Celebrating e-Revolution in Asia: May 2006 Issue

www.egovonline.net

Volume II Issue 5, May 2006

ISSN 0973-161X

The e-Government magazine for Asia and the Middle East

Celebrating e-Revolution in Asia

e-Governance Knowledge & Learning portal Capacity Building

Knowledge Sharing

Knowledge Bank

Online Consultation

e-Learning

Research

Gov World The Knowledge & Learning Portal Visit us at: www.egovworld.in

CONTENTS

Cover Feature

News Review

6 25 31 40 44

ICTs significantly impacting the most marginalised, neglected people Mark Rittenbacher and Teruhiko Yoshimura

Asia Middle East World India Geo-Informatics

Commentar y

International Academy of CIO Jirapon Tubtimhin

Korea: Digital divide and strategic priorities of national e-Strategy Jeongwon Yoon

Countr y FFocus: ocus: Thailand

e-Government Development: Visible and invisible barrierrs Mohammad Lagzian and Trevor Wood Harper

e-Revenue in Thailand: Driving change through increased utilisation of ICT Jantima Sirisaengtaksin

36 16

SIPA: Developing Thai tourism c-Commerce service

Matthias Finger, Gianluca Misuraca and Pierre Rossel

Prinya Krachangmol

e-Governance in Nepal: Need for formulating a national strategic framework Ranjan Baral

In Practice

Governance “with and of ICTs”: Need for new institutional designs

Industr y PPerspective erspective

Intel Community PC launch: Bridging urbanrural digital-divide

Regular Features

BPM enabled processes for property management using OmniFlow Matthias Finger, Gianluca Misuraca and Pierre R

45 46

egov by numbers What’s On

Read all the articles online at www.egovonline.net | May 2006

Editorial Guidelines egov is a monthly magazine providing a much needed platform to the voices of various stakeholders in the arena of e-Government, apart from being a repository of valuable information and meaningful discussion on issues of e-governance in general, and e-Government in particular – both to the specialist and the generalist. Contributions to egov magazine should be in the form of articles, case studies, book reviews, event report and news related to e-Government project and initiatives, which are of immense value for practitioners, professionals, corporate and academicians. We would like the contributors to follow these guidelines, while submitting their material for publication. • Articles/ Case studies should not

•

exceed 2500 words. For book reviews and event report, the word limit is 800. An abstract of the article/case study not exceeding 200 words should be submitted along with the article/case study. All articles/ case studies should provide proper references. Authors should give in writing stating that the work is new and has not been published in any form so far. Book reviews should include details of the book like the title, name of the author(s), publisher, year of publication, price and number of pages and also send the cover photograph of the book in JPEG/ TIFF (resolution 300 dpi). Book reviews of books on e-Governance related themes, published from year 2002 onwards, are preferable. In case of website, provide the URL.

ad page 4

•

The manuscripts should be typed in a standard printable font (Times New Roman 12 font size, titles in bold) and submitted either through mail or post. • Relevant figures of adequate quality (300 dpi) should be submitted in JPEG/ TIFF format. • A brief bio-data and passport size photograph(s) of the author(s) must be enclosed. • All contributions are subject to approval by the publisher. Please send in your papers/articles/ comments to: The Editor G-4, Sector 39 NOIDA (UP) 201 301, India Tel +91 120 2502180-87 Fax +91 120 2500060 Email: info@egovonline.net

EDITORIAL

Celebrating e-Government success in Asia

Vol. II, Issue 5

May 2006

President Dr. M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief Ravi Gupta Sr. Assistant Editor Anuradha Dhar Assistant Editors Dipanjan Banerjee Danish A. Khan Sub Editor Prachi Shirur Designed by Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Web www.egovonline.net Editorial and marketing correspondence eGov G-4 Sector 39 NOIDA 201301, India Tel: +91 120 2502181-87 Fax: +91 120 2500060 Email: info@egov.csdms.in Printed by Yashi Media Works Pvt Ltd New Delhi, India egov does not neccesarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in the magazine are those of the contributors. egov is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred, directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided. egov is published in technical collaboration with GIS Development (www.GISdevelopment.net) © Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, 2006 www.csdms.in

The Asian continent has got a cause for celebration. And, there is no reason why the Asian countries should not celebrate the success of e-Governments when two countries — Taiwan and Singapore, are placed ahead of United States in e-Government, according to the Global e-Government Survey 2005 undertaken by researchers at Brown University. In the overall e-Government performance, Taiwan and Singapore have successively been ahead of the United States for the second year in a row. It is seemingly exhilarating enough that the Asian countries have established an unassailable lead and acquired four of the five top spots. Amongst the EU Member States, only two countries — Germany (ranked 7th) and Ireland (ranked 9th), could make it to the top ten. The scene of e-Government in Asian countries is witnessing a dramatic change. Some countries have already achieved distinction in e-Government; some have already embarked on their journey towards e-Government, while a few others are yet to pick up the threads. Significantly, the focus of e-Government is today shifting from a technology-driven approach to process change, including organisational adaptability, political support, partnerships, and embedding in user communities the success factors, which were often found lacking in earlier projects. For those Asian countries still to come to grips with the very process of e-Government and adopt it in all earnest, opportunities lie abound for them to learn from best practices from their well-acquainted, advanced Asian neighbours, while fully understanding the need to create a common ground of equitable learning that would facilitate a process of overall development of the region. egov Asia 2006 — the Asian e-Government Conference, being held at Bangkok, Thailand, from April 26-28, is a step forward toward facilitating this change process, while offering itself as a knowledge-sharing platform and a forum for policymakers, practitioners, industry leaders and academicians of Asia-Pacific nations to carry forward the e-Government vision of the region and consolidate them into actionable program through collaborative learning and partnerships. Eminent experts and senior government officers from various parts of Asia would be assembling for discussing e-Government developments in their respective countries. The discussions would include topics such as Leadership reflections for e-Government; Issues and Implementation in e-Government: Asian Perspectives; e-Applications; country case studies and many other pertinent topics. Undoubtedly so, the study by Brown University on e-Government ranking is in itself a cause for the Asian countries to celebrate the success of their respective eGovernments. As such, egov Asia 2006 conference has come at a no better time than this. The conference is surely likely to emerge as a platform to take the eGovernment vision and movement forward, and provide opportunities to the Asian countries to excel further and walk away in merriment in coming future. So let’s all say three cheers for Asian e-Government success!

Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in

| May 2006

NEWS REVIEW

ASIA Nepal to enact electronic transaction law soon The Nepalese government is soon to enact the Electronic Transaction Ordinance (ETO) or the Cyber Law of Nepal as it is called. The law would accord legal recognition to electronic records and digital signatures, which is being introduced for the first time in the country. The Government also recently appointed a Controller of Certification Authority (CCA) to deal with the issue. According to Deepak Rauniar, the newly appointed CCA, the ETO aims to protect enterprises by providing for offences of hacking, tempering data, secrecy violations, furnishing wrong information and furnishing wrong license or digital certificates.

implement an e-Government system for the Shishi City Government in the Chinese Province of Fujian has been signed by China Expert Technology (CXTI), a company specialising in providing largescale network infrastructure construction mainly for e-Government projects for communities and municipal governments in China. To commence in October 2006 and completed in September 2009, the project would help the Shishi City Government to improve the methods of management, increase administrative efficiency and reduce costs of operation. The e-Government project in China is aimed at building a united national government service platform. Huang Tao, Chairman of the Board of Directors of CXTI, said, “We are excited to have been awarded a contract from the Shishi City Government. Amongst 83 cities and counties in Fujian province, only 7 of them have started their egovernment construction and we have signed contracts with 6 of them.”

Malaysia to offer Digisign certificates

Rauniar said, “The ETO comprises of three significant aspects — Legal recognition of electronic records, Regulation of Certification Authorities (CAs) and Cyber Contraventions. Besides creating the framework and the relevant infrastructure to carry out electronic transaction in Nepal, ETO also seeks to regulate the Internet in some form by making publication of obscene information in electronic form an offence. ETO will foster the initiatives especially with regards to e-governance and e-commerce. This has huge implications in terms of good governance, ICT and to the grass-roots level in Nepal.”

In China, CXTI signs US$41mn e-Government contract A US$41mn e-Government contract to 6

The Malaysian Inland Revenue Board (IRB) has decided to provide free secured digital signatures or Digisign certificates and free downloading of Adobe Reader software in order to encourage more than 3.5 million taxpayers to file their tax returns easily. Rahimah Abdullah, IRB Assistant Director, said, “Instead of signing on the printed tax return forms, the Digisign certificates offer the most comprehensive online security coverage on the Internet. To e-file a tax return, a taxpayer needs a digital certificate, income tax reference number, Adobe Reader 7.0.5 software, Internet connection and Internet Explorer

5.0 software. The digital certificate with registration slip and Adobe Reader software are provided free and can be obtained from the nearest IRB office.” Abdullah added, “Upon obtaining the registration slip, taxpayers need to register the digital certificate. Taxpayers can either use their own computers or computers at the IRB, cyber cafes or work places to register the digital certificate and to fill and file their tax returns via the Internet. Taxpayers can also write to the IRB by providing their MyKad numbers and income tax reference and the confidential digicert would be mailed to them.”

Philippines UMID project in abeyance after budget cut After the withdrawal of the planned PHP200mn (US$3.91mn) allocation from the e-Government Fund by the Philippines’ Department of Budget and Management (DBM) in early March, the Unified Multipurpose Identification System (UMID) project has currently been put in abeyance. The DBM decision comes in the wake of President Gloria MacapagalArroyo directives that all unutilised allocations from the 2005 National Budget be redistributed to fund other government programs. However, the UMID project would now have to wait until the approval of the 2006 National Budget due to unavailability of any counterpart government budget. Timoteo Diaz de Rivera, National Computer Centre Director General and UMID consultant, said, “Partner agencies in the UMID project were surprised to find out that they would not receive their allocation, especially since they have already received EUR100,000 (US$121,170.90) from the Spanish government as part of its grant to implement the UMID. The UMID project even stands to receive another EUR500,000 (US$ 605,730.89) from the Spanish government to implement an extensive pilot test wherein 10,000 cards would be issued to employees in six government agencies. The PHP1bn (US$19.56mn) e-Government Fund would be approved and that PHP200mn www.egovonline.net |

NEWS REVIEW

(US$3.91mn) would go to the UMID project.” The UMID project, which aims to unify existing government Ids and streamline the delivery of government services, came into being after the signing of the Executive Order 420 by the President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Now, e-Passports being issued in Japan

Passport depository in Tokyo in February this year. The depository enables secure testing of e-passports from other nations to help ensure global interoperability of e-Passports. Elsewhere, the US Department of Homeland Security has begun a trial at San Francisco International Airport to test e-Passport readability and assess how the RFID interrogators (readers) and biometric equipment needed to process the e-Passports would impact the passport inspection process. As such, all newly issued US passports issued by early 2007 would reportedly contain RFID tags, excluding a small number of emergency passports issued by US embassies or consulates.

e-Government benefits for Philippines DFA

Taking cue from Sweden, Australia and Singapore in the issuing of e-Passports, Japan has also followed suit and started issuing its first e-Passports (electronic passports). Now, the government has decided to include an RFID tag with every 5-year, 10-year and diplomatic passport it would be henceforth issuing. Within the next 12 months, Japan expects to issue more than 3.5 million e-Passports. It is expected that all Japanese passports would carry an RFID chip within the next 10 years. There are 35 million passports currently in circulation in Japan. The deploying of e-Passports is aimed at increasing security against counterfeited and forged passports. According to the Japanese government, each e-Passport would include a digital photograph of the holder on the chip as well as a physical photo in the passport. The authorities said that in the event of the physical picture on the passport being altered detection through comparison with the image stored on the chip would become easier. The new e-Passport chips, which would be embedded in the centre page of the passport for added protection, would also carry the bearer’s name, nationality, date of birth and passport number. Earlier, Japan set up what it calls its e| May 2006

The innovative DFA Passport Direct Service and Express Passport Delivery Service of the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has brought significant benefits, the DFA officials announced lately. With over 380,000 passports having been processed, there has been a marked decline in the endless queues and tiresome wait for passport applicants thus making it a thing of the past now.

