the entrepreneurs by the administration

The Digital Centre has faced different obstacles and challenges over time. Political motivation, fear of monetary loss, lack of technical knowledge and mutual understanding among the stakeholders, ownership of entrepreneurs in UDCs were the major issues. Ensuring the equal participation of women seemed challenging in UDCs. On the other hand, religion, Purdah, patriarchal mentality, also obstructed the Digital Centres functioning properly. Engaging all the stakeholders in different phases, public-private-partnership model, media campaign, motivation and rewarding, organizing ICT fairs, encouraging innovation and government supports helped to overcome most of the obstacles encountered at the initial stage.

Rapid digitization of public services has only recently boomed in Bangladesh context. Until recently, the country had depended on archaic paper-based systems that led to long processing periods, loss of documents, less transparency and accountability, and immense hassle. The Digital Centre is an innovative initiative that has leveraged the use of technology to build a system that provides solutions to a number of problems. In the context of Bangladesh, it is unique, innovative and new. The Digital Centre has addressed these issues and significantly improved service delivery (transparency and accountability as well), and ensured an easy and affordable access to services.

The idea of Digital Centre was not directly derived from other initiatives. It is original and the first of its kind in Bangladesh. The idea, in fact, kick-started mass digitization projects of the government in the rest of the sectors. The idea of integrating digital public services in one-stop service centres to help marginalized locals in low-literacy and low-income unions and the idea of putting local entrepreneurs in charge are unique and purely original. However, this innovation got its inspiration from the technological revolution that is happening all-over the world.

Government and non-government agencies from Philippines, Maldives, Bhutan, and Fiji have already collaborated with the Government of Bangladesh to replicate the Digital Center initiative. Discussions are taking place between the Bangladesh government, and public institutions and development partners of other countries. Especially the developing countries, facilitated by the South-South Network for Public Service Innovation (SSN4PSI), are to replicate the model. In similar contexts like Bangladesh, this idea could be replicated effectively to ensure an inclusive society where the underserved and the marginalized will get easy access to public services through Digital Centres.

Not applicable

The most impressive fact about the implementation of Digital Centres is that they are done with minimal financial and human resources and are done so efficiently to ensure sustainability. The government provides the infrastructure to build the offices and provides the equipment (Computers, Printers, Tables, Internet Connection, etc.) The human resources are entrepreneurs (1 male and 1 female) appointed from local communities who build a business model by charging small fees in exchange of the services they provide and they also bear the everyday costs (i.e., utility charge, internet bill, computer bills, etc.)

As the business model has been developed by equipping the entrepreneurs, it can be said that the Digital Centre model is sustainable. The charges are borne by the entrepreneurs as they make their income through charging reasonable fees in exchange for services. The business model was made for a transparent and efficient way of handling finances. Institutionally, to ensure sustainability, the model has been designed to ensure the Digital Centre’s growth. This involves – setting up offices, building an online service delivery platform, digitizing services, proper selection of entrepreneurs, strong monitoring, and delivery of private and public services.

Yes

The study to assess the impacts and citizens’ perception of e-Service delivery at the Union Digital Centres (UDCs) was an ethnographic study. 10 UDCs have been selected from five districts for detail study covering different geographical locations. Informants were chosen depending on the diversities of service providers and the service recipients and included Union Parishad Chairman, Secretary, Upazila and District Administrator, entrepreneurs (both male and female, both failure and successful) amongst others. The evaluation was done by an external research team. The research team was headed by Dr. Saifur Rashid, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The key indicators are; • Status of Public Service Delivery • Time, Cost and Visit for services • Citizens Satisfaction • Female and youth Employment and Empowerment • Good Governance • Inclusive service A wide range of ethnographic research techniques and tools including the use of Key Informants, unstructured interviews, case studies, informal discussions, observations, FGDs and narrative analysis have been used to get in-depth information from a variety of stakeholders and service recipients of the UDCs.

The UDC reduced the bureaucratic harassment of the people for service recipient (virtually zero) which increased the prevalence of availing public services among citizens. Digital Centres have shown its promise and potential to reach the under-served communities; and it has significantly reduced time, cost and visits by 85%, 63% and 40% respectively for accessing services. Study suggests the innovation has significantly increased the citizen satisfaction level regarding the public service. More than 5000 women became entrepreneurs and self-sufficient. Over 100,000 (0.1 million) students and youth have received computer literacy training and over 2.2 million rural aspirant migrants including females have been registered electronically to seek employment in different foreign countries. The Digital Centre initiative is leading towards achieving all the aspects of good governance in Bangladesh gradually. The use of digital technologies make the rural-urban boundaries blur and ensured an inclusive public-service delivery. This study listed some challenges as well, for instance: traditional mindset of receiver and the provider, lack of awareness of the local people, interruptions by intermediaries. The initiative is incorporating the suggestions made by the evaluation report.

It is important to mention that the Local Government Division was initially designed as an e-governance project and hosted at the Prime Minister’s Office in partnership with ministries. Digital Centres in Bangladesh are operating under the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) modality. The private sector is considered as the key partner in each of the initiatives undertaken by the Digital Centres. For instance, mobile banking opportunities offered by private commercial banks through the branchless mode of operation have enabled many Digital Centres to remain financially solvent. These private banks design training programs for entrepreneurs so that they are equipped to provide the service with adequate skills and knowledge. Such an approach of engaging a gamut of public and private service providers have proven to be of high yield, helping micro-enterprises draw investment from business communities and public agencies. During its inception, the LGD was also strategic to form a number of key partnerships with private sector organizations including civil society. It was these partnerships with public agencies and private organizations that later allowed the amalgamation of public and private services respectively into the one-stop shops: the Digital Centres.

There are different types of stakeholders are involved to make the idea of Digital Centre a success. Digital Centres have local and central organogram working behind it. The primary stakeholders are the citizens. In every phase of the operation of Digital Centre, it included citizens. For instance; in the initial stage, the citizens expressed their suggestions through different discussions. In the implementation phase, their opinions were also considered while they can file complaints and review the service. And in evaluation, the citizen concerns also get the priority. The Digital Centres are physically hosted in a government institution and monitored by the Local Government Division (LGD). The locally elected representatives of the people such as Union Council Chairmen, Municipality mayors, and ward councilors are responsible to ensure the access to information and a flawless run of Digital Centres. Besides, the DC office, which carries out all the government administration in the districts, has a link with the Digital Centres offices. On the other hand, the ICT division supports with their expertise, infrastructure and human resources when necessary.

The Digital Centres have opened a new window for the rural people in Bangladesh. Effective and efficient use of ICT can bring the potential to make the rural communities in Bangladesh prosperous and empowered. But some sorts of challenges are identified in developing e-service(s) that should be addressed very soon. The government is already looking forward to developing adequate data management and record-keeping systems that are crucial for the successful operation of Digital Centres. In order to move towards a better future, it is necessary to bridge the gap between the services promised and services offered. For this, it is necessary to have an efficient collaboration of the e-service components (like proper coordination among the public agencies, shared goals, and harmonious efforts for digital services).