The story of Bangladesh's public service delivery transformation, prototyping to massive scaling up, change management.

1. Building a Digital Nation:
Transformational Change
and Scaling Up
Anir Chowdhury
Policy Advisor
Access to Information Programme
Prime Minister’s Office
Bangladesh
May 13, 2013

2. Bangladesh Context: ‘Glass Half Empty’
 Income: $700 GDP per capita, 30%+ under $1/day
 Literacy: 50% Bangla (English insignificant)
 Electricity grid: 40% of area under grid, very
unreliable!
 Solar increasing
 Service delivery
 Not need responsive
 Complicated/fragmented process
 Extremely male biased
 Endemic corruption and „rent-seeking‟

3. Bangladesh Context: ‘Glass Half Full’
• Social: Facebook, urbanization
• Economic: PPP Policy
• Technological: Mobile, internet
• Legal: ICT Act, RTI Act
• Political: Highest level, new young
leadership
• Government Readiness: mindset
change, data centre, new IT-savvy
recruits
1,4M
2,8M
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
March December
Thousands
Facebook, 2011-12

4. 3 Key Issues for Service Improvement
Service Delivery Model
• Complicated Process/Forms/
Notarization
• Face-to-face delivery
Capacity of Civil
Servants
• Change management and
innovation is
limited/discouraged
• Private sector in the last mile
is absent
Enabling Environment
• Public registers (people & assets) to
target, validate, & monitor service
• Digital data/information to support decision
• Comprehensive policies and laws
Understanding root causes of service inefficiency

5. Improve Service Delivery
to the Underserved
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the
unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to
himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man.”
― George Bernard Shaw

6. Reached Agreement
Focus on Innovations that lead to
Service Delivery Improvement
Continuous
improvement
1. Time
2. Cost
3. No. of visits
4. Expected quality

7. Preventing Digital Divide:
Citizens Access Points in 4,500+ UPs –
True Bottom-Up Development
 Birth and death
registration
 Examination
results
 Government
forms download
 Job information
 Visa application
and tracking
 Digital
photography
 Computer
training
 Mobile
banking
 Life insurance
 English
training
centres
 Payments for
government
services
 Tax collection
 Remittance4.5 mil users/month
USD 600K/month
Start with the underserved first!

8. One-Stop Service in all 64 DC Offices
 Certified copy of land records delivery
increased by 40%
 Time for citizens reduced from several
weeks to 2-5 days
 Decision making time reduced by 80-
90%Transform services and provider behaviour

9. UN Chiefs Inaugurating 2 Landmark
Initiatives in Bangladesh
International recognition and involvement

10. Comprehensive National e-Service System (NESS)
in 16,000 offices in 2 years
Apply
Receive
notification &
Track
progress

11. Retirement of e-Governance
e-Governance
Service at
Doorsteps
Business
Process Re-
engineering
(BPR)
Service
Process
Simplification
(SPS)

12. Information Portals in
all 64 DC Offices being Extended to
24,000 Govt. Offices
Utilize Right to Information Act

13. e-Service, e-Office and NPF

14. Bangla Content a Priority
• 100,000+ pages
• Agri, health, edu, law and
human rights, disaster
mgmt, tourism, employment
• 300 orgs (govt., for-
profit, non-profit)
Enable massive Bangla content
People don‟t
have desks!

15. Focus is on ICT to Improve Education,
Not ICT Literacy
Transform education, not IT education
All 300+
primary, secondary, v
ocational, madrassa
textbooks online
Thousands of teachers
share content through a
dedicated portal

16. Improving Maternal and Child Health

17. TV Assisting in Human Development

18. Mobile Banking: Developed/Developing
Country Contrast
Developed: nice-to-have Developing: must-have
 Strong inter-bank payment
systems
 Extensive bank branches
 Ubiquitous ATM and POS
networks
 High credit/debit card
penetration
 High availability of internet
banking.
 Weak inter-bank
infrastructure
 Limited number of bank
branches
 Limited ATM and POS
system
 Limited internet but high
penetration of mobile
devices
Problem with current mode of mobile banking:
1. The bank account holder must own a mobile phone – prohibitive for the very poor
2. Transaction cost if prohibitively expensive for small transactions

