Key Factors to be Considered for Making Union Digital Centers (UDCs) Sustainable in Bangladesh

In this era of information and communication technology (ICT), efficient and cost effective public services delivery had become highly expected by the citizen in every country. In developed countries, digitally enabled public services were established in recent years while the developing countries like Bangladesh were trying to establish this advancement. The UNDP, USAID and the Government of Bangladesh launched the Access to Information (A2I) programme to improve the services delivery to reach at the doorsteps of citizen. Under this umbrella, Union Digital Centers (UDCs) were launched in 2009 at every Union of Bangladesh to reduce the "Digital Divide" in public service delivery. Thus, it had become the concern nowadays to make this initiative sustainable for a long run, this study focused to find out some key factor to be considered for making them sustainable in Bangladesh. It explored the previous researches related to these centers and same categories of institutions in other countries where the researchers argued about some issues in different aspects. Based on their findings and discussions, this study tried to analyze the key issues influencing the sustainability factors. To analyze the factors for sustainability, it addressed the financial, investment, business development and publicity, competencies of entrepreneurs, community acceptance and gender issues, institutionalization and physical infrastructure concerned with UDCs. The Government agencies, policy makers, researchers could be consider those recommendations for developing the strategies for sustaining the operations of UDCs in Bangladesh.