The DFA Passport Direct service began five years ago, and has since served more than 189,000 clients and assisted more than one million Filipinos on their passport application and renewal inquiries. While availing this service, an applicant is required to dial the hotline, 731-100, after which a DFA Passport Direct Customer Care Officer would take up the pertinent customer information. Requirements, including old passports, are picked up from the client’s address. DFA Passport Direct processes the application and within six to eight working days, a new

passport, together with the old one, is delivered right to the client’s doorstep. The service is also available online at www.passport.com.ph. The Express Passport Delivery Service (EPDS), on the other hand, has served 191,000 new passport applicants. The EDPS, which is a delivery option desk within the DFA, gives applicants the option to have their passports delivered to their address instead of returning to the DFA office to claim their passports. The Government of Philippines awarded the DFA in 2002 with Excellence in Governance with the use of IT in recognition of the success of its e-Government efforts.

China steps in to curb SMS fraud China Mobile, one of China’s largest mobile providers, has cancelled services to some 19,000 subscribers in Zhuhai city for using SMS messages for fraudulent and criminal practices. The victims were sent text messages that were designed to prompt them to provide their financial information or remit money. The move comes in the wake of a decision taken last October culminating in the establishing of a hotline for mobile phone subscribers to report junk messages. The cancellations have been effected over the last six months. It may be noted that China’s mobile phone subscribers totalled 393.4 million by the end of 2005, and the subscribers’ base is expected to reach 440 million in 2006 as per Ministry of Information Industry estimates. Yang Kaixiong, China Mobile’s chief manager for customer service, said, “Once we get seven or more complaints for one number, we’ll cut off the function so it won’t be able to send any more harmful messages,” and added, “China Mobile has employed 36 people to supervise its contracted Internet Service Providers (ISPs). If we receive more than 50 complaints concerning the same ISP, we instantly terminate the cooperation and report it to provincial headquarters. At least 44 ISPs have been found to violate the regulations, and 24 of them are expected to lose their contracts.” 7

SAP/Public ServiceADVT - Size: 27 x 42 cms

government agencies, in delivering state-of-the-art software, cutting-edge business tools, and personalized information and services, all in an open portfolio of solutions, applications and services tailored to meet the needs of the public sector. Moreover, SAP for Public Sector has rich, country-specific solutions, making it exactly what you need to meet the challenges of public service.

SAP FOR PUBLIC SECTOR. All over the world today, state and local governments are rethinking the ways in which they serve the public. Changing social and economic conditions make it necessary for governments to discard older ways of doing business, and focus on customer-oriented service, responsiveness, internal efficiencies and cost sensitivity. In other words, the task of governance is slowly moving to Internet-based technologies, or what is known as e-governance. This allows organizations to improve the quality of service, become more transparent, and manage performance and budgets more effectively. The right solution for the public sector has to go beyond traditional financial and HR processes, and allow the

Advertorial

integration of administrative and operational areas. A technology-based solution must support integrated processes, simplify service-oriented administration and cost management, and be flexible in order to accommodate changing needs. It also has to provide transparency for people within and outside the government. SAP for Public Sector is a solution designed specifically for e-governance. It allows governments to deliver value to taxpayers by providing integrated application and technology solutions based on industry best practices, thus enabling public agencies to do business more efficiently. With SAP for Public Sector, SAP brings 30 years of experience and expertise, including work for 1,500

In India, SAP for Public Sector supports a wide variety of business processes, with each module offering rich functionality and scalability. It offers Human Capital Management, which enables government organizations to maximize the potential and productivity of employees by integrating employee information and processes with the organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s overall strategies. Through SAP for Public Sectorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Government Procurement solution, you can automate buying and requisitioning transactions over the Internet and manage purchase orders, inventory and invoice verification processes. SAP for Public Sector is the Public Sector Accounting solution, which enables government bodies to monitor the flow of funds from constituents. The Tax and Revenue Management Solution enables efficient public tax and revenue administration, allowing a range of customer service activities, such as return filing and remittance processing, correspondence, as well as billing, auditing and compliance. In the aftermath of 9/11, public security has become an important issue across countries. With SAP for Public Sector, you can consolidate data, share information, and ensure that resources are available to support critical activities in detecting, preventing, responding to, and recovering from attacks.

These various, end-to-end SAP for Public Sector solutions provide a range of benefits, including improved collaboration, reduced costs, mitigated risks and better decision-making capabilities. Additionally, it helps protect your IT investments because of a standards-based enterprise architecture that allows government organizations to leverage past IT systems while providing a framework for adding future solutions. Finally, through the SAP return on investment initiative, called Public ROI, governments are able to measure the value of improved programs on both quantitative and qualitative terms. Indian government organizations that have adopted SAP for Public Sector solutions are enjoying unparalleled public value, lower cost of ownership, and the scalability to grow affordably over time. Some of the government agencies that recently took to SAP are Bangalore Development Authority, City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Ltd. (CIDCO) and the Coal Miners Provident Fund Organisation. SAP for Public Sector enables governments to share information across teams, departments and organizations. It allows you to handle all vital tasks and activities, uniting information, people and processes for improved efficiency, analysis, policy enforcement and decision-making. By supporting the most important business processes in any public sector organization and providing tools to help you understand how these processes work, SAP for Public Sector allows you to unify the organization, demonstrate transparency and accountability, improve services and enable innovation.

For more information on SAP for Public Sector, write in to info.india@sap.com or call toll-free 1800 425 5959.

SAP/Public ServiceADVT - Size: 27 x 42 cms

Advertorial

For more information on SAP for Public Sector, write in to info.india@sap.com or call toll-free 1800 425 5959.

COVER FEATURE

e-Governance for the poor

ICTs significantly impacting the most marginalised, neglected people Mark Rittenbacher and Teruhiko Yoshimura

Courtesy: http://www.carto.net/

he dramatic advancement of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in recent years has provided all nations of the world and all segments of a society with huge potential benefits in many fields. The effective utilisation of these benefits has become one of the most crucial aspects of competitive strategy for a nation. New technology itself represents only potential, and in order to exploit this potential, an institutional change and a significant government support is indispensable. The challenge of the digital age will have significant impacts potentially even on the most marginalized and neglected groups. It is being widely argued now that new ICTs can provide a unique opportunity to improve the status of the poor and achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The Geneva

Even the most marginalised and neglected groups would be significantly impacted by the potential challenge of the digital age. As such, it is widely acknowledged now that new ICTs have the wherewithal to provide a unique opportunity to improve the status of the poor and achieve the Millennium Development Goals www.egovonline.net |

COVER FEATURE

Declaration of Principles of the World Summit of the Information Society expressed the “common desire and commitment to build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilise and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life.” Especially, there are high expectations from the potential benefits of e-Government and e-Governance as effective tools to empower each segment of the society, even the poorest of the poor. e-Government is usually defined as the use of Information and Communication Technologies to provide better government services. This definition usually refers to more efficient, more transparent and potentially two-way information flow between the government and citizens. But the fact is that in most of the cases e-Government is not more than digitalisation of the operational functions of the government. However, we argue that the deployment of ICT can provide even more benefits. On one hand, it can make some structural and governance reforms possible, and can lead to a more decentralised government structure. On the other hand, the decentralisation can make a higher level of involvement of the public in numerous phases of the governance possible. In many cases the terms ‘e-Government’ and ‘e-Governance’ are synonymous. However, we argue that there are significant differences between the two terms. Moreover, some believe that the realisation of e-Government is the necessary first step, which can then be followed by the implementation of G-governance. However, we argue that the two can, and should, be implemented in parallel. As the Global e-Government Readiness Report says the role of government has to be reoriented and redefined from

Unwillingness of Chinese government The Chinese government, for instance, strongly supports the deployment of e-Government enthusiastically. Thanks to this support, eGovernment services have been booming in the country in the recent years, with continuous reports of more and more citizens using these services rampantly. However, on the other hand, it seems that the authorities try to discourage any changes which could lead to more democratic government structure and practices in fears that it can result in the decline of their power. As a result, the government enthusiastically embraces new technical standards that allow easier traceability of users who are expressing opinions opposing the official views of the government. | May 2006

“that of managerial authority to that of leadership in a multicentred government, the culture of governance needs to change from being bureaucratic to participatory from authoritative to accountable, from being monopolistic to being competitive and innovative, from being closed to being participatory, from being autocratic to democratic, and from being exclusive to inclusive”. e-Governance is socially inclusive governance with the promise of good governance and effective participation and inclusion of citizens.

Obstacles and usage of ICTs Despite the potential benefits and opportunities, the development and adoption of e-Governance in the developing countries is currently very limited. According to the OECD, “The barriers to greater online citizen engagement…are cultural, organisational and constitutional, not technological. Overcoming these challenges will require greater efforts to raise awareness and capacity both within government and among citizens.” The main obstacle is that, on one hand, in many cases governments are unwilling to initiate the necessary structural reforms since these could empower people and lead to the decline in the authority of the establishment. The information is power, and those who control the information can have stronger authority and political power. On the other hand, there is a lack of trust in political institutions regarding the poor, who feel that their governments have always neglected them and that even these newly available services would not really change their status. One of the main reasons of this distrust is that so far mainly the poor have been bearing the brunt of administrative inefficiency and corruption. e-Governance is a new opportunity provided for governments to explain and demonstrate their legitimacy and to

Willing and committed Mongolian government In Mongolia, there has been a successful dialogue between citizens and government. The Mongolian government and especially the Prime Minister have shown strong commitment to undertake the necessary reforms and to encourage citizens to participate in policy-making and consultation for “successful dialogue” between government and citizens. The site is an excellent example of engagement for citizen participation. The Prime Minister regularly visits the site and the comments posted by citizens on the site are sent to him in every two weeks. Moreover, visitors have to chance to read the draft legislations, government policies and participate in the forum where they can post their comments. Yet, in addition to these, the largest obstacle on the implementation of e-Governance for the poor is the inadequate infrastructure. e-Government or e-Governance are usually associated with the usage of computers and Internet. However, even reasonable priced simple ICT devices such as mobile phone with SMS (short message service) can lead to more efficient government services. 11

COVER FEATURE

reach out to the poorest of the poor. It can decrease the highlevel of information asymmetry and provide the new channels to access the information. Moreover, it can be said that if people feel that their participation can make a difference, they tend to participate more actively. Furthermore, the successful implementation of e-Governance can demonstrate the benefits of ICTs to the citizens, promote further applications and decrease the digital divide.

e-Governance services for the poor Creation of pro-poor services means that customer-oriented services have to be provided with public values to the rural communities. In the process of designing services for the poor, the approach should be demand-oriented instead of supplydriven. The public value is the key factor that makes a project successful and can encourage the poor to use the services provided. The United Nations report defines the public value as “value created by government through provision of services, the passing of laws and regulations and other actions”. “Only the public can determine what is truly of value to society”. The more people consider the given information valuable, the higher the public value will be. Moreover, the report adds, “The value is determined by people’s preferences, expressed through a variety of means and refracted through the decisions of elected politician.” However, even in democracies the poor could hardly have any chances to express their needs and preferences. Successful projects from the perspective of the poor can be defined as being when the vast majority of the targeted population uses the provided services; the services resulted in some level of empowerment (economic, social, legal, political, etc.); and these benefits are sustainable. Any of these factors cannot be achieved unless public value is delivered to the poor. The main public values being listed include financial benefits, time efficiency, better quality service delivery to the poor, improved legal status, and new, previously unavailable services.

