Let's begin by imagining a hypothetical world where we have learnt to predict an impending earthquake 15 minutes prior to the quake! What should the government do in such a situation? Many of you may agree that in such a short notice, the best the government can do is to let every citizen of Bangladesh know that there is a massive earthquake coming. But then again, how do you let the majority of the population know about such disasters concurrently? In my opinion, a simple recorded voice message or SMS from the government may potentially save a lot of lives if casualties were to happen.
The main reason behind starting with a hypothetical scenario about something as threatening as an earthquake is to help you visualise how ICT (information and communications technology) can be used to save lives and minimise risks. Even though we can't yet predict an earthquake, there are other, less grave yet crucial, problems that can be resolved by using ICT. We use a diverse range of ICT tools & services daily without realising how big an impact the digital age has on our lives. But more so, we fail to understand how ICT can potentially be used for those who have not yet been exposed extensively to this digital world -- the people living in rural Bangladesh.
The government through its 'Digital Bangladesh' initiative has made some progress in spreading the blessings of ICT in the rural areas of Bangladesh. However, there is a lot more to do in terms of infrastructural development and raising proper awareness among the people to achieve the 'Digital Bangladesh' objective by 2021. And for that, the private sector (the telecom operators, software developers, internet service providers, etc.) has a crucial role to play. And it is noteworthy to mention that it's not a zero-sum game for these market players. They have a lot to gain out of it too.
The mobile subscription in Bangladesh has reached 134 million by the end of 2015, recording a growth of 11 per cent from 2014 (Source: BTRC). However, based on GSMA (Groupe Speciale Mobile Association) Intelligence's country overview report on Bangladesh in 2014, unique mobile subscription among Bangladeshi adults is actually above 50 per cent only (around 42 per cent, if people less than 16 years old are considered). According to the same report, the majority of the unconnected population in Bangladesh are from the rural areas (86 per cent), indicating that the potential for future growth in the telecom sector lies in the rural areas. Additionally, as the telecom market is becoming more saturated, telecom operators cannot solely rely on new subscribers for attaining growth in the future. Rural market-specific value added services would play a significant role to bring additional growth for a telecom operator. The game here for the telecom operators are going to be a long-term one, and thus diversifying into the core needs (education, healthcare, agriculture) of the people in this country will be essential to sustain growth in the long run.
Even in the case of internet subscription, the industry has seen a consistent nominal growth per year of more than 16 per cent over the past three years. Mobile internet accounts for 95 per cent of the total internet connectivity in the country (Source: BTRC). This further emphasises the importance of diversifying the service portfolio of telecom operators (including internet-based services). In terms of the coverage of internet, the country is still highly dependent on 2G. A recent study by the World Bank suggested that Bangladesh has the 5th largest offline population globally. In any case, the promising growth rate of internet subscription, increasing penetration of 3G network and the government's plan to increase broadband penetration to 50 per cent by 2021, indicates a bright future for internet based services in Bangladesh. With the majority of the rural population still unconnected to the internet, an enormous opportunity for telecom operators lies if they diversify their service portfolio with internet based services specifically designed for the rural community of Bangladesh.
Developing consumer specific services for the rural market requires an in-depth understanding of the demography of the rural population in Bangladesh. Most of the rural people in Bangladesh are yet to be accustomed to using ICT tools for anything other than basic operations (making and receiving calls). Thus, there is a need for a significant shift in behaviour in order to market appropriate services to our rural people. Along with this low tech-savviness, low literacy rate in the rural areas plays a significant role in making the rural population more tech-averse than their urban counterparts. Thus long term plan needs to be devised by both private and public stakeholders to change ICT usage behaviour among the rural population. A good example of a shift in the ICT usage behaviour through effective strategy can be the surge of mobile banking in the rural areas. Services such as Bkash, which has addressed a core need of the rural community, has made its way into the rural people's heart and has motivated them to change their mobile usage behaviour by providing convenient access to banking facility.
Following are few of the important sectors that can be targeted by the market players to develop services targeting the rural market:
1. Agriculture: Even though close to 70 per cent people living in Bangladesh directly or indirectly depend on agriculture for livelihood, it's contribution to GDP (gross domestic product) is only 16 per cent (Source: World Bank). Multiple constraints lead to a lack of optimum productivity in this sector. However, Lack of access to timely and relevant information is one of the most significant constraints as it exists across all the value chains of the agriculture, livestock and fisheries sectors.
ICT can play an important role in minimising this gap in demand & supply of agricultural information. For this, farmer-centric ICT solutions need to be launched which can provide farmers with accurate, updated and timely agricultural information. Three of the major telecom operators already have running mobile-based agricultural solutions designed for farmers. However, these solutions in many cases are either too expensive for the farmers to avail or not farmer-friendly in design. Thus, there is still tremendous scope to design farmer-friendly and affordable solutions.
The government also has a crucial role to play to popularise the use of ICT among the farmers. There is currently 4547 Union Digital Centres (UDC) in all the Union Parishad premises of Bangladesh. These UDCs can be used as leverage points to provide internet based agricultural information services for the farmers.
2.   Healthcare: Bangladesh being one of the most highly populated countries in the world, the demand for qualified health workers is also very high. Currently, Bangladesh has an acute shortage of skilled health workforce, especially when it comes to the rural population. Only 25 per cent of the health workforce is working for the rural population which accounts for 70 per cent of the total population (Source: BMC Health Services Research, 2014). Thus, ICT-based healthcare solutions can go a long way to solving the inadequate healthcare facilities in the country.
Potential of ICT-based healthcare solutions can be broadly categorised into the following segments:
a. Improving access to timely and quality healthcare service by introducing mobile healthcare helplines.
b. Capacity development of the existing health workers by providing ICT-based e-learning platforms and services.
c. Healthcare advisory services such as mobile-based services for maternal health, vaccination alerts etc.
3. Education: The e-learning concept is widely used in the developed countries of the world to promote distance education. Distance education can also be an important alternative for educating the rural people in Bangladesh as currently formal education system is not accessible for the rural population. There is a lack of primary, secondary and tertiary institutes to help educate the rapidly expanding population of Bangladesh. Moreover, infrastructural and resource constraints make it even more difficult to provide quality education, especially in the rural areas.
Thus to provide quality education at an affordable cost, the private sector has enormous opportunities to design mobile and internet based e-learning solutions for the students. Additionally, to well equip the existing primary and secondary school teachers with modern education techniques, e-training initiatives can be undertaken by both the public and private sector.
Other than the three sectors mentioned above, there is immense scope to use ICT for climate change- and disaster risk reduction-related issues. ICT can also play an important role in creating employment opportunities for the rural communities by providing them with necessary linkage and information on employment and entrepreneurship opportunities.
To unleash the latent potential of ICT, concerted effort from both the public & private sector is required. More Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiatives have to be undertaken considering the economic and social inclusion of the rural population. And only then we can dream to achieve a truly Digital Bangladesh.
The writer is Business Consultant, Swisscontact Katalyst. khalidsakib@hotmail.com
Making the most of ICT potential for social inclusion
Mohammad Sakib Khaled | Published: February 11, 2016 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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