e-Government in Bangladesh: The Dawn of Citizen-Centric Public Administration?

Despite impressive progress recorded in economic and social development in recent years, Bangladesh performs poorly in terms of most governance indicators. The decades of public sector reform and other measures appear to have done little either to improve the delivery of public services or to brighten the image of service providers. The public service is grappling with a multitude of problems. It is anything but efficient. Lack of accountability and transparency, bureaucratic inflexibility, red tapism, nepotism, and cronyism are some of the perennial challenges of the public sector. Another manifestation of poor governance is Bangladesh’s failure in combating corruption believed to be widespread in the society. Currently Bangladesh not only performs poorly among the developing countries, but its ranking is unsatisfactory compared with most South Asian nations. It is this poor governance that is often identified as a formidable barrier to the goals of poverty reduction, social equity, and sustainable development.