Scenario in rural China Reportedly, the number of riots and mass protests is increasing in rural China to 74,000 incidents in 2004 from about 10,000 from a decade earlier. The main trigger of these protests is the anger over the failures of the political system, land seizures, increasing corruption of officials, pollution and unpaid wages. In many of these recent riots, ICT made possible for previously isolated rural communities to organise networks, contact each other, spread the word among organisers and protesters and coordinate tactics and slogans. Moreover, through the means of ICTs rural communities are able to inform the other actors of civil society, such as NGOs and press, more quickly about the human rights abuses as the result of deployment of the police in many cases. This example illustrates well how ICTs can enhance formation of new structures within the society and can result in empowerment even though the government does not necessarily support these changes. The promise of higher wages and better job opportunities encouraged many Chinese rural farmers to migrate to the big cities and searching for employment there. However, since their legal status is not always clear they become the subject to 12

Usage of mobile phones and SMS in Philippines The Philippines local government units (LGUs) realised early the benefits of supporting governance through the use of ICTs in a cost-effective manner. Instead of promoting new solutions intensively (since with low Internet penetration the email services and homepages were hardly used), the LGUs have tried to utilise the already existing technologies such as mobile phones and SMS. According to Dr. Reynaldo Dusaran, Dean of Central Philippine University (CPU), College of Agriculture, “Texting is one of the most efficient and available forms of communications today, and hence it is a good medium for transferring technologies to farmers and other clients.” For instance, the TXT CSC, an SMS-based service of the Philippines Civil Service Commission (CSC) is providing “citizens with a weapon, a tool to pressure government agencies into examining their systems and procedures towards faster and more efficient delivery of services”. Moreover, these services are helping those citizens who are dealing with the bureaucracy. Even, through the Farmers’ Information and Technology Service (FITS) Centres the farmers can now access new and relevant information and technologies in the field of agriculture, forestry and natural resources by the means of SMS and mobile phones. Telecenters are the other possible tools to provide cheap access to the benefits of ICTs for those who cannot afford to have PC, phone, mobile phone or Internet access at home.

numerous legal and financial abuses. In order to help improve their status, the Chinese government set up a long-distance online interview system, especially for migrant rural workers, with additional employment information, network training and legal aid. This effort provides face-to-face communication between possible employee and job seekers through the Internet and video system. The system is aiming to reduce the costs and risks of job-hunting, while providing assistance for employees alike. The quality of the information delivered has crucial importance in order to ensure the success of the projects. However, before creating and delivering the information, governments must realise the real needs of the poor. The fulfilment of these needs cannot be achieved without the involvement of would-be beneficiaries and those who are the nearest to the people (local government, NGOs, civil society) at each step of the way from policy-making to implementation.

ICT in Kenya In Kenya, the ICT policy-making process was based on the multi-stakeholder approach. Although the country has lacked the strong political leadership regarding the deployment of ICTs for many years, the civil society has been lobbying for the advancement of ICTs. Later, the government recognised that www.egovonline.net |

COVER FEATURE

the involvement of affected stakeholders is a promising and appropriate response to the complexity of policy development. As a result of this, now, the government is trying to gather information from as many sources as possible to bring the most important actors together and facilitate debate. The Kenyan government has successfully realised that instead of the responsibility and decision of the government, the policy-making should be an outcome of intensive and continuous discussion, debate and negotiations through multistakeholder partnership. Empowering the poor cannot be achieved without facilitating their active participation through the bottom-up approach. As Macintosh et al argues in this new approach, citizens would evolve from just consumers into producers of policy.

Singapore — Citizens as producers of policy The main message of the site is that “Your opinion counts” and “Play a part in shaping national policies”. In the site, citizens are encouraged to give their views on national issues and policies and share ideas through numerous channels. For instance, ministries and government agencies post consultation papers on draft legislations and citizens have to chance to make feedbacks. These feedbacks are going directly to the agencies concerned. Moreover, through e-Poll, the government agencies regularly call for recommendations in various issues. The Local Transport Authority, for instance, has been seeking the citizens’ view to name stations along the subway and bus line. The

National Environment Agency has been interested in the views and perceptions towards hawker centres and wet markets. However, merely ensuring the existence of these services is not sufficient alone to launch a successful project. On one hand, would-be beneficiaries must be informed as to how they can profit from these services. On the other hand, these services must be accessible to all citizens, regardless of social status, race, sex, religion or any other individual characteristic. Unless the universal access is ensured, only the “information have| May 2006

Telecenters in rural Malaysia The Titian Digital project in Malaysia is targeting the rural communities in the area to enhance their interaction with government agencies, subject-matter experts and other communities through telecenters. The project aims to bridge the digital divide and contribute to inclusion of rural citizens in governance issues. Furthermore, it is expectedthat telecenters would become one of the main channels for the ministry to communicate with the communities and vice versa. ones” would be able to participate actively in policy and decisionmaking.

Successful PPP — e-Mitra in Rajasthan e-Mitra is a successful case of public-private partnership, which brought a citizen-centred new e-Governance model. The project put special emphasis on strengthening the demand side of eGovernance. e-Mitra has been perceived as a product and it has been marketed accordingly. In order to increase the awareness of the public, e-Mitra stalls appeared in fairs in rural areas, and roadshows and publicity campaigns were organised. As a result of these efforts, the community became more involved and active in governance issues.

Status improvement and empowerment of the poor The resulting benefits of e-Governance include the improvement of the status of the poor through access to information and interactive communication. The empowerment is the expansion of assets and capabilities of people to participate in, negotiate with, influence, control, and hold accountable the institutions, which affect their lives. In reality, informed citizens are better equipped to take advantage of opportunities, access services, exercise their rights, and hold the state and nonstate actors accountable. e-Governance can provide participation opportunities for the poor in policy and decision-making and development/ economic opportunities affecting their life, which is critical to ensure that the usage of limited public resources builds on local knowledge and priorities, and brings about commitment to change. e-Governance is a paradigm shift that can help overcome the powerlessness, defencelessness and voicelessness of the poor, lead to an improvement in their the status and result in their empowerment on a sustainable basis. (The opinions and views expressed in the paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.)

About the authors: Mark Rittenbacher is a Japanese Government scholar-intern at the United Nations Centre for Regional Development, Nagoya, Japan. Teruhiko Yoshimura is a Ph.D. Researcher at the United Nations Centre for Regional Development, Nagoya, Japan

COUNTRY FOCUS THAILAND

e-Revenue in Thailand

Driving change through increased utilisation of ICT Jantima Sirisaengtaksin e-Government is one strategy of the Royal Thai Government. It is in this context that every government agency is therefore now moving forward to modernise its office by using information and communication technology (ICT) to provide move e-Services to the public. As one of the three tax collection agencies, the Revenue Department’s responsibility is to collect income tax and consumption tax, which account for twothirds of the national tax collection. The Revenue Department of Thailand is putting in extensive effort to modernise its organisation by using ICT as the main tool for bringing about revolution in tax administration and drive towards improved level of services, transparency and efficiency. e-Revenue is represented as the symbol of the Revenue Department’s technological innovation to drive forward towards modernisation across the entire organisation with increasing utilisation of ICT. “e-Revenue Strategies” is therefore a ICT led change strategy with three major components in the change that includes change in policy, change in operation, and change in officers’ perspective. Change per se would certainly not be possible without ICT. Our policy to set up and build on taxpayers’ central database has helped to expedite work process tremendously. At the same time monitoring and tracking engines in various systems have enabled officers to work more easily with the taxpayers using the current information. The Revenue Department has brought significant reforms in its operation by using the intranet system throughout its 956 offices nationwide, which also provides linkage to other offices such as Ministry of Finance and shares resources with both Customs Department and Excise 14

The Revenue Department of Thailand is aiming to modernise and bring about revolution in tax administration through the increased utilisation of ICT, and drive towards improved level of services, transparency and efficiency Department. E-Services are provided to the taxpayers on Internet such as e-filing, e- registration, and e-tax info. Web services is the latest innovation of eservices, which was implemented in August 2005. Regarding change in policy, the Revenue Department is focusing on providing more service to the taxpayers rather than performing only audits. The motto is “Pay right tax today, no back tax”. The Department is now concentrating more on current tax instead of scrutinizing on past tax payments. When change in operation system is taken into perspective, from manual system to online system, a number of real timework process are being implemented. The e-supervision system is an example that allows the officers to monitor tax

payment of taxpayers on a current basis. If they find any mistakes in the tax payment, they can give the advice to the taxpayers right away instead of audit. Finally, when change in officers’ perspective is considered, all the Revenue Department personnel are encouraged to utilise and adopt the usage of IT on a grand scale. Training and creating environment for using IT in work process and also for personnel benefit such as implementing the e- personnel system and e-payment system has also been undertaken. Nowadays e-Revenue is becoming the lifeline of the organisation. After revolutionising tax administration since year 2000, the Revenue Department has vastly improved its performance such as tax collection. www.egovonline.net |

COUNTRY FOCUS THAILAND

Since the year 2002, the tax collection growth has exceeded the nominal GDP growth by an average of 8-13 %. The Revenue Department received the Prime Minister’s awards in 2003 such as ‘Best Use of IT in Organizational Management’, ‘Best Online Service to Public’ and ‘Best IT Executive’. The Revenue Department also received the ‘e-Asia Award’ in the category of e-Business in the public (Asia Pacific for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business -AFACT) in Chinese Taipei in October 2003. In year 2005, the Department also received Truehit’s Awards 2005 for the best Government Web Service (www.rd.go.th). The Revenue Department is a large government organisation, with approximately 23,000 officers working in 956 offices across Thailand. A nationwide computer system and network supports the work of all offices and entire staff enabling the access of all databases online real time. The Revenue Department has provided a number of online services such as e-filing, e-revenue code, e-registration, e-taxinfo as well as other e-services including the providing of various information.

e-Filing e-Filing is one of our best solutions in tax administration revolution. The Revenue Department has introduced e-filing and payment system via the Internet that can be done by anyone, at anytime, from anywhere in the world. This e-Filing service initiative has been very successful

and popular. The number of taxpayers filing personal income tax returns via the Internet has increased sharply from 70,000 to 3.9 million in four years. e-Filing jumps from 0.5% of all personal income tax payers in the first year to 58% in the fourth year of e-filing (2005). Our e-filing target for the year 2006 is 6 million, which should account for 70% of all the personal income taxpayers.

