From Union Information Service Centres to a Nationwide Digital Network

How Bangladesh's Union Information Service Centres, launched in 30 villages in 2007, grew into a Union Digital Centre network covering all 4,547 Union Parishads nationwide.

A Union Parishad office signboard in rural Bangladesh. Photo: Ibrahim Husain Meraj, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

By the UISC BD Editorial Desk · United Information Service Center · Updated September 2026 · 7-minute read

This publication shares its initials, UISC, with one of Bangladesh's quieter, longer-running success stories in public administration: the Union Information Service Centres — a network that, unlike most government IT projects, was actually built out to national scale and is still running today under a new name.

2007: Thirty Villages, One Pilot

In 2007, Bangladesh's Local Government Department, working with the newly formed Access to Information (a2i) programme, opened the first Union Information and Service Centres in thirty Union Parishads — the lowest tier of local government, covering rural wards across the country. The idea was straightforward and, at the time, unproven at this scale: put a computer, an internet connection, and a trained local operator in each rural union office, and let citizens obtain government forms, certificates, and information without a trip to a district town.

The pilot worked well enough that by 2009 the network had grown tenfold, to one hundred Union Parishads, still under a2i's technical guidance.

Today: All 4,547 Union Parishads

What began as a pilot in thirty villages now operates, under the rebranded name Union Digital Centre, in every one of Bangladesh's 4,547 Union Parishads — a one-stop counter for government and private-sector services at the doorstep of rural citizens, run today under the joint supervision of the Local Government Division and the Cabinet Division, with continued technical assistance from UNDP and a2i.

Independent field research has tracked the network's growth and durability. A study published by BRAC's Institute of Governance and Development examined how the centres digitised public service delivery in practice, while an evaluation in the European Journal of Social Sciences Studies specifically investigated whether the Union Digital Centre model had put down lasting institutional roots — the right question to ask of any rural technology programme that has to survive well past its original pilot funding.

The Engine Behind It: a2i

Aspire to Innovate (a2i), the programme that carried Union Information Service Centres from pilot to national scale, was itself established in 2006 as a special initiative of the government's e-governance agenda. Headquartered at the ICT Tower in Agargaon, Dhaka, and run under Bangladesh's ICT Division with continuing UNDP support, a2i's mandate extends well beyond the Digital Centre network: it has been central to implementing the Right to Information Act of 2009 and to the broader push to make the Bangladesh Civil Service more citizen-centric — the same institutional current that later produced the National Digital Transformation Strategy covered elsewhere on this site.

Why a Rural Service Counter Is a Genuine Innovation Story

It is easy for a flagship national strategy — a National Data Exchange, an AI authority, a 5G rollout — to capture the headlines that a village service counter never will. But the Union Digital Centre network is arguably the more foundational achievement, because it solved the harder problem first: not building new digital infrastructure, but making existing government services reachable by someone who would otherwise need a half-day bus journey to a district office. Every citizen the newer, more technical layers of Digital Bangladesh are meant to serve is, in practice, someone this older network already reached first.

Sources

"Union-Digital-Centres," a2i official site — a2i.gov.bd
"Digitizing Public Service Delivery Through Union Digital Centres," BRAC Institute of Governance and Development — bigd.bracu.ac.bd
Mamun, "Sustainability of Union Digital Centre in Bangladesh: Has It Got Institutional Roots?," European Journal of Social Sciences Studies — oapub.org
"Aspire to Innovate (a2i)," Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
"Access to Information (programme)," Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org

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Union Information Service Centres: Bangladesh's Village Digital Network