Business Problem

The Government of Bangladesh has been implementing “Vision 2021: Digital Bangladesh” for the last 12-plus years. The government is now aiming toward: “Smart Bangladesh Vision 2041”.[1] One main pillar of such initiatives is connecting citizens by taking services to their doorsteps. The BCC is playing an important role for building Digital Bangladesh through ICT (infrastructure and e-service) enablement for different sectors. There are 25-plus projects running under the ICT Division, with new projects coming in at regular intervals.

At present, information systems across the Government of Bangladesh are functioning on disparate component-run architectures, resulting in non-smooth data exchange and interoperability between the information systems. This has also caused a fragmented hosting, networking, and storage architecture, which is difficult and expensive to operate, creates unnecessary duplication of data, and impedes effective information sharing and consolidation.

Complexity and Scope of the Project

Organizations under the Government of Bangladesh were running with technical, environmental, and practice-related difficulties that prevented them from achieving the desired goal. The major difficulty is the lack of integration and interoperability between the information systems, because each information system has been developed following different architectures and standards. There are also difficulties such as limited capacity, shortage of resources, poor governance and management, lack of skilled labor, and proper planning.

The overarching problem is to ensure interoperability between disparate data processing applications. It is anticipated that further improvements to operational efficiencies and streamlined IT projects can be achieved by:

  • Cost containment, which is critical when dealing with public money

  • Security, which is becoming more and more important, especially as it relates to citizen privacy

  • Operational efficiency

Under the above circumstances, the establishment of the National e-Service Bus will not only save costs, but will ensure interoperability and security during data exchange among government systems and services.

Objective

The objective is to assist the Government of Bangladesh, through the BCC, to design, develop, deploy, and use the National e-Service Bus and shared platforms/e-services as part of the National Digital Architecture (NDA) and e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF), to facilitate developing strategies, processes, plans, structures, technologies, and systems across the government, thereby developing an environment that enables the government agencies to achieve their key objectives and outcomes through increased interoperability, better asset management, reduced risk, and lower procurement costs. The National e-Service Bus was also aimed at facilitating citizen service (Government-to-Citizen (G2C)), business (Government-to-Business (G2B)), and government department (Government-to-Government (G2G)) delivery utilizing emerging tools/technologies.

It utilizes emerging tools/technologies (Blockchain, Big Data, Data Analytics, and SOA, etc.) in a bid to embrace challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and pave the way for digital innovation. Based on the envisaged BNDA and e-GIF structure, government agencies would then be required to detail their strategic transformation roadmap, which includes a plan for utilizing the National e-Service Bus and shared platforms/e-services, to migrate from its current state in terms of business processes, technology, and information systems to its desired target state.

Success Criteria

Establishment of the National e-Service Bus is a task/activity of the BCC. In discussion with the ICT Division, the following success criteria were established:

  • Adoption of the BNDA framework in system development/customization

  • Ensure security during seamless data exchange by citizen service, e-service, and government application systems

  • Increased usage of the National e-Service Bus by government organizations/agencies

  • Ensure cost reduction and optimization by adopting/using shared platforms/e-services while improving processes, information systems, and technology support in a disciplined and planned manner