Web services The Revenue Department provides the automatic information sharing service and aims to share online real time information by using web services technology. Web services can facilitate the business of the

private sector as well as government agencies. The Revenue Department’s web services have been implemented since August 2005 and continue to be further developed. The internal work process is developed via intranet. e-Office system was implemented in several areas such as e-mail, e-revenue code, and eregistration. Video Conference is used throughout the Revenue Department’s intranet. Several applications are provided on the intranet for all the officers of the Department for utilisation. e-Services of the Revenue Department have proved to be a success to both taxpayers and the officers. eRevenue enables the Revenue Department to provide successful e-services to the public. The Revenue Department is able to encourage the public’s utilisation of ICT and generate higher level of electronic interface with the increase of e-Filing from 0.1-54% and the provision of web services and automatic information sharing to the public. The Revenue Department has become the forefront of e-Government to provide better e-Services to the citizens. About the author: Jantima Sirisaengtaksin is Chief Information Officer, Revenue Department of Thailand

| May 2006

COUNTRY FOCUS THAILAND

SIPA

Developing Thai tourism c-Commerce service Prinya Krachangmol

oftware Industry Promotion Agency (Public Organisation) or SIPA has initiated Tourism c-Commerce Project since 2004, aimed at encouraging small and medium size tourism firms to adopt the use of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in order to increase their market opportunity as well as the competitive advantage. Over three years, the Royal Thai Government has specified the trade and export strategy by defining target industry to be focused on and set up criteria for supporting the tourism industry. SIPA, under the ICT ministry, has started developing Thai tourism c-Commerce service intermediary system or TCC system, and encouraging the entrepreneurs to do their business by using this system as the tool to create the tourism community. By using the system,

they can propose the products or services to the customers worldwide via Internet. The system consists of three parts â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Central Repository, Public Relation and Collaboration features. Central Repository, also known as Destination Management Information System, has been developed with several service functions like member registration, product searching and package creation. Furthermore, hotel reservation system, restaurant management system, car rental system, payment system etc. from third party can be connected in order to fulfill the service functions for anyone who access the system. Public Relation is the part that would serve PR service for all members who want to make advertisement via the effective media such as IPTV, mobile phone, emarketing etc. These channels will get the

Different types of tourism firms who joined the network and doing business on the collaboration basis

SIPA has initiated the development of Thai tourism c-Commerce service intermediary system to encourage entrepreneurs use the ICT to increase market opportunity and gain the competitive advantage

information from the system and relate directly to the tourists. The Collaboration feature is also included in the system providing for members who want to do business together under the concept of sharing basis. They can search for the interesting products and select for creating appropriate package that can propose to their target customers. Searching, Collaborative guideline and Packaging development are the main features. The members in the Thai Tourism cCommerce would be able to register their products in the system, the information of which can be accessed by any Travel agency, Tour Operator, Tourists or even suppliers from anywhere in the world via the website (www.thaitourismccomerce. com or www.thaitcc.com). They can make the reservation, create package especially the dynamic packaging that can customise for the particular customers. The system is beneficial for last minutes sales, which the member can set up for promotion very quickly and sell to customers in time, especially, airlines seat reservation and hotels room reservation etc. The system would include a variety of products and packages that would provide benefit to www.egovonline.net |

COUNTRY FOCUS THAILAND

all members as a whole. Through this, the members can have a better opportunity from cross selling or selling new packaging. However, as mentioned earlier, Tourism c-Commerce System itself did not include any reservation, payment system or other systems that was initially provided by software developers. SIPA rather encouraged the software developers to connect their systems with TCC network. Either the tourists or Travel Agency can book for hotel room, spa, restaurant etc. by accessing via third partyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s system. Two alternative ways to connect with TCC are linking by specified URL in TCC website or developing web service applications to enable peer-topeer connection. The target parties concerned with the system can be classified into groups that include travel suppliers who own hotels, spa, restaurants, golf course, car rental, souvenir shops etc. and also tour operators, who can create packaged tours and sell directly to tourists or travel agents. The travel agencies act as distribution channel. They are the sales representatives of the airlines, car, train ticketing etc. and other product form suppliers and sell to the tourists. The tourists can utilise the system by searching product information and booking or arrange their own packages. Service Providers are the software developers who provide system like Reservation, Retailing, eMarketing,

The functions available in Torism c-Commerce

Payment, CRM etc. to the suppliers or Travel agency.

Thai tourism system Thai tourism system is the network that allows tourism firms to connect together in order to do business activities together via www.thaitcc.com or www.thaitourism ccommerce.com. The system provides the necessary functions to support the business owners for registration, searching and package creation. They can gain benefits from the system on the collaborative commerce basis. The ultimate goal of the project is aimed to provide the one-stop service to the tourists from around the world and encourage them to come to Thailand since

they can use this system for inquiries, information, planning their trips and booking the services for their visit. In 2005, SIPA arranged a seminar regarding this issue for introducing the concepts and educate the entrepreneurs to acquaint them with the process and enable them to join tourism c-Commerce with tourism firms in Chiangmai, Phuket and Bangkok. More than 500 entrepreneurs participated and several of them showed keen interest in joining the network. The particular systems, V. 1 R 1.4, would be completed in July 2006, and aims to get implemented with the commencing of the mega event â&#x20AC;&#x153;Royal Flora Ratchaphruek 2006â&#x20AC;?, which will be held in Chiangmai from 1st November 2006 to 31st January 2007. More than two million tourists are expected to visit the expo during which problems of accommodations, transportations etc. might also come up. SIPA would accordingly provide the solutions by encouraging the small guesthouses, home stays, car owners, travel agencies etc., who can provide services to the tourists to utilise the systems that are able to serve tourists more efficiently. About the author: Prinya Krachangmol is Business Development Manager, Software Industry Promotion Agency (Public Organisation), Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, Thailand

| May 2006

COUNTRY FOCUS NEPAL

e-Governance in Nepal

Need for formulating a national strategic framework Ranjan Baral

he twentieth century brought huge development in the field of science and technology. Ironically, the same century, presented to new millennium, three billion people living in extreme poverty, 850 million people who are illiterate, more than 150 million children forced to work and 125 million who do not go to school. The major contribution to the above statistics is made by South Asia alone and Nepal’s share is proportionately high. The above statistics calls for a collaborative effort to raise the income and the physical quality of life of the indigent people in the region, which is at present possible through adopting e-Government in an effective manner to ameliorate the lot of the people and change their lives for good. The ICT (Information and Communication Technology) journey of Nepal started with the use of computer to process census data in 1971. The continuous growth in the sector can primarily be attributed to the private sector’s effort. Recent advances in ICT are providing unprecedented opportunities to the countries like Nepal in developing education, health, agriculture, tourism, trade and various other sectors. This has empowered the nation with the potential to overcome its geographical and economic challenges. IT Policy 2000 with the vision “to place Nepal on the global map of information technology within the next five years” shows that the government has quite well visualized the resultant benefits. Computerisation in manufacturing and other sectors range from 100% in multinational companies to 10% in state managed enterprises. Awareness of ICT especially in urban areas has been growing rapidly. In addition, a sizeable human resource of different standards and base are being produced. Though, the deployment of ICT in Nepal remains uneven and is limited to selected urban areas. Connectivity costs are considerably high for the majority of the population and other requisite infrastructures are not in place.

Nepal, in 1971, began its ICT journey with the use of computer to process census data. Since then the journey has only progressed opening windows of unprecedented opportunities for developing education, health, agriculture, tourism, trade and various other sectors

However in recent years, with the formation of High Level Commission for Information Technology (HLCIT), the government has tried to play the role of facilitator. ICT policy 2000 and the proposed amendment, Electronic Transaction Act (ETA), establishment of IT Park etc. are some encouraging developments. Moreover the Apex body has, rightly, taken the initiative to empower government through the use of ICT. Transforming traditional government to e-Government is really a challenging job, especially in the developing countries like Nepal, which cannot do away with investing in sectors like education, health and irrigation, and invest greatly in technology because of it being cash-strapped. However, no country can overlook the technological breakthroughs that are changing the human life rampantly. Nepal, though a late starter has already participated www.egovonline.net |

COUNTRY FOCUS NEPAL

within the Government structure to successfully absorb technology and to reorient itself; content creation in view of the skewed nature of Internet hosts and the heavy biasness towards English; and Electronic Transaction and Digital Signature Act not being able to address many issue related to statutory and monetary involvement through Internet.

National strategic Framework

in the global e-Governance race with computerised citizenship distribution in Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur followed by Kavre and Dhading. Work on Government accounting system, Document management system, Human resource management system has already started. The Government has placed 33 forms in the website. These are some steps in the path to e-Government. Lalitpur sub metropolis and Bharatpur municipality have developed web portal to offer various municipal services. For developing countries like Nepal, the global explosion of knowledge brings along with it opportunities as well as challenges. For example, poorer countries can appropriate and adapt the knowledge available for free or at very low cost. With communication costs dropping, transferring knowledge is cheaper than ever. So there now exists a unique opportunity for developing countries to tap the vast resources of the global information networks to propel them to greater wealth and prosperity and leap over knowledge gaps that have accumulated over centuries. But, developing countries can take advantage of the large stock of global knowledge only if they develop the technological competence to grab it.

Constraints in implementation Every sector has problems, which hinder its ability to make socioeconomic contributions. In effect, the ICT sector is also no exception. Nepal like every other developing country has various developmental challenges. The implementation of e-Governance in Nepal is being constrained by several factors. These include commitment of the top leadership throughout the process of implementing an e-Government application; connectivity including not only basic telecom infrastructure but also availability, costs of access, quality of service and cost-effective hardware and software; high investment in ICT infrastructure that is not feasible for the Government at present; competence | May 2006

Developing countries like Nepal have been inspired by the success stories of fast growing exports of ICT services and e-Government services in countries such as India, Taiwan, China, Korea, and Malaysia. As a result, many governments are formulating national ICT policies and e-Government strategies where ICT is treated mainly as an industry and an enabling tool. However, a lot has to be done in the country if only we want to realise e-Governance in reality. Formulation of a national strategic framework would be a first step in this direction. Only a well-planned model with well worked out measures to implement it would bring desired results and help achieve previously defined objectives. Hence, identifying avoidable fallacies in the e-Government projects should be the major objective of National Strategic Framework. There is immense need of national strategies being formulated incorporating the following mentioned for ICTenabled development. These include challenges and opportunities created by the ICT revolution, and their implications for development policy and strategies; understanding the strategic significance of ICT for enabling national development and poverty reduction strategies; mastering the use of ICT for competition and sustained development; a broad view of the promises and risks of the ICT revolution, and its potential impact on productivity, markets, organisations and education, among others; and a rationale for designing national strategies for e-development (or e-enhanced development), and the options, objectives and major thrusts for such strategies in support of economic growth, poverty reduction and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Hence, designing a national strategy for e-Governance would serve several roles such as raise awareness, resources and commitment to action; build coalitions for policy and institutional reforms; clarify roles, build public-private partnerships, and facilitate participation by all stakeholders including NGOs; focus scarce resources on exploiting ICT for national priorities and help sequence and phase complementary investments; complement market forces, promote societal applications, enable bottom up efforts, and ensure shared learning and scaling up; address the special needs and dynamics of promising segments of the ICT industry for export and 19

COUNTRY FOCUS NEPAL

economy-wide competitiveness; reorient the national innovation system to meet the substantial and cumulative technological learning requirements of ICT (as a general purpose technology); and address coordination failures, exploit network effects, and secure complementary investments to use ICT as empowerment and service delivery infrastructure. The development of National Strategic Framework should envisage the adopting of structured strategy, adapting preplanned and good architecture for e-Governance elements, creating a high level strategic body, basing strategies on local realities, setting well defined criteria, setting a clear collective, challenging and customized e-Government vision, and analysing critical success and failure factors.