19.  i-Banking
 Cash-In and Cash-Out
 through mobile & prepaid Bank
Cards
 through UISC Cash Agents & POS
Terminals
 i-Payments
 G2P: social safety net payments
 P2G payments: utilities, all forms
of challans
 Person-2-Person fund transfers /
remittances
 i-Commerce
 B2C & C2B services: buying
seeds, fertilizers, bus tickets,
paying for medical services at
upazilla health complex, etc.
 i-Insurance
 Micro-insurance for life,
disability, crops, etc.
 Access to proper risk
management tools over
mobile devices
 i-Credit
 Micro-credit at lower
transaction cost  lower
interest
Comprehensive Financial Inclusion (i-*)

20. Results in 3 years
 33M e-services from UISC
 36M birth registration electronically
 USD16M earnings for UISC entrepreneurs
 0.8M e-applications processed in district
HQ
 1.1M land records delivered electronically
from district HQ

21.  49M results of public exams over internet,
33M over SMS
 2.7M admission applications through SMS
in 32 public universities, 400 colleges, 70
medical colleges
 3M students (by June 2013) learning from
multimedia content developed by 16,000
teachers

22. UNDP Poster Competition 2012

23. Develop Capacity and
Catalyze Transformational Change
“I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to
not know what can't be done.”
― Henry Ford

24. Develop Capacity of Thousands ...
• Leadership mobilization
Interested Honourable Members of Cabinet and
Secretaries
• Process simplication & change mgmt.
e-Gov Focal points (Addls/Jt. Secretaries), DCs
• Implementation & Technical capacity
UPZ Chairmen, ADC, Quick Win focal
points, Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNOs),Deputy
Director (LG)
• Incentives
Innovation Award
Target
groups
• 500+ elected
representatives
• 2,000+ civil
servants
• 9,000
Entrepreneurs
• Media
• Citizen
• Private Sector
and NGOs
• Demand Creation
• Information Officers, Journalists, UISC
Entrepreneurs, Citizens
• Awareness Development
• Innovation fair (divisional fair is on the card)

25. e-Governance Focal Points to
Innovation Teams
 Introduced the role of e-Governance Focal
Points in every Ministry (50+)
 Rigorous learning sessions containing visioning
sessions, debates, case study analysis, service
simplification exercises
 Action research through Quick Wins
 Recent Government gazette to form Innovation
Teams in each Ministry (50+), each directorate
(400+), each district (64) and each sub-district
(487)

26. Info Centres in Union Parishads, Farmers‟
Clubs
Upazilla doctors providing tele-consultation
Computerized land management
Tracking social safety nets
Disaster early warning through mobile
network
Teacher training and e-Learning
100+ ‘Quick Wins’ launched. Another 600 in the Pipeline
Encourage baby steps. Allow failure!

27. Quick Win Beginning Now
e-Purchase Orders
(e-Purjee)
20,000 farmers
2 sugar mills
200,000 farmers
15 sugar mills
e-Service Centres in
Rural LGIs (UISC)
2 UPs
4 entrepreneurs
4,500+ UPs
9,000+ entrepreneurs
4.5m citizens/mon
Tk. 5 crore/mon income
Multimedia classroom
and teacher-led
content
7 schools
22 teachers
By June 2014
23,315 schools
70,000 teachers
1. Increase confidence of govt officers
2. Allow risk-taking for innovations
3. Partner with private sector and NGOs
Quick Wins Scaling Up

28. Grassroots Blog Enabling Country-wide
Problem Solving, Citizens Empowerment,
Break-down of traditional admin hierarchy

29.  200+ e-Services
 100+ govt. agencies
 50+ companies
Creating a Sense of Positive Competition
among Ministries and
Promoting International Branding
 30 countries
 200 speakers
 150 exhibitors
 7 country pavilions
 17 awards
Start with informal incentives like recognition

30. Planning and Coordination from the Top
Leadershi
p
Enabling
Env
Services
• Quick Wins/
Innovation Labs
• Large e-service
projects
• Bangla content
• Demand creation
• Ownership
development
• Process
Simplification
• Digital Strategy
• ICT Policy, Law, RTI
Act
• PPP Policy
• e-Architecture
• Population registry

31. Execution from the Bottom
(Field admin, LGIs)
Education Police Welfare Transport Tax
RevenueMunicipal Body
DC OfficeEnvironmentElectricity
Joined-up
government
Cost savings
Improved service
Connected Citizens
One-Stop ShopHarassment,
Time, Cost
Citizens will NOT go to services, services will come to

32. Build the
Enabling Environment
“I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a
much better policy to prophesy after the event has already
taken place.”
--Winston Churchill

33. Horizon Scan and Vision Documents
 Horizon Scan 2007
 HEAL Vision documents 2008
 Health
 Education
 Agriculture
 Local Government
 Civil Service
Visioning was far more important
than the vision documents

