Scaling-Up Access to Information in Bangladesh

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Scaling-Up Access to Information in Bangladesh

June 17, 2015

Government offices in Bangladesh provide a wide range of public services at the dis-trict and sub-district levels. To gain access to these services, the rural poor typically have to travel long distances to get to the relevant government offices. This takes valuable time away from their daily work and wages, and incurs costs for travel.

UNDP, USAID and the Government of Bangladesh embarked on the Access to Information (a2i) programme to improve service delivery, with special emphasis on meeting the needs of underserved communities. The programme first focused on increasing access to services in 2007, and then on simplifying service delivery the following year. Since then, Bangladesh has shown remarkable success in decreasing time, cost and barriers in accessing government services. In a few short years, the number of underserved people benefiting from e-Services climbed from zero to 4.5 million every month.