ICT Based e‐Government Services for Rural Development: A Study of Union Information and Service Center (UISC) in Bangladesh

Abstract

Access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has become increasingly important for economic, social and political aspects of any countries. However, the "digital divide" between urban and rural areas has introduced a significant gap in equally accessing information, mass communication and ICT, especially in developing countries like Bangladesh. This inequitable access has strong implication on productivity and economic growth of a country. Government of Bangladesh has introduced various ICT interventions to its rural and regional areas aiming at bridging the information access gap. Union Information and Service Centre (UISC) is one of those initiatives to bring opportunity for rural underprivileged communities to better access to ICT and information. However, no studies have been conducted to investigate UISC's potentiality to offering access to ICT and information. The aim of this study was to investigate potential effect of UISC in the development of various socio-economic sectors in the vicinity of countryside of Bangladesh from actual beneficiary perspective. This study found that UISCs have opened a new window of opportunity for rural citizens in Bangladesh. It has the potential to empower rural communities to access information in various fields including agriculture, education, healthcare, and law. This study also found that most participants held positive view about the effectiveness and usability of various services available through the UISCs.

A critical narrative approach to openness: The impact of open development on structural transformation

“…First, despite recent theoretical progress, there remains a tendency for research narratives to be situated in the contexts of openness, without engaging deeply in the meanings and purposes of openness. An open context could be an open artefact such as an open platform delivering mobile phone services (van der Boor et al, ), a public access computing facility (Hoque & Sorwar, ), or an open source developer community (Ansal & Yildirim, ). Within this framing, open contexts have clear boundaries.…”

Research Foci, Methodologies, and Theories Used in Addressing E-Government Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities in Developing Countries

“…That is, only articles that focused on PWDs were included -those that were on E-government accessibility, but whose focus was not PWDs, were excluded. For example, Hoque and Sorwar (2015) examined the disparity between urban and rural towns in terms of accessing E-government services in Bangladesh. Thus, although the study addresses E-government and accessibility, the focus was not on the disabled, but rather on the digital divide.…”

“…Table 1 highlights accessibility as one of the hindrances which makes E-government services difficult to reach all citizens (Basu, 2004;Cumbie & Kar, 2014). For example, accessibility issues have resulted in digital divide and disparity in E-government service provision between urban and rural settlements (Hoque & Sorwar, 2015). Thus, a focus on accessibility for PWDs is of paramount importance because "the power of the Web is in its universality.…”

A Framework to Define the Impact of Sustainable ICT for Agriculture Projects: The Namibian Livestock Traceability System

“…The compendium lists a total of eleven frameworks, and the C4D framework, the livelihoods framework and the cultural-institutional framework are considered as a means of explaining the impact of the project on communal farmers. The livelihoods framework is not suitable, due to its different forms of capital studied at individual level, as well as its poor linkages to information (Hoque & Sorwar, 2015); the cultural-institutional framework focuses very strongly on the roles of the different institutions, and how it affects the behaviours of the ICT4D users as a means of cause-and-effect in a given context (Heeks & Molla, 2009). …”