34. ICT Policy 2009, RTI Act 2009
Shared
Vision
Social
Equity
Support
to ICTs
IntegrityHealthcare
Productivity
Employment
Creation
Environment
Education &
Research Strengthening
Exports
Universal
Access
10 development sectors
306 action items for all govt agencies

35. Strategic Priorities for Digital
Bangladesh Report 2010
Development
• Education
• Agriculture
• Health
• Justice
• Law Enforcement
• Land & Water
Resources
Sectors
• Social Safety Nets
• Disaster Management,
Environment &
Climate Change
• Commerce &
Investment
• ICT Industry
Enablers
• Connectivity
• Banking & Finance
• Parliament
• Local Government
• Civil Service
• Youth
• PPP
• Policy & Legal
Framework
„Strategic Priorities for Digital Bangladesh‟ aims at identifying
the role of technology in socio-economic transformation by
2021.
Mainstreamed into National Planning in 6th 5-year plan
(Sector policies like Education, Health, Rural
Connectivity, PPP)

36. Policy for ICT Infrastructure:
Rural Connectivity Guidelines 2010
Institutions Broadband Rollout Projection
Organization Total 3 yrs 6 mon 12 mon 24 mon 36 mon
Govt. (district + upz) 12,000 12,000 12,000
Thana 500 500 500
Local Government (urban) 350 350 350
Local Government (rural) 4,500 4,500 4,500
Secondary School 19,000 19,000 3,000 7,000 5,000 4,000
Secondary Madrasa 9,500 9,500 1,000 2,000 2,500 4,000
Colleges 3,500 3,500 250 500 2,750
Primary School 80,000 10,000 500 500 4,000 5,000
Health Complex 1,000 1,000 1000
Community Health Clinic 18,000 18,000 1,000 3,000 14,000
Post Office 8,500 8,500 64 482 1,000 6,954
TOTAL: 156,850 86,850 23,164 11,482 18,250 33,954

37. National
Population
Register
Police
services
Education
Birth
registration
Health
Voter ID
LicensesSocial
safety
nets
Loans
Taxes &
VAT
Legal
services
Immigrati
on
Labor
CCDS 2012 and NPR 2015:
Interoperable e-Service Platform Across
the Government

38. A2I’s Approach:
Ready, Shoot, Aim …
“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other
plans.”
― Allen Saunders

39. 4 Vital Realizations for
Transformational Change
1. Focus on the citizens, not on the provider
2. When thinking about technology, think
outside the „computer‟ box
3. Catalyze transformational change
management
a. By using innovation as entry point
b. By leveraging existing relationships
4. Forge strong public-private partnerships

40. Citizens call a helpdesk
directly
Citizens come to
Community e-Centres
Helpdesk answer Citizens
questions
Information workers
go to citizens
Realization 1:
Citizens will NOT go to services,
services will come to citizens

41. Web,
email
MailRadio TVCounter Call Center Cell PhoneSmart Phone
Why design e-Services around desktops when
users don’t have desks?
Realization 2:
Must think outside the ‘computer’ box

42. Realization 3:
Top-Down Planning, Bottom-Up Execution
Performance Dashboards, Innovation Teams
Technology
Process
People
•20% Technology
•35% SPS (Service
Process
Simplification)
•40%
Transformational
Change
Management
Innovation
Leadershi
p Teams

43. Peopl
e
Privat
e
Publi
c
Technical Assistance
/ Resources from
Development
Partners
Realization 4:
Partnerships create multiplier effect
• 50 service partners
• 300 content partners
• Thousands of crowdsourcers
• $100M+ mobilized
• Need to mobilize $1.5B

44. 3 Notable Disruptions:
Taking into Account and Taking
Advantage of …
Tipping point?
Govt.
Innovatio
n Labs
Social
Networking
Crowdsourcin
g
Closed
Grassroots
(UISC) blog
with 14,000
members
Teachers‟
Portal with
8,000
content
700 Quick
Wins with
100+launched,
Many scaled
up

45. a2i Innovation Cycle: Built in hindsight
Generate
Incubate
EvaluateUpdate
Replicate
“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only
connect them looking backwards.”
― Steve Jobs

46.  Shared visioning through participation
 Breakthrough thinking through Innovation lens
 Leapfrog execution through partnerships
What can A2I experience
provide to other countries through
South-South partnerships?
Knowledge Sharing

47. “A good hockey player
plays where the puck
is.
A great hockey player
plays where the puck
is going to be.”
― Wayne Gretzky
Thanks