Similar are the issues with the different brands of cell or mobile phone chargers, which are not inter-operable. The same goes for other incompatible ICT (Information and Communications Technology) systems. Interoperability issues create inconveniences; which increase cost, decrease effectiveness, and blur transparency.

e-Governance, the electronic services provided by the public administration, facilitating citizen participation, is no longer a dream or luxury for our country. Our government has taken several initiatives to introduce e-governance.

The government has started using ICT services and software wherever it can. Now each ministry/division has its own website. These websites are intended to provide information and services to our citizens and businesses.

But the different ministries/divisions don't follow standards while developing their management information systems (MIS), websites, and portals. This caused interoperability problems since they did not follow any common/standard framework keeping the inter-ministerial/inter-divisional processes/communications issues in mind.

Most of the e-governance initiatives so far have created islands of information, difficulties in data interchange, and inefficient communication among the government, the businesses and the citizens. Technology incompatibility is only a piece of this "Interoperability Issues Puzzle" in e-governance initiatives in Bangladesh.

Incompatibilities in government processes, diverse and distributed working groups, people, teams, multiple interest perspectives, and interest groups, all create much larger issues for interoperability than the technology alone. We have hardly noticed any re-usability of elements like government processes, architectures, designs, and technology components in e-governance applications developed so far.

To address the e-governance interoperability issues, the PMO/CAO (with technical assistance from UNDP) has initiated the formation of the BD-eGIF (Bangladesh eGovernance Interoperability Framework) team very recently.

This team will create a national interoperability framework after consulting all the relevant stakeholders in the process. The framework will set out the Bangladesh government's overall processes, interoperability policy and scope, technical policies, standards and guidelines, and management processes for achieving interoperability and information systems coherence across the public sector.

It will contain descriptions and recommendations of selected processes, standards, technologies and protocols, which will serve as the underlying fabric for designing and implementing e-governance applications in Bangladesh.

The BD-eGIF will be a live entity, and will evolve with time. It will define the essential pre-requisites for a joined-up and web-enabled government. It is a cornerstone policy in the overall e-government strategy of Bangladesh.

e-Government is essentially about government serving the needs of the citizen in a better way. The BD-eGIF will be an enabling framework for delivering the services seamlessly and coherently. The primary objective of e-governance is to provide client-centric, comprehensive government services to the public. However, within this objective the goals should be efficiency, improved levels of services, and cost effectiveness.

This cannot be achieved through initiatives spread across the public sector; and so far, the e-governance initiatives in Bangladesh have resulted in "islands of information, incompatible data standards and ineffective communication among the government, businesses and citizens."

To provide one-stop comprehensive services, we must enable the seamless flow of information across the diverse and distributed public bodies and services. The BD-eGIF aims to be an important step towards harmonizing the use of ICT across the government.

Thus, the benefits of the BD-eGIF will be:

* Allow easier and more comprehensive access to public services

* Provide a way for citizens and other stakeholders to avail services and, thus, reduce effort in dealing with the government online.

* Enable better and more efficient management of e-governance products and services by reducing redundancies and overlaps.

* Help government agencies work closely together electronically.

* Make systems, knowledge and experience reusable from one agency to another.

The BD-eGIF will not happen overnight. We will need to adopt iterative, incremental, and integrative processes to achieve our goals. Although we can easily get the global technology standards and specifications for eGIF, we won't be able to implement those without active support from all the relevant stakeholders. And that is the greatest challenge for BD-eGIF, meeting which will require advocacy, time, energy, passion, persuasion, and executive leadership from the top.

To start with, BD-eGIF will make standards/guidelines in the following areas:

* User interfaces/look and feel for the government web sites/portals.

* Content navigation for the government web sites/portals.

* Content management system framework for the BD e-governance portal.

* Document and data interchange/uicode Bangla font, keyboard.

* Network and system development.

* Project management/system operations and monitoring.

BD-eGIF will recommend using open standards and the redesign of administrative processes, taking advantage of available technology. According to BD-eGIF, government policies should be focused on the following high-level principles:

Effectiveness:
e-government should not be limited to putting existing services online; it should also enable the delivery of entirely new services. We now have passport forms on the web, we could also have the new police verification service and status checking associated with that, and more.

Efficiency:
integrating local, regional, and national administrations should cut costs and improve access to information. A police inspector at Natore can query the Satkhira police station and records for a fugitive criminal in that area at anytime. And many more….

Flexibility:
citizens and companies should have multi-channel access to e-government services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Say, 3 persons are using PC, PDA, and cell phones on 3 different days and times, including holidays, they all should be able to access the e-government services almost equally.

Transparency:
e-government services should be easy to find and to use. Access to information should be the right of the citizens, to create a free and fair government. Say, you have a file in the AG office for approval, you will be able to track the file's progress from their website and portal.

Bangladesh, as a developing nation, cannot afford to incur the huge costs of ineffectiveness, inefficiency, inflexibility, and non-transparency of its governance anymore.

Many countries in the world have been reaping great benefits from e-governance by harnessing their government processes with a solid framework of technology policies and their phased implementation.

Although we are late-entrants into this interoperable e-governance arena, we can learn from the experience of other eGIF initiatives in the world. We may need to organise and solidify our grounds based on the ground-realities. But with a strong set of core values, clearly articulated vision, and proper strategy, we shall overcome someday soon!

Fokhruz Zaman is a Consultant, e-Governance and Development, UNDP. The views expressed in the paper do not necessarily represent the organisation's views.