As Bangladesh transforms to harness the power of the new, emerging and ever-evolving digital world to empower and better the life of its citizens, it has become essential for journalists to gain insight into the inner transformations of the government.

The Secretariat, which is the heart of the country’s bureaucratic system, plays a significant role in implementing the government’s Digital Bangladesh agenda.

Which is why United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s Access to Information (a2i) Programme and Press Institute Bangladesh, jointly organised a two-day workshop for close to 100 journalists, who cover the bureaucratic headquarter.

Farhad Hossain, Honorable State Minister, Ministry of Public Administration was present as the chief guest while Md Mustafizur Rahman, PAA, Project Director (Additional Secretary) of a2i was present as special guest at the inauguration of the workshop held from 24-25 March 2019 at the PIB seminar room.

Through this workshop, journalists became an active stakeholder of the Digital Bangladesh vision allowing them to track down and follow up the progress, cover different angles of the transformation and suggest alternative viewpoints.

The main objectives were to communicate and train the journalists about the basics and use of digital methods in journalism and encourage them to write reports and features on citizen service delivery using digital technologies.

The workshop focused on the basic concept of Digital Bangladesh, a2i initiatives to that end, mobile journalism, social media, problems in working the secretariat beat, their solutions and use of digital mediums, right to information act and ethics of journalism.

a2i’s Local Development Specialist Md Parvez Hasan (Deputy Secretary), UNDP’s Head of Communications Md Abdul Quyauum, Prothom Alo’s Head of Multimedia Team Jamil Khan, renowned journalist Tanim Ahmed, Associate Professor Md Saiful Alam Chowdhury and Professor Dr Md Mofizur Rahman of the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, Dhaka University were present in the workshop as instructors.