Why public service reform should be our next big leap

When it comes to economic reforms, an ordinary moment when a citizen tries to access a public service and succeeds within minutes, instead of struggling for days navigating a maze, is no less significant than a successful megaproject or a new tax regime. Bangladesh has already had a glimpse of what a better future may look like. The concepts of Union Digital Centers (UDC), electronic filing system (e-Nothi), and electronic government procurement (e-GP) provide the foundation for redesigning state services around citizens. The next step is to make that experience universal, measurable, and accessible, bringing the idea of “government in your pocket” to life fully.

Imagine a single app through which a citizen can renew documents, apply for benefits, track applications, pay fees, book appointments, and file complaints—without middlemen or repeated visits to Dhaka. Singapore has moved in this direction with LifeSG, consolidating hundreds of services in a single app. India did something similar with UMANG, bringing multiple services onto one platform. By digitising services, these countries are rewriting the citizen–state relationship. Bangladesh can do the same to achieve a macroeconomic impact.

Public service reform often fails because governments measure the wrong things. They count portals and the number of services going online. Whereas citizens measure how long it takes, how much it costs and how many visits it requires to avail a service. That is why the most powerful benchmarking idea in governance is disarmingly simple: TCV—time, cost, and visits. This is more than a monitoring tool; it is a philosophy. The state exists to reduce the transaction costs of life. If a service still requires multiple visits, long waits, and unpredictable “processing time,” digitisation has only changed the shape of the queue.

As part of a broader reform effort to improve efficiency in the public service, the next step could be to make TCV an accountability standard across ministries—not a project concept limited to pilot reforms. Because, convenience aside, TCV also measures corruption risk. Every additional visit creates discretion; every “come tomorrow” acts as a silent tax on productivity. The countries that have made the biggest gains in public service are not always the richest, but those that understood a deeper principle: citizens should not have to carry information from one office to another.

Estonia is a global case study because it built interoperability through its X-Road platform. Agencies can securely exchange verified information instead of demanding repeated paper submissions. Estonia calculates the annual time saved by its digital services in “working years,” directly connecting e-government efficiency to economic output. Rwanda offers another lesson. Through Irembo, a national e-service portal, service delivery times fell dramatically when processes were simplified and made transparent.

A modern public service state needs a system where citizens can file complaints easily, track progress transparently, and see resolution timelines. India’s CPGRAMS shows how a centralised grievance platform can be connected across ministries and monitored at scale. For Bangladesh, grievance redress will be an anti-corruption infrastructure. It reduces dependence on brokers and the helplessness that pushes people towards paying “speed money.” And it creates a time-stamped, reviewable trail. If Bangladesh is to build citizen-friendly public services, grievance redress should be its backbone.

Artificial intelligence is important here. It compresses time, reduces paperwork friction, and shrinks discretion. At the consumer experience end, AI can provide 24/7 guidance—explaining eligibility, checking documents, estimating processing times, and thus reducing the information gap that fuels middlemen. Inside the government, AI can support faster triage and routing by classifying applications, flagging missing documents, detecting duplicates, and organising intelligent queues based on urgency and rules. This reduces delays and arbitrary decision points for the overworked government officials.

There is also a governance dividend. AI-driven analytics can detect anomalies in procurement and finance—unusual price movements, suspicious bidding clusters, or irregular timing. When designed properly, digitisation becomes an integrity system, not just a transaction system.

Public service innovation is often framed as convenience. That understates the real prize. When citizens spend fewer days chasing services, the economy gains labour hours. When businesses face predictable approvals, investment becomes less risky. In other words, public service reform is a competitiveness policy. Estonia’s experience is instructive because it puts numbers behind digital productivity gains. Bangladesh should adopt that habit: quantify the savings in time and money for citizens and firms—and treat those savings as national achievements.

Economists like Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A Robinson have all pushed a simple but powerful idea into the global mainstream: institutions matter. Prosperity does not emerge from geography or slogans. It grows where public systems are accountable, and where innovation is embedded in governance itself. Their work reminds us that public service innovation is not administrative tinkering; it is institutional reform in its most human form.

Bangladesh does not need a perfect super-app overnight. But it needs a clear, disciplined plan. Start with the services people use and struggle with most: tourism permits, local certificates, business licences, passport and immigration services, and social protection enrolment. Measure their TCV. Publish the baseline. Then commit publicly to reducing the time, cost and visits required.

Bangladesh’s next big economic reform could be something quiet but more transformative: a state that fits in a citizen’s pocket, respects their time, reduces their costs, and treats service as a right, not a favour. When government becomes predictable, transparent and accessible, citizens feel respected, and the economy moves faster. And that may be the most powerful reform of all.

Ashfaq Zaman is founder of Dhaka Forum and a strategic international affairs expert.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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