It is no denial that Bangladesh has made a remarkable achievement in its every sector. The country once branded as ottomless basket has been acclaimed as a country with huge possibilities over the last five decades.
The rising economy of the country has brought it the prestige of being one of the five fastest growing economies in the world.
According to the data revealed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), even the economy of the country continued to grow amid the Covid-19 pandemic and superseded that of some neighbouring countries. Over the years per capita income of the country has increased significantly.
Obviously, robust demographic dividend, exports of ready-made garments and resilient remittance have led the countrys economy to the sustainable growth opening up new possibilities enhancing the life and livelihood leading to the fulfilment of the criteria of becoming a developed country by 2041. Meanwhile, the country has fulfilled all the criteria for graduation to developing country from the status of least developed country.
In 2009 the vision of digital Bangladesh was enshrined in the electoral manifesto of Bangladesh Awami League. It was named as Digital Bangladesh Vision-2021. In the last fourteen years since the declaration of digital Bangladesh, the country has seen digitalization in its every sector benefitting lives and livelihoods to a great extent.
The government spearheaded by the honourable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is working relentlessly to provide every digital benefit for the people of Bangladesh easing life and livelihood with more productivity resulting in accelerating the countrys economic growth.
Over the years the country has seen consistent achievements in human development indicators. Hunger index, average life span, maternal and child mortality rates, girls enrolment in different levels of education show that the country is on the right track to achieve the sustainable goals in the target time.
Not only that, the country continues to see positive macroeconomic performance contributing to inclusive growth. However, conflicts, wars, racial disharmony and so on are ravaging the world adding many challenges in the internal economy of the country.
The global economic turndown amid wars and racial conflicts contributes to countrys inflationary pressure resulting in the high price of the necessities. On top of that, the syndicates of the dishonest traders are worsening the situation making artificial crisis of the necessities with a view to profiting more.
However, the making of smart Bangladesh is an advanced initiative which contributes to the expansion of digital Bangladesh with a more comprehensive focus committed to establishing a knowledge-based economy. The government has set the time frame to turn Bangladesh into smart one by 2041. The mission Smart Bangladesh has begun with four pillars committed to make smart citizens, smart government, smart society and smart economy.
For making smart citizens priority would be given to ensure citizens Universal Digital ID, Citizen Up-skilling, Digital Collaboration Platforms and highlight Smart Bangladesh Campaign. Smart governance aims at ensuring smart education, a sophisticated healthcare system, advanced agriculture practices, e-market places, efficient revenue management and the enhancement of employability. It will work to implement all these initiatives under the umbrella of e-governance.
Again, emphasis is given to make smart society aiming at ensuring an inclusive and collaborative society and introducing smart economy aims at ensuring a robust economy using robust technological infrastructures.
Smart Bangladesh envisions of making smart cities, smart agriculture, smart healthcare, smart education, smart energy, smart governance and smart institutions with the ultimate goal of creating an equitable inclusive society for accelerating inclusive growth. The Padma bridge constructed with our own finance has proved our economic capability to the world community.
The construction of the mega projects such as Dhaka metro rail, elevated express in Dhaka, Karnaphuli river tunnel, third terminal at Hazrat Shahjalal international airport, Bangabandhu Satellite-1, Rooppur Nuclear Power plant show that the country continues to strengthen its economy fulfilling the nations ambitious aspirations.
It is predicted that if the economic growth of the country continues at this level, by 2041 the country will be able to enlist her name in the list of the developed countries with per capita income of 16,000 US dollar and the poverty will be a matter of distant past.
It is worth noticing that digitalization is transforming the lives of the people of the country significantly.But the question is pertinent to raise; how far digitalization enables us to reduce societal inequalities? Evidently, in the era of digitalization everyone is not reaping the benefits of the progress equally.
A significant portion of people in the country, specially, the marginalized ones are bearing the brunt of digital divide as they have hardly access to digital privileges in the country resulting in disrupting the inclusive growth of the country.
According to the BBS report in January 2023, the rate of internet users in rural areas is significantly lower compared with that in urban areas. The report reveals that in the previous year only 29.7% of people in rural areas used the internet while 66.8% used in urban areas showing a stark gap in case of the availability of internet facilities.
However, it is good to see the increasing digital connectedness in the country but the question is that how far we are secured against cyber threats and attacks? Certainly, different initiatives have been taken to ensure cybersecurity in the country but lack of massive awareness and unskilled manpower are posing a concern in this regard, that need to be addressed urgently. It is a must to strengthen cyber security protocols and efficient legal frameworks to bring out every innovation in the era of digitalization with an aim to build up Smart Bangladesh with inclusive prosperity.
Prioritizing skills development is another way to contribute to producing smart society. But unless we turn our citizens into smart workforce with their adequate digital competencies, we hardly have been on track in building a smart Bangladesh. The youths of the country should be equipped with digital education that will remove the skills gap and guarantee skilled labour forces.
In the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, knowledge-based economy is highly prioritized across the world. Universities of the country must forward to play a pivotal role to skilling and reskilling the youth forces of the country with the innovations in teaching and learning using digital concepts and assets. Priority should be given to the technological applications and approaches which can be of great help in building a smart Bangladesh.
To smooth advancement towards building a smart Bangladesh it is a must to ensure adequate funding for infrastructure development, technology adoption, and capacity building programs. Last of all, collaborative efforts from various stakeholders including the government, non-government, private, civil society and the people in general should be ensured to fulfil the Vision -2041, which is considered the roadmap towards inclusive prosperity.
The writer teaches at Prime University and a Research Scholar at the IBS
