Innovations using ICTs allow unprecedented leapfrogging. It is not ICTs that are the game-changer, but their ability to facilitate innovations and make them go viral. In the 21st century, the success of an individual, an organization and a nation is determined largely by his/her/its capacity to innovate. This pertains more to solving problems proactively than to waiting for somebody else to solve it, more to producing than to consuming, more to being adaptive than a victim of uncertainty. Nations learnt this lesson as they aspired to achieve the MDGs. This will be even truer for the SDGs.
This session will explore stories from unlikely developing countries – Bangladesh and others – which have successfully harnessed the power of ICTs to leapfrog against convention wisdom. In Bangladesh, it has been the combination of an intense focus on raising the innovation capacity of the civil service and linking the youth to the internet that have made magic happen.
The Access to Information Programme (a2i) of the Prime Minister’s Office in Bangladesh has catalyzed an appetite within civil service for more citizen-centric service delivery by promoting a culture of innovation which includes crowdsourcing, co-creation, competition, and partnerships (both across public agencies and with the private sector). It has also been largely successful in institutionalizing the concept of ‘innovation’, which was otherwise an anathema in the hierarchical public administration of the country.
Risk-taking is at the heart of innovation or any positive change. In the last few years, a2i has consistently and aggressively created 'risk space' within civil service – it is the space for civil servants to develop innovations in service delivery without being penalized for 'failure'. With carrots like Innovation Awards, Innovation Fund, Innovation Fairs, Innovation Meet-ups, Social Media Adda and sticks like dashboards, KPIs, Annual Performance Agreements, there is a visible shift by members of the Bangladesh Civil Service towards more risk taking to improve service delivery.
In a matter of 6 years, many ministries of the government created scores of e-Services throughout the country. Citizens can now pay their electricity, gas and phone bills online, download English lessons and consult with doctors remotely through mobile phones. Over 10,000 local entrepreneurs have set up 5,000+ digital service delivery centres in local government institutions all over the country. Every month, over four million hard-to-reach citizens electronically access diverse critical services such as birth registration, land records, exam results, registration for work permits abroad, telemedicine, and timely information on agriculture. Financial inclusion has been expanded through mobile financial services, payment of utility bills, and first ever introduction of life insurance in rural areas. In the last 4 years, 120 million electronic services have been provided from these centres.
Since 2013, the Service Innovation Fund opened up unprecedented opportunity to incubate solutions from non-government actors. Nearly half of the 2,200+ proposals to the Fund have come from the private sector, NGOs, universities, students and even individual innovators. The Fund has also allowed expansion innovation focus from only ICT to other technologies such as mechanical, electrical and biological.
Session's link to the Sustainable Development Process
The innovation through ICTs pertain to poverty alleviation through improved public services and gainful employment and entrepreneurship, transformational improvement in health, education, agriculture and food security, increased gender empowerment, reduced inequality within and among countries, and global partnership towards achieving these goals.