Recommended steps e-Government is not simply a matter of giving government officials computers or automating old practices. Neither the use of computers nor the automation of complex procedures can bring about greater effectiveness in government or promote civic participation. Focusing solely on technological solutions will not change the mentality of bureaucrats who view the citizen as neither a customer of government nor a participant in decisionmaking. Instead e-Government utilises technology to accomplish reform by fostering transparency, eliminating distance and other divides, and empowering people to participate in the political processes that affect their lives. Transforming traditional government to e-Government is a challenge for Nepal. In order get the benefit of e-Governance the measures to be undertaken includes creating new processes and new relationships between the ruled and the ruler; developing strong political leadership backing e-Governance initiatives; attracting investment in ICT sector and to optimise investment of time and resources; avoiding traditional reluctance to work with each other and explore new relationships among government agencies as well as partnerships with the private sector and NGOs; promoting civic engagement; developing infrastructures; removal of legal or policy barriers; bridging digital divide; and increasing the number of eLiterates.

Proposed e-Governance projects Realising that slight delay is exponentially magnified as a huge lag, some pilot project should be immediately carried out in order to give hope to the people. The following major projects need to be worked upon and effectively implemented. eBhuktani (ePayment) — The Government should consider undertaking of eBhuktani or ePayment project that could function as one stop e-services centre. The objective should be to provide real time utility bill payments for water, electricity and telephone and various other services like filing taxes, registration of births/ deaths etc. eHaatBaazar — It would be an agricultural community development website utilising ICT to bring vital agricultural information (such as prices and biotechnological information) and services to farmers in Nepal. The eHaatBaazar, an Internetbased online resource, would bring information such as uptodate pricing and e-commerce distribution channels to remote locations. 20

eJanaBhela (ePublic Debate) — This project would invite citizens to participate online and interact with their national government. Through its official website, Nepal is trying to engage the citizens in the democratic process by providing them the opportunity to participate online in political discussions, and the opportunity to stay uptodate with the legislative developments. eProcurement System — This system would completely refurbish the underlying system of procurement by centralising all purchasing activities through a central website. This website would automatically send emails to private companies registered on the system when contracts come up for bid and takes bids online. Not only the new system will streamline procurement, it will also create new methods of oversight and accountability. Website against corruption — This would be a step towards fight against corruption through ICT. The website would publish on the Internet the names of officials suspected of extorting bribes and the disciplinary actions taken against them. It would also demonstrate the process reform by creating a new method for dealing with corruption – exposure and public censure. eSwasthyaKendra (eHealth Center) — This would be a consortium using information exchange to improve healthcare services to the rural poor. The project would be based on a small coordinating central hub and organise uptodate health information for communities that send it a steady stream of data from the countryside. These field centres would be spread throughout the rural regions. Doctors and healthcare professionals would thus have instant access to vital information and statistics. Kiosk-based e-Government for rural Nepal — The project would bring e-Government services to rural mass using kiosks, run and maintained by entrepreneurs who charge a small fee for access. Besides, rural telecentres should be established in all 4,000 villages and Internet access should be declared as a basic right.

Conclusion Transformation of a traditional government to an e-Government may take a long time, so long that the issues discussed may seem obsolete when we reach the real implementation phase. However, efforts towards popularising the use of ICT and implementation of effective e-Government should be undertaken without losing more time. At the same time while undertaking this phenomenal task it should also be ensured that a national consensus be reached at before adopting the proposed recommendations and proposed projects as mainstream elements. All the stakeholders should act collaboratively and Government should be the front-runner. Many amendments may be needed in due course. But they should be pre-requisites to move into action and not mere policy plays.

About the author: Ranjan Baral is Executive Member, Forum for Information Technology (FIT), Nepal

www.egovonline.net |

COMMENTARY

International Academy of CIO

Towards global CIO and ICT development Jirapon Tubtimhin

or the people, the term CIO or Chief Information Officer is today no longer a new word. CIO Magazine – CIO.com, defines a meaningful elaboration for ‘CIO’. It defines thus: “CIO provides senior executives insights and in-depth knowledge of information technology.” To date, CIOs, both in public and private sectors, have gradually realised their mandates, which are increasingly complicated. ICT and eGovernment applications nowadays are poised to citizen’s demand that requires an integration of business functions of intra and inter agencies. This phenomenon forces CIOs to join hands through a proper channel or forum where they can organise networking, collaboration and cooperation for sharing of valuable resources, technology and knowledge as well as for building some joint efforts to fulfil their works and to serve their community as a whole. When business domain started to recognise the CIO’s role, it was when business has learned how a big role the ICT especially on e-Commerce could play in the business growth. The same analogy has evolved in the public sector when government agencies have experienced from the success of the e-Commerce, and witnessed the contribution of CIO. Soon after this awareness, the value of government CIO’s role and responsibility has been more recognised when e-Government development has emerged in public sector in every corner of the world. Written in the ‘Executive Summary’ of the ninth annual ITAA survey of federal CIOs in December 1998, quoted: “As we approach the end of the century, federal CIOs are becoming more visible in their roles as information technology (IT) leaders for their agencies. The gradual maturing of the CIO position as well as the heightened emphasis on Year 2000 has combined to increase the focus on many CIOs within their agencies and throughout the government.” In November 2004, APEC Ministers welcomed the report of ‘Implementing the e-APEC Strategy - Progress and Recommendations for Further Action’, which incorporated the importance of CIOs. “Stepping up Integrated e-Government Services indicated an important key issue among others. IT capacity building is important for digital opportunities in eGovernment and the training of CIOs should be a foundation for further human capacity building efforts,” the Report quoted regarding CIOs. Recent interviews conducted by the eGovmonitor.com also confirmed the important roles of CIOs. Relevant responses especially to the following question ‘What insight and 22

suggestions would you have for other government CIO’s in their respective countries?’ have revealed some significant inputs for CIOs. Wu Choy Peng, CIO, Government of Singapore, commented, “The Government CIO cannot operate alone. He/She needs to actively engage the various stakeholders in government, at all levels. The Government CIO is in a unique position to create synergy across agencies, work with them to implement processes and systems that integrate across agencies and deliver integrated one-stop services to citizens and businesses. The Government CIO needs to create governance structures that allow agencies to work together on common and shared systems and services, promote coordination and collaboration, with the ultimate goal of realizing the vision of a “networked government” a most challenging and exciting job.” Ian Watmore, UK Government CIO and UK Head of eGovernment, reaffirmed that his top priorities were to create a joined-up business led IT strategy for Government and build a professional IT community within Government. While, Helen McDonald, CIO, Government of Canada, said, “I would recommend that countries consider adopting a citizen-driven service improvement strategy based on citizen consultation. I would also suggest that countries develop inter-jurisdictional strategies, aimed at integrated service delivery, and lower cost delivery through collaboration across the public sector.” Lastly, Karen Evans, Director, US Federal CIOs Council, said, “We work through various agencies and offices, such as the General Services Administration, inter-governmental office, www.egovonline.net |

COMMENTARY

who works with groups like the National Association of State CIOs to provide updates to state and local officials on our strategic direction. Additionally, we have members on the CIO Council from both state and local associations. I would encourage them to be strong leaders, to measure and track results, to look outside the government sector for best practices.” The world’s CIO communities could gain a few meaningful points from the implications of the above mentioned. Firstly, CIOs need collaboration across agencies, among central and local governments as well as public and private sectors. Secondly, CIOs need more outward looking so that, among themselves, they can capture and share best practices, experiences and know-how. To this end, building up ICT-CIO professional community as an essential element for collaboration among CIOs and stakeholders on ICT development would help filling up the gaps domestically, regionally and globally. These are exciting times for executives, CIOs, ICT experts and academia, with a prevailing observation and concerns that have been mentioned above, to think about how CIOs would lead their agencies into the future. How well they would be able to deliver enhanced leadership in the future and how well they manage their worries and problems. This notion has been coming up among the concerned parties to think about forming up a lending hand forum for CIOs worldwide. With this idea bearing in mind, leading economies on CIO development, quoted from the Waseda University’s survey on ‘World ranking on e-Government Measurement’ under the categorised indicator of ‘CIO’, comprising the USA, Japan, Switzerland, and Thailand have agreed to start the ‘International Academy of CIO’ or ‘IAC’.

The prime objective of the IAC would be to collaborate among the organized chapters on R&D and capacity building for CIO and ICT development. In this early stage, Waseda University is secretariat for Japan and Northeast Asia Chapter, which was already inaugurated on 19th January 2006. National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) is for Thailand Chapter as well as Southeast and Southwest Asia, and was inaugurated on 31st March 2006. George Mason University will represent Americas Chapter, and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology will represent Europe, Africa and Middle East Chapter. These chapters are incorporated as Federal IAC under which more member chapters will be encouraged to join for regional and global cooperation. The first international conference of Federal IAC will be held in Tokyo, Waseda University during June 26-28, 2006 under the theme ‘Global eGovernance’. The IAC’s objectives includes to establish academic standards based on its research on social phenomenon relating to ICT by elucidating the gradual process of its cause and effect, social and technical relations as well as the framework between the society and ICT on this Information Age; to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas among Academy members, professionals and individuals in academic, business and government professions who are highly concerned with issues related to CIO; to foster the development of best practices in CIO and CIO Councils with the goal of furthering good eGovernment; and to introduce a global standard of CIO model by uniting academic resources with practical case studies to strengthen and enhance international competitiveness of the industry for the new Information Age. Among several activities of IAC includes organising workshops, conventions, symposia, lectures, seminars and meetings; conducting academic researches and surveys; issuing publications such as journals and proceedings; cooperation with related Academies whenever possible to exchange resources and carry out joint research projects; offering opportunities to young and top scholarly researchers actively engaged in the field of CIO including postgraduate students; undertaking global projects; and carrying out any other worldwide activities to accomplish objectives of IAC. The founders of Federal IAC believe that with the clearly defined missions and activities, the IAC will be able to serve CIO community for their continuing efforts for ICT and e-Government development through an effective collaboration among CIOs, academia and expertise parties both in the public and private sectors. Capacity building for CIO and ICT personnel is also its main focus. The world ICT development community is now ready to witness this substantial move on CIOs towards the ultimate goal of building up a unique information society. About the author: Jirapon Tubtimhin is Director, Secretariat Office, International Academy of CIO, Thailand

| May 2006

COMMENTARY

Korea

Digital divide and strategic priorities of national e-Strategy Jeongwon Yoon ‘Digital Divide’ is increasingly being recognized as one of major obstacles to the economic development for developing countries. Needless to say, digital divide between developed countries and developing countries is becoming worse. At higher levels of education, 99.6% of the populations of Africa and South Asia were unable to avail the use of the Internet at the beginning of the 21st century. Clearly, there is a ‘digital divide’ that slows the growth rates in the developing economies when compared with those in developed countries. However, looking at the statistics analysed by monitoring institutions such as UN, eReadiness shows the seriousness of digital divide between developed countries and developing countries. According to the UN e-readiness index, ranking 191 countries with scale of 0.0 to 1.0, most of the developing countries are far behind the developed country group. To show the seriousness of digital divide, I plotted the ereadiness data with purchasing power parity of each nation. Surprisingly, the seriousness of digital divide is shown more critical than I thought. However, several players have shown superb achievement such as Chile, Korea, and Estonia. National Strategy for ICT, or sometimes called as “National e-Strategy” may be in place to contribute to national growth and reduce the gap of digital divide. According to World Bank’s study, a country needs to have a significant stock of ICT or users in place and perhaps be more advanced in using that stock for economic transformation. In Korea, a comprehensive national e-strategy has been a key driver in the miracle rebound of its economy from financial crisis. The ICT industry’s contribution to GDP growth rose from a mere 4.5% in 1990 to an astounding 50.5% in 2000. As such, countries need to embed ICT into their overall development strategies. At the World

