The government of Bangladesh signed a financing agreement with the World Bank for the Leveraging ICT

for Growth, Employment and Governance Project. The total cost of the project is USD 71 million. The
project aims to create an estimated 30,000 direct jobs in the IT and ITES sectors, which has the potential
to create up to 120,000 indirect jobs, and expects to increase the IT and ITES industry revenue by over
$200 million by January 2018. Among the direct jobs 9,000 will be for women.

The project will also establish basic e-Government foundations, to support governance reforms and
significantly improve the governments efficiency and effectiveness. Specifically, the proposed technology
foundation will enable all ministries and agencies to host their systems and information on a shared
datacenter; exchange information and collaborate using standardized frameworks; and protect data
through information security policies and standards.

Following target will be achieved:

30,000 trainees ready for IT/ITES employment.

Increased global awareness and improved perception for IT business.

Availability of shared IT hosting and remote conferencing facilities.

Availability of policies, standards and guidelines for enterprise architecture and information security.

Increase capacity of IT-related staff to support each agencys IT needs.

Leveraging ICT for Growth, Employment and Governance is a project of Bangladesh

Computer Council (BCC) under the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunication and
Information Technology. The project has been launched in January 2013 aiming to
develop a vibrant and healthy Information Technology (IT) and Information
Technology-Enabled Services industry in five years by identifying the strategies,
programs and investment needed for the country to leverage ICT for economic
growth and competitiveness.
The primary objectives of the project are to catalyze the growth of Bangladesh's
IT/ITES industry for employment creation and export diversification. The project will
also cater the need of public sector modernization through development of policies,
guidelines, e-government interoperability framework (eGIF) and capacity
development of the government people.
Some specific objectives of the projects are: (i) to develop 34,000 skilled manpower
for IT and ITES sector; (ii) to expose local IT and ITES capabilities in to global market
leading to improved global awareness and perception of Bangladesh for IT and ITES
business; (iii) to make available shared IT hosting and remote conferencing facilities
for use by GOB agencies to policies, fix appropriate standards and guidelines for
enterprise architecture and information security.

BCC is the implementing agency of the project worth about Taka 572.48 crore. Of
the total amount, the World Bank is providing $70 million US dollars and the rest by
the Government of Bangladesh. The project is expected to be completed by 2018.

Foundational Skills for ITES Segment

This sub-component will develop the foundational skills of 20,000 ITES professionals
in a way that is closely aligned with the requirements of global markets, and provide
training grants to companies meeting a minimum set of skills development and
hiring criteria, and support the GOBs existing National ICT Internship Program
administered by BCC. Foundational work skills are fundamental to creating a
competitive ITES labor force as these are necessary for virtually all its subsegments, including BPO and micro-work. These skills address areas such as
cultural sensitization, basic PC and data skills, interpersonal communication, and a
good professional attitude in general. The advantage of the alignment with global
markets approach is that it would create a talent pool that can cater to the
requirements of the global industry, besides helping to enhance the quality of the
workforce for a range of domestic sectors. It is proposed to closely integrate
assessment and training so that results can be achieved faster, and training
activities can be more tightly coupled with individual needs.
An anchor institution could be competitively identified to house the program. The
anchor institution could then partner with leading international companies to train
trainers, and provide a quality assurance process for both the trainers and students
subsequently trained by them. This would ensure that the training program is
consistent with the needs of the global market, besides creating a talent pool that
would make it easier to attract investments by the companies associated with the
program.In addition, this sub-component will provide training grants to ITES
companies. In interactions with local companies, it was found that it was possible to
rapidly ramp up the number of jobs in the BPO sector, in case a training program
was put in place to address the skills gap. Hence, the grant program is expected to
help companies in Bangladeshs ITES/BPO sectors to quickly expand employment
and address opportunities in the global markets. This would also provide flexibility
to local companies to devise their own training programs for interns. The training
grants would be provided to companies expanding existing operations, and starting
new ones. This grant will be applicable to local companies that have immediate
demands for skilled employees (around 4000 HR); such as those in graphics,
animation and call centers. It would also be applicable to international companies
setting up offices in Bangladesh, which would need immediate and customized skills
from local companies that have a developed training program.

The training grant will complement the GOBs existing National ICT Internship
Program as it will support training from a company perspective; and the design and
operations of the training grant program will take guidance from similar initiatives
being implemented in other countries. This grant will enable the recruiting
companies to provide essential computing equipments such as laptop, computer etc
to the new knowledge workers for establishing work environment. This will enable
the trained workforce to acquire industry experience to become world class
knowledge worker. The training grant will also be designed to have a two-level
structure, in order to support the short-term and quick-win needs of the industry,
and support the ITES skills requirement over the remaining project period. In order
to promote social inclusion in the industry, the grant will also be designed to provide
higher incentives to companies to train women, and disabled and indigenous
Bangladeshis. An operational manual will be developed by BCC and approved by the
Bank within six months of the project implementation start date. The manual will
provide details on the training grant program, eligibility criteria, qualifying criteria,
grant calculation, disbursement plan, and application procedure and monitoring.