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Use ICT as a tool to cut poverty: analysts

Star Business Report
Policymakers should adopt ICT as a vital tool in reducing poverty and in generating higher incomes in rural areas to achieve sustainable development goals, analysts said yesterday.
The comments came at two technical sessions organised by the Centre
on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (Cirdap) on its premises in the capital marking its 39 th founding anniversary.
In one session styled "Digital Bangladesh: ICT in Rural Development", Md Mustafizur Rahman, project director of the Access to Information at ICT division, said they have so far saved about $2.9
billion by digitising different services for citizens as of 2017.
By 2021, the money saved will increase to about $10.6 billion, he said, adding, "We have digitised dozens of citizen services and people are saving time, money and visits by using 5,286 digital centres at the union level."
The digital centres have also started delivering agent banking services and transacted $40 million so far, as part of ensuring financial inclusion of rural people Rahman added on his keynote speech.
"We are now working to develop electronic channels for farmers to market their products and make those easily available to urban consumers, which will also be a massive development in bringing an end to the presence of brokers," he said. Skills needed to be increased through the use of ICT and for that relevant channels needed to be digitised, said Mustafa K Mujeri, executive director of the Institute for Inclusive Finance and Development
If the government fails to adopt ICT, rural people would continue to
become more marginalized, said Shoeb Ahmed Masud, a director of the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services. "We should not accept the digital divide by only giving all the benefits of the digitisation to urban areas," he said.
Questions are now rising over inclusiveness although the country's economy continued to grow at over 7 percent, said Professor Md Abu Eusuf, chairman of the Department of Development Studies at Dhaka University, in another session styled "Rising Bangladesh". In the first session Mustafizur Rahman, a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue, gave a keynote speech on "The Bangladesh Development N arrative an Impressive Trade Record".
He said Bangladesh was able to
reduce the percentage of the population living below the national poverty line from 56 percent in the early 1990s to about22 percentin 2018.
Though the country has achieved tremendous economic growth, disparity in earnings is raising concerns, he said, adding, "We need to work to reduce the income disparity."
Moderating the session, former Bangladesh BankgovernorSalehuddin Ahmed said the country needs a participatory development attitude to reduce the disparity.
Md Mashiur Rahman Ranga, state minister for local government and rural development and co-operatives, inaugurated the two-day celebrations.
Cirdap will organise two more sessions today on "Food Waste to Wealth" and "Sustainable/Smart Rural Village