PPP vs. e-Readiness in 2005

Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in December 2005, leaders of the world made a commitment to develop national estrategies. Article 8 of the WSIS Plan of Action states that the “Development of national e-Strategies should be encouraged by all countries by 2005”. It is clear that many countries have put their effort on promoting “National e-Strategy” as a way of enhancing the economic growth. Many studies mentioned the importance of national e-strategy that is vital contribution factor for ICT-enabled development. Recently we conducted a survey on strategic priorities of national e-strategy. Thirty-six experts participated from eight countries and three international organisations. All of the selected experts had experiences in e-Government and national e-strategy. Based on participants’ background and experiences, participants were grouped as “A”, “B”, and “C” group. Participants in “A” group were asked to survey on prioritisation of CSFs for each group of developed country, developing country, and under-developed country. “A” group participants had international experiences in consulting and/or analysing estrategy. On the other side, “B” group participants were asked to survey for developing countries. “C” group was for underdeveloped countries. Both surveyed groups agreed on the need for developing countries to emphasize more on “Political leadership”, “ICT Infrastructure”, “Funding”, and “Human Capital”. These strategic priorities may differentiate the national e-strategy of developing countries from the e-strategy of developed countries. As mentioned above, national e-strategy would certainly play a critical role in reducing digital divide, but developing countries need to pay more attention on strategic priorities to practice it effectively. About the author: Jeongwon Yoon is Director, National Computerisation Agency, Korea

www.egovonline.net | CSF (Critical Success Factor) weighted by Expert Group A and B

NEWS REVIEW

MIDDLE EAST

facilitate and enable rapid adoption of various e-Government concepts and applications.”

UAE to launch eservices for visas, residence permits

PwC bags Bahrain’s e-Government contract

The UAE Interior Ministry recently announced that it would soon introduce e-services during the next few months for visas and residence permits, which would be available on the Internet and through UAE embassies abroad in addition to shopping malls and petrol stations across the country. Brigadier Mohammed Salim bin Awaida Al Khaily, Director of Naturalisation and Residency at the Interior Ministry, during a presentation of the e-services and solutions, said, “The eservices and solutions system would expedite and simplify procedures and ease burden on both the people and employees. This unique project, which is being implemented in phases, is the first of its kind in the region, if not the world.” The UAE nationals, expatriate residents, and the public and private sectors would be able to avail the e-services. The system would enable them to submit different naturalisation and residency applications through the Internet and UAE embassies abroad. Significantly, the e-services system would also help detect any forgeries in travel documents. Various payment options such as through smart credit cards, e-Dirham, banking transfers and deduction from the client’s bank account by the accredited bank are also available. It is learnt that through the new e-services the employee would be able to process 2,000 transactions daily instead of only 100 transactions by the traditional system.

In Saudi Arabia, public sector adopt IT usage vigorously According to 2005 Net Impact study co| April 2006

sponsored by Cisco Systems and the Saudi Ministry for Communications and Information Technology, the public sector departments in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have adopted the use of Information Technology significantly thereby boosting customer satisfaction by 44% in 2005. “The number of enquiries that employees were able to resolve had risen by 38% and the number of citizens using services had gone up by 34%, all higher figures than found in Europe. At the same time, the country’s public sector outpaces European countries in the adoption of technologies such as content caching (seen in 50% of cases), and remote disaster recovery sites (45%). Saudi Arabian departments were also leading the way in the adoption of technology ‘best practices’, with 95% using finance and accounting applications and 79% having a Web interface for workforce collaboration and training,” the study pointed out. Altogether, 38 Saudi Arabian public sector organisations were interviewed, 52% of which were in government and 48% in healthcare. Mohamed J. Mulla, Saudi Arabia Minister of Communications and Inormation Technology, said, “This research clearly demonstrates that various public sector organisations in Saudi Arabia are advanced in many aspects of applications, networking and technology. These examples of best practices are focusing on accelerating the speed at which their organisations operate and on expanding citizen, private sector services capacity using existing resources. We must all aim to follow these examples to drive the productivity of our nation and keep on investing in our infrastructure and our citizens. For these reasons, Saudi Arabia has launched a national e-Government program (www.yesser.gov.sa) to

The Kingdom of Bahrain has commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to develop e-Government strategies and managing advanced executive programmes. Shaikh Ahmed bin Ateyatalla Al Khalifa, Cabinet Affairs Minister and Central Informatics and Organisation head, said, “Pricewaterhouse-Coppers would map out a long-term strategy, overhaul governmental procedures and assess the current e-infrastructure. The firm would also conduct a comprehensive survey on the best ways to boost electronic services,” and added, “Work is also set to start soon on designing an electronic gate as part of a medium-term track. The e-gate would provide three basic services: process traffic fines, renew expired driving licences and register job-seekers.”

The e-Government project would be implemented in four phases. All information would be released on government websites with procedural clarification in the first phase, while the second phase would enable citizens to process all applications via government websites that includes the printing of application forms and later submitting them in person or via the post. Under the third phase, all government transactions would be e-processed via the Internet, mobile phones or any other eoutlet. Finally, in the fourth phase all government departments would be unified through the e-gate. 25

NEWS REVIEW

Doha Bank’s 10th eBranch opens

Doha Bank in the State of Qatar recently announced the opening of its 10th eBranch at the Abu Hamour petrol station in Messaimeer. The ergonomically designed branch, which has Dbank dual ATMs (for both withdrawal and deposit), Dbank Online (Internet banking) and Dbank Dial (phone banking) besides tellers, would offer all banking services to small and large companies and business establishments in the Old Rayyan area.

According to Lootah, the Dubai eGovernment has adopted a four-step implementation approach involving Strategy, Process, People and Technology. The ongoing e-Government projects include provision of online planning permits, building permits and environmental approvals for industrial projects, waste management services among several others.

The FMMS portal, which features different applications that automate processes such as maintenance work requests and approvals, payments, preventive maintenance etc., would provide customers, contractors and consultants with support and technical information related to their business transactions with the Maintenance and Operations Directorate in a more efficient, beneficial, and collaborative manner. The BLS Portal, which would contain information about the services provided by the Building Permits Directorate, regulations and guidelines for building, planning, laws, and fees, would enable consultants, building contractors and owners to obtain building permits, licenses for building and construction works, and various other licenses online.

By 2007, Dubai Municipality’s 90% of services to be online

Dubai Municipality’s eGovernment assessed at Map Middle East 2006

Aiming to benefit customers and help save time and resources, Dubai Municipality (DM) has decided to put 90% of its services online, and is currently started reviewing its online service strategy to increase the number of clients. Hussain Lootah, Acting Director-General of Dubai Municipality, said, “We have entered phase four of the e-Government initiative and are having a total revamp of e-government IT infrastructure. The Municipality hopes to reach its target of having 90% of its services online and at least 50% online transactions by 2007, and accordingly reviewing our strategy.”

During the recently held Map Middle East 2006, Eng. Hussain Nasser Lootah, Acting Director General of Dubai Municipality, highlighted Dubai Municipality’s eGovernment initiative. Speaking at the Plenary Session on the third day of the Conference, Lootah, while presenting a paper on Dubai Municipality’s eGovernment, said, “Dubai Municipality has so far achieved more than 1.6 million online transactions and collected over AED14mn (US$3.81mn) through epayments. The Municipality now offer 381 Online services and has over 17,000 registered business users.”

Lootah pointed out, “As part of its fourth phase, the Municipality has launched a new set of online services as part of its e-Government initiative, taking the total number of online services to 381. The new services include some 42 services related to the Building Licensing Section of the civic body’s Building Department in such fields as obtaining permission for amendments to existing buildings and licences for excavation work. There would be no manual services once all the 101 services of the building department were available online by the end of this year.”

R. Seetharaman, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, said, “Doha Bank’s strategy to tap new localities to introduce electronic banking has resulted in eBranches being introduced in key areas. The Messaimeer eBranch will play an important role in usage of electronic channels of banking.”

Lootah added, “Dubai Municipality has re-engineered, developed and deployed the bilingual DM portal, which offers 93 informational services and 238 transactional services with an average of 17,000 transactions per week. The portal offers engineering services for contractors and contractors, laboratory testing services, services for food traders and food handlers, public services such as parking fines payment, etc. It has a secure online registration service, online payment facility through credit cards and e-Dirham Card. Besides the portal has also introduced email and SMS as customer communication channels and launched free e-Service Training programme for external customers.”

Two e-services portals launched by Abu Dhabi Municipality

As part of its ongoing e-Government initiatives, Abu Dhabi Municipality recently announced the official launch of two major e-services portals — the Facilities Maintenance and Management Systems (FMMS) Portal and the Building Permits System (BLS) Portal, at the Construct Abu Dhabi 2006 exhibition. The two portals have been initiated under the Department of Municipalities and Agriculture Computerisation Project.

www.egovonline.net |

SOLUTIONS FOR BUSINESS PROCESS & DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

Newgen BPM Solutions for eGovernance

NEWGEN helps streamline government organizations with its end-to-end Business Process Management Technology. NEWGEN BPM solution helps in e-governance by improving turnaround time and meeting citizen charters, effective management of resources, improved efficiencies and effectiveness, consistent government responses and quality of administration, reduction in delays and lead-time. NEWGEN BPM solution acts as a catalyst for transforming government agencies and the way they work by automating and simplifying processes, enforcing best practices, improving quality and productivity, fostering collaboration internally and externally with other agencies, local government bodies, private sector and citizens. Some of our prestigious customers: AITI, Brunei; JPKE, Brunei; Comptroller and Auditor General of India; Department of Administrative Reform and Public Grievances, India; Department of Metrology, Thailand; Indian Army; Indian Navy; Industrial Estate Association of Thailand (IEAT); King Abdulaziz City of Science, Saudi Arabia; Mecca and Madina Organisation, Saudi Arabia; Ministry of Commerce, Thailand; National Prawn Company, Saudi Arabia; SEC, Philippines; Ship Building Corporation, India; WHO; Office of Ombudsan, Philippines; Bureau of Customs Philippines; Government of Housing Bank, Thailand; Lippo Bank, Indonesia; Cathay United Bank, Taiwan; CitiFinancials, Thailand, Malasiya, Indonesia; Hua Nan Bank, China; Uniliver, China, Singapore, Australia; and Digital China, Hong Kong.

