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No AI strategy or governance framework
Bangladesh has no AI strategy and no governance framework. That is the core finding here, and it matters now because AI deployment does not wait for policy. Procurement of AI tools by ministries, banks, and private firms proceeds regardless of whether the state has rules for data use, model accountability, procurement standards, or redress when an automated system causes harm. In a vacuum, each agency improvises its own approach, vendors set the terms, and the public bears the downside of biased, opaque, or insecure systems with no body to appeal to.
A vacuum is not neutral. It is itself a policy choice that defaults control to whoever moves first, usually foreign vendors and the better-resourced ministries, while leaving citizens, small firms, and regulators without standards to point to. The longer the gap persists, the more entrenched ad hoc practices become, and the harder a coherent framework is to impose later. The lead responsibility sits with the ICT Division (ICTD), with the Bangladesh Computer Council, the Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority, and the Ministry of Science and Technology as supporting bodies.
Start with the strategy document and the interim governance circular, because both can be issued under existing ICTD authority without waiting for new law. These two unlock everything else: the strategy gives the risk definitions, and the governance unit gives the body that runs the register, clears procurement standards, and commissions the capacity programme. The use register follows once the unit exists, then the procurement clauses, then the capacity build. Primary legislation is the year-two destination, not the year-one starting point.
The binding constraints are institutional, not technical. AI governance cuts across many ministries, so ICTD must secure Cabinet backing or the strategy stays a paper. Fiscal space for a capacity programme is tight, and the governance unit risks becoming a box-ticking layer rather than a real review function. There is also a sequencing risk: moving too slowly lets ad hoc deployments entrench, while moving too fast with heavy rules could stall legitimate adoption.
Bangladesh's AI policy vacuum is a live liability, and the fastest credible fix is for the ICT Division to issue a national strategy and stand up an interim governance body by circular within the first year. Everything else, the use register, procurement standards, and capacity, follows from those two early moves under authority ICTD already holds.
The figures and responsible bodies cited in this prescription are drawn from the platform's own data and the GovTwin registry listed below.
Drafted by an Opus writer grounded in the facts above. Where the prescription cites a figure, it is drawn from those facts. The diagnosis derives from the BDPolicyLab crisis taxonomy; the responsible body and budget from the GovTwin registry. Recommended actions are the think tank's policy judgment.