The government is set to introduce National Enterprise Architecture (NEA) to bring uniformity in operation of the IT system for its different ministries, organisations and directorates through a software solution, officials said.
The World Bank-financed Leveraging ICT for Growth, Employment and Governance (LICT) Project of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) under Information and Communication Technology Division has taken the initiative to introduce NEA which, they said, would establish a confederated view of all government agencies.
As part of the move, the LICT project has already awarded contract to UK-based Ernst and Young (EY), a leading global professional services company, to introduce NEA aiming to ensure consistency among different government agencies, the officials said.
"With the advancement of digitisation, the ministries, organisations and directorates have established separate IT systems, using their own software solution. But necessary public data generated by various organisations even by government enterprises cannot be used by others mainly due to lack of seamless integration and interoperability of IT system," said Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Secretary Shyam Sunder Sikder.
He said the government plans to introduce the National Enterprise Architecture (NEA) to overcome the problem. Once the NEA is introduced, people will have an easy access to government database, Mr. Sikder added.
Executive Director of Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) SM Ashraful Islam said an architecture repository will be established under National Enterprise Architecture (NEA) considering the key components -- access and presentation, business, data, application, interoperability, mobility, technology, security, policies, guidelines and standards, government and management.
He said the architecture repository would be a living document for the government and to be used, enhanced and updated for ICT innovations and interventions.
"The NEA will fill the gap between policy and implementation, the need for interoperability and adoption of best practices and work as a platform for better coordination among the government agencies," said director of National Data Centre Tarique M Barkatullah.
He said it will be used for better tailored information systems for government agencies to achieve key objectives and outcomes and achieve increased interoperability, better asset management, reduce risk and lower operational cost.
The NEA will lay the foundation for integrated and interoperable citizen services in Bangladesh. The UK-based company is now collecting data from various government organisations and developing a standard uniform system to ensure interoperability and integration of services among different agencies.
They have already held a number of meetings with officials of ministries and organisations concerned including BCC, ministry of ICT and the World Bank to discuss the modalities of how to make it more effective.
The company has also undertaken a skills development programme under which some 30,000 Bangladeshi youths are receiving training on information technology to meet the demand for skilled manpower for the country's IT industry, officials said.
An agreement in this regard was signed between the World Bank-financed LICT project of Bangladesh Computer Council under Information and Communication Technology Division and EY on January 13.
Of the total, EY will impart a top-up IT (specialised) training to 10,000 IT and science graduates and foundation training to 20,000 youths of higher secondary level within three years, the officials said.
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