Newgen Software Technologies Ltd. A-6, Satsang Vihar Marg, Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi 110 067 Tel: +91-11-26964733, 26963571, 26856871 Email: newgen@newgen.co.in

Newgen Software is a leader in Business Process and Document Management Solutions using Workflow and Imaging. The company is among the Top 10 product companies from India. Newgen Software has a successful track record of deploying mission critical solutions in Banking, Insurance, Telecom, and Government Organizations in more than 25 countries across the globe. The company is known as the fastest implementer of large enterprise solutions.

Newgen Software Inc. Tel: +1-703-749-2855 Tel: +1-510-794-6724 Email: info@newgen.net

Newgen Software, over last 14 years, has built comprehensive product range for Business Process Management, Workflow, Document Management, Image Capture, and Data Extraction to offer end-to-end solutions. Newgen Software is a Certified ISO 9001:2000 and SW-CMM Level 4 company, and employs more than 600 persons world over.

w w w. n e w g e n s o ft . c o m

COMMENTARY

e-Government development

Visible and invisible barriers Mohammad Lagzian and Trevor Wood-Harper

he advent of the Internet has increased the opportunities for governments to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to achieve objectives such as improved planning and monitoring mechanisms, cost savings, and more effective administration and delivery of certain public services. As a result of this, the majority of governments have set the realisation of e-Government as one of their primary targets. Although the benefits of e-Government, in theory, are many, the successful development of these systems is not simple or cheap, particularly for developing countries with scarce resources. There have been several studies, which have attempted to recognize the obstacles and drivers for successful e-Government implementation. However, there are still great challenges and concerns to be considered and resolved. Several issues dogging the successful e-Government implementation require urgent consideration. These issues include the high rate of eGovernment projects failure, the complexity of e-Government development due to complexity of government administration, the existing ambiguity among people who are involved in developing e-Government especially in the developing world, and very few studies being conducted in the research area in an in-depth manner.

The nature of the traditional model of government bureaucracy, large size of government and the nature of government monopoly highlight the importance of investigation of eGovernment development in Iran, an Islamic country and one of the most ancient and richest bureaucratic systems in the world

Barriers hindering e-Government In most recent studies, different authors have classified eGovernment barriers in a variety of ways based on the purpose of study and applied research methodology of the research and level of e-Government maturity in research context. However, with the purpose of filling up a part of this gap, this research has attempted to examine a wide range of existing studies in both developed and developing countries with special focus on developing countries environments to produce a generic list of barriers to successful e-Government development. A number of studies have been conducted over the recent years to categorise the main areas of e-Government development barriers. As such, according to the study there are six major categories that should be considered to examine the barriers of e-Government development. This includes Organisational barriers, Political barriers, Cultural barriers, Legislative and regulatory barriers, Resources barriers and Technological barriers. Organisational barriers are those barriers that are inherent in organisationsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; structures and inter and intra relationships to hinder the transition of e-Government. Political barriers are those barriers where someone or some group of political leaders has to make the decisions and have the will to carry them out. Cultural barriers are those barriers where organisational culture factors such as attitudes, beliefs, values and behaviours learned by individuals themselves, or passed on to them by members of 28

their social environment influence the implementation of eGovernment. Legislative and regulatory barriers are those issues that concerns about privacy protection and security of personal data as a high priority to e-Government implementation. Resources barriers are the ones where e-government implementation may get hampered due to short of resources such as skilled manpower, funds and other resources. Technological barriers are those barriers that are related to lack of technologies as a major bottleneck to the implementation and maintenance of e-Government. www.egovonline.net |

COMMENTARY

Iran as a case study The main purpose of this study was to examine the factors that either facilitate or impede the e-Government initiatives based on e-Government senior officials’ perceptions in Iran. Especially, how senior officials perceive the barriers and driving forces of e-Government development. For the purpose of this study, barriers are those factors that hamper e-Government development and drivers (or driving forces) are those factors that push e-Government into happening. Based on other researchers studies in different context, a theoretical framework was developed, which aimed to better understanding of eGovernment development process. Then the framework was used as a guide during data collection and analysis process. The chosen research method was a qualitative case study method. This was achieved by conducting of in-depth interviews with 28 senior officials who are involved in e-Government projects across the country as the major source of data collection. A key feature of this method was to draw insights from key experts groups at three different levels that included ICT policymakers, senior officials in public organisations and IT experts from Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) as well as private sector. In addition to interviews, the researchers attempted to obtain other required information through reviewing relevant documents. After the data collection process, as a data analysis strategy, this research has used grounded theory techniques to present research findings as prominent amongst the various research strategies recommended for interpretive research. Moreover, the researcher also used, the Nvivo, qualitative software program, to organise the collected data.

These barriers are briefly discussed into three subcategories. The first sub-category of the traditional model of government bureaucracy barriers is the problem of dominant mindsets (or thoughts) among bureaucrats within public administration system. The interviewees have declared that the existing bureaucrats’ perception of government-citizens’ relationship is a key obstacle. They believe that bureaucrats’ beliefs and thoughts about government-citizens’ relationship are in contradiction with the recognised purposes of e-Government. Another sub-category of the traditional model of government bureaucracy is structural barriers. These are inherent structural features of government, which decelerate the process of e-Government development. The barriers such as the complexity of government nature and its structure, large size of government, the nature of government monopoly, and slowness of privatisation process are major findings in this regard.

Results The research results concerning e-Government barriers are being considered here. The obtained results concerning e-Government barriers have been categorized into six categories — Organisational barriers, Political barriers, Cultural barriers, Resources barriers, Legal and regulatory barriers and Technological barriers. Organisational barriers: Based on research evidence, major organisational findings challenges of e-Government development in research context are placed into two general groups — the perceived challenges related to traditional model of government bureaucracy, which affects e-Government development transformation; and the perceived in-progress (underway) barriers of e-Government related to transformation and implementation stages. Taking into consideration this point that e-Government is not only government computerisation but is more significantly about transforming the way governments interact with the governed, it would be quite clear that this transformation demands fundamental changes in the traditional model of government bureaucracy as well as government-citizens relationship. Thus, research results provide evidence that the traditional model of government bureaucracy can slow down the process of e-Government transformation. | May 2006

The third sub-category of the traditional model of government bureaucracy is related to operational (or managerial) barriers. These include inefficient and lengthy procedures popular in traditional administration, which overshadow the eGovernment development process. The major managerial barriers identified in this study include inefficient administrative processes as well as Non-standard business processes, lack of a seniority system and managerial proficiency, instability of managerial positions, lack of documentation culture, avoidance of making high-risk decisions, and weakness of policy implementation. The researchers have tried to illustrate existing inconsistencies between the gained outcomes of traditional model of government bureaucracy based on interviewees’ perceptions with expected organisational preconditions for eGovernment applications. A citizen-centric based approach has been identified as one of the essential preconditions for developing e-Government. The dominant approach of government bureaucrats is not only incompatible with a citizencentric approach, claimed as one vital purposes of e-Government development, but also bureaucratic approach tend to be either a sovereign approach or a functional-centric approach. 29

COMMENTARY

In spite of this reality that a transparent government is an expression of e-Government, existing environment of concerns about transparency in administration system is in contrast with transparent government acclaimed by e-Government. Whereas, systematic thinking and strategic planning are considered as an essential requirement of e-Government development, premature and precipitant actions for developing e-Government from senior officials’ side who believed they should move quickly in this way, was the consequence of unclear strategy and ambitious targets based on temporary efforts and non systematic thinking and planning. Political barriers: Despite the fact that prior studies have highlighted the importance of a strong political awareness and commitment as one of essential elements to initiate any movement toward e-Government development, the results of this study reveals three major sub-categories of political barriers — political unawareness, insufficient political involvement and problems related to the policy making process. Even though, levels of awareness among senior officials and policy makers range from well informed to illiterate, the interview evidence reveal that the general level of senior officials’ awareness regarding e-Government values and its applications is low but growing. Cultural barriers: Taking into consideration the overlap between cultural barriers and the dominant mindset of bureaucrats as a sub-category of the traditional model of government bureaucracy, the most important recognised cultural barriers in this study include resistance to change, inappropriate cultural infrastructures, wrong attitude about technology, for instance having a technology-driven approach from civil servant side and negative views for using Internet with distrust to new technology from citizens side, and pessimistic approach of people both inside and outside of public sector regarding the achievement of government plans. Resources barriers: The identified resources barriers can be classified into two main subcategories — human and financial resources. Major human barriers of e-Government development in research context include lack of IT skilled staff in spite of availability of huge number of young well educated people as a strong point for e-Government development in Iran, lack of hybrid mangers with sufficient specialty in all required areas, and inappropriate use of outsourcing strategy to provide required IT qualified manpower. However, whilst the common perception is that there is no serious problem in terms of financial resources, many respondents believe that budget mismanagement is a more serious problem than insufficient financial resources. Legal and regulatory barriers: The research results reveal that the concerns related to security, privacy, and regulatory issues in developing countries are entirely different from eGovernment leading countries. Since developing countries are still at early stages of their e-Government initiatives, they have not investigated these issues thoroughly. However, the major perceived legislative and regulatory barriers by senior officials include inadequate cyber law measures such as lack of copyright law, e-Signature and e-Payment citizens’ mistrust to new system and technology, government concern about protection of public information which must be exchanged on the web. 30

Technological barriers: In response to questions about technological barriers of e-Government development, many interviewees have explicitly highlighted that the major problem for e-Government development in an Iranian context is not a technological problem. In fact, it can be said that there is a kind of consensus between all IT senior officials involved in eGovernment on identifying technological barriers as a second priority problems in comparison with organisational and political barriers. Besides, while many senior officials by acknowledging considerable advancement of ICT infrastructures during recent years believe that technological problems are not major issues for developing e-Government and can be resolved in a short period of time, others by admitting aforementioned point state that existing technological infrastructures are not sufficient for e-Government development.

Conclusion e-Government has been identified as one of the top priorities for governments across the world. Most countries do not want to be left behind the others in this movement. Despite the numerous advantages of e-Government, there are many challenges and concerns that must be taken seriously by governments if they want to exploit the benefits e-Government offers. The research findings indicated that there is a close relationship among barriers stemming from the traditional model of government bureaucracy as a major barrier with other categories. For instance, policymakers and senior officials who are currently in charge of policy making are considered as output of the organisational system and bureaucratic model of government. Also, the influence of lack of seniority system in administration system on level of political awareness is quite clear. Likewise, there is more and less the same linkage among bureaucratic model of government and other barriers such as cultural, resources, legal and regulatory and technological. The themes that emerged from these findings indicate that e-Government barriers are clustered around existing traditional bureaucratic system. In fact, the conclusion that can be drawn from this research is that the challenges related to the traditional model of bureaucracy of government, both mindsets — institutional and managerial, are considered as the core of all other barriers, which are building blocks of e-Government in Iran. The results of this research revealed that the quality of existing bureaucratic system in each society is drastically affecting e-Government process development. About the authors: Mohammad Lagzian is a PhD candidate in the School of Informatics, University of Manchester UK and lecturer, Department of Management, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran.

Trevor Wood-Harper is Professor of Information Systems in the School of Informatics, University of Manchester, UK

www.egovonline.net |

NEWS REVIEW

WORLD NeGSt e-Government project on course in Nigeria

Regarding the funding of the project, Agunloye said that a major operator in the banking sector is already discussing with NeGSt on the possibility of funding the PHCN project. He assured that because the projects are moneymaking projects, funding them is not a problem.

Recycling of eGovernment solutions in Italy In an effort to promote recycling of eGovernment solutions in Italy, the CNIPA (Centro Nazionale per l’Informatica nella Pubblica Amministrazione) has invited local and regional bodies to submit

Dr. Olu Agunloye, former Minister and executive vice chairman of National eGovernment Strategies Limited (NeGSt), has dispelled rumours about a major internal rift within his organisation that is spearheading the Nigerian national eGovernment initiative saying that the e-Government project is on the course and is very well up and running. Organisations and agencies such as Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), and Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) have already signed agreements with NeGSt while others also are contemplating a tie-up. Moves are also afoot to rope in the Nigeria Police to discuss implementation of ePolice in the country. Agunloye said, “NeGSt has integrated on the platform all government agencies, all states, all parastatals, all banks, along with all important facilities in the country. The company can only move forward as there is no looking back. You can see this on www.enigeria.com.ng. We also have specific solutions like eNaira, the chatroom, where you can exchange information on that platform, eSchool, eExamination, eHealth and Telemedicine, all on that platform. The news is also on that platform. On a daily basis, we have new things being added to that platform,” and further added, “When these programmes do commence, special advertisements and campaigns would be embarked upon jointly by NeGst and those of the other agencies. But the formal launching of the portal itself would be at a time the board would determine at its next meeting.” | May 2006

projects for ‘recycling’ the solutions outlined in the catalogue, with a budget of EUR60mn (US$72.88mn) to co-finance successful candidates. The catalogue of e-Government solutions offers online details of 264 schemes developed by 84 different projects, within the first phase of Italy’s national e-Government plan, and covers a range of areas including services, technical infrastructure and organisation. For ease of consultation, the catalogue uses five means of classification — by theme, type, region, coordinating body and project acronym. The aim of the initiative is to enable public administrations actively engage in developing local e-Government projects

LSE expert term e-Government services ‘undemocratic’ Ian Angell Professor Ian Angell, Information systems expert from the London School of Economics, has termed e-Government services as being “undemocratic”. Angell’s remarks came during a technology event organised by Nortel. “I do not mean to criticise the technology behind ePeter Kelly Government, but rather the expectation that the general public would be able to take full advantage of the technology. The functionality may be five-star, but 20% of the population are functionally illiterate. The idea that education brings everybody is fatuous,” Angell said. He further said, “This drive towards economy would disenfranchise a section of the population that required interaction with front office staff to access services. What is pushing government? It is trying to save money by cutting front office personnel — but people who can’t access the technology need front office staff to interact with. The technology is undemocratic because it gives the advantage to more functionally literate people. It is not democratic — quite the opposite. The citizen is not a customer, and the relationship between citizen and state is different. It’s problematic to build the relationship as if it is commercial. Guardians and commercial organisations have different sets of ethics, which are not necessarily compatible. What concerns me is that the commercialisation of government will lead to systemic corruption — corruption through the system” However, Peter Kelly, Nortel Enterprise’s European president, contested Angell’s views. Kelly said, “Governments would be able to provide “five-star” citizenship services, such as letting the public renew passports or access the NHS online, through e-Government. We’re talking about the same concepts for commercial organisations and joined-up e-government. Undoubtedly, security is a concern, and needed to be built into e-Government systems from the beginning. The information needs to be accessible to the right people in the right places. The technological capabilities of the private sector can be applied to government sectors, but this requires government functions to agree on functionality and procedure. They would have to be harmonised to function properly.” 31

NEWS REVIEW

while benefiting from the experience of others. Simultaneously, the initiative is expected to promote a wider and more consistent distribution of e-Government facilities throughout Italy, cut the cost and time needed to put them into practice, and encourage cooperation between local administrations in building interoperable networks. Currently, the Regional Competence Centres (CRCs) are organising seminars in Italy to publicise the programme, and provide support to the administrations that are interested in this initiative.

to enable them to use it for electronic transactions.

Federal websites dissatisfy US citizens

Spain launches eID card Spain officially launched the new electronic identity card, eID card or DNIE, unleashing a high-profile media campaign. A new eID website and a Freephone helpline for citizens was also introduced. The Spanish Police Department (SPD) has allocated EUR50mn (US$60.73mn) for the media campaign until 2008. The SPD is the institutional body in charge of issuing the eID cards. José Antonio Alonso, Spanish Interior Minister, gave the first eID card to Ana Isabel Vicente Zorita at an official ceremony held in the city of Burgos. The new eID cards would be firstly given to the citizens of Burgos, and later extended to all the Spanish regions. The new eID website would contain information related to the specifications and functionalities of the eID card including legal information relating to the issues of security and certification. It would also enable citizens to change the PIN code of their eID card when required, check the status of the digital certification of the document, and download software

Not many citizens in the United States are satisfied with the federal websites, the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) report on e-Government Satisfaction has indicated. Over the past three months the percentage of citizens finding federal websites ‘satisfactory’ has fallen by 0.5%. Dr. Claes Fornell, Director of UM’s National Quality Research Center and ACSI founder, said, “The rate of year-onyear satisfaction increases with the government. Websites is slowing down some, which mirrors the trend we’ve seen in the e-Commerce sector. While eGovernment offers the promise of greater access and quality, federal agencies must proactively make improvements to meet citizens’ needs and exceed their expectations to increase penetration and use of the convenient online channel.” Altogether, 91 federal websites were surveyed. Only 14 websites scored 80 or better. These departments hosting these websites included the Social Security Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the General Services Administration. There were 24 federal websites that scored 70 or below.

US$7.17mn for Bulgaria e-Government projects Nikolay Vassilev, Bulgaria’s Minister of Public Administration and Administrative Reforms, announced the allocation of 32

BGN11.5mn (US$7.17mn) for the fiscal year 2006 for establishing e-Government projects in the country. Vassilev announced this during his address at the Information Society Coordination Council session presided over by the President of the State Agency for Information Technology and Communications. The participants were also informed about the progress made by the Bulgarian cabinet in providing 20 indicative administrative e-services as defined by the European Commission. The implementation of the e-services for businesses has reached 80.56%, while it is 47.06% for citizens. Vassilev, while presenting a report on the implementation of pilot projects in district and municipal centres, pointed out, “The quality of the one-stop shop services depends on the degree of organisation of the work in the administration itself rather than the introduction of IT. That is why the challenge before e-government is the implementation of the administrative reform. The Ministry of Public Administration and Administrative Reform intends to work out and develop a mechanism for the improvement of administrative work on all levels in the conditions of introduction of ICT in all public spheres.” During the session the participants were also informed about the progress made by the Bulgarian cabinet in providing 20 indicative administrative e-services, defined by the European Commission.

Australia to monitor emails The Australian Government has now been armed with a new law that would allow government officials to read “private emails, text messages and other stored communications” without the involved parties’ knowledge. The new law, the Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Act, was recently passed by the Australian Federal Parliament. The law is seen as a controversial one since even innocent people (called B-parties) would come under the scanner. As such, law as this was expected to be applied only on the people suspected of crimes or of being a threat to national security. www.egovonline.net |

IN PRACTICE

BPM enabled processes for property management using OmniFlow

handigarh Estate office caters to the construction and development of civil infrastructure of Chandigarh. Among the biggest property management agencies in India, its functions include selling plots through allotment or auction; collecting rent for government-built tenements and maintaining records for ownership and lease of property.

provided for end users to quickly adapt to automated processes. A team was set up in parallel, for imparting training of developed functionality. The property details were hosted on the Website of the Estate Office, thus resulting in more transparency and less fraud. The system was highly appreciated by the Lt. Governor of the concerned Union Territory.

The Challenge •

Long retrieval time for the desired information: Earlier, the Estate office was manually maintaining all the records in papers and files and updating them was time consuming. • Information Integrity: There were concerns regarding files pages getting torn or misfiled. • Low Productivity: Long time was spent on searching and the subsequent work couldn’t proceed. • Lack of Transparency: There was no readily available (online) status of property. Towards this end, in the year 2001, the Estate office engaged Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) as consultants for studying its processes and submitting a report suggesting measures for improvement. The report suggested outsourcing of payment collection and computerization of Estate office. Consequently, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by the Estate office with a leading bank to entirely computerize the Estate office, appropriate software and training to the Estate office personnel.

The Newgen Solution After evaluating several other vendors, Newgen was tasked with responsibility of software development and training part of computerization process. The Newgen solution provides automation of both back office and front office processes. Newgen Business Process Management (BPM) solution, OmniFlow, consisting of a rule-based engine automated processes related to issuing of no objection certificates, payment of dues, generation of receipts, notice generation, redressing citizen grievance, records maintenance and accounting system, and provided for an efficient controlling and monitoring of records. Estate office documents are converted into images to have an instant access of property details i.e. ownership details, mortgage, violations, payment paid, transactions etc. For customer grievances applications, a unique id is generated and the applications are directly forwarded to concerned officials. The unique id is used to continuously monitor the application status and quick redressing grievances are ensured. Elaborate and easy-to-understand documentation was May 2006

The Benefits The solution provided by Newgen helped the client improve productivity, increase cost savings, reduce processing time. The benefits for the client include: • Shortened turnaround time for Application Processing: The process turnaround time has been reduced from an earlier period of 35 days to between 13 and 20 days. • Virtual Elimination of Threat of Losing Integrity of Record: As all the records have been digitized, there is no chance of records getting destroyed due to wear and tear. • Immediate Availability / Customer Delight: Whenever a request comes, records can be made available in a short amount time thus helping in better co-ordination between departments and customer delight. • Reduced staff workload: Customers can directly check information online. • Early Detection of missing documents: The issue of short submission of documents was a major bottleneck in the older system. As part of the automated solution, the officer accepting the application runs it through a system controlled checklist for ensuring all the necessary documents are attached with the application. • Improved Productivity: There is no time lost in physically searching for information. • Improved Accountability: Estate Officer (EO) and senior officers have the data highlighting the average time to process an application and detailed audit trail to track and identify existing bottlenecks for quick and informed decisions. • Increased Transparency and Reduced Fraud: Clear demarcation of responsibilities with extensive monitoring mechanisms means that chance of fraud is reduced.

About Author Hareish Gor is Head Marketing at Newgen. Newgen Software Technologies Limited is a leader in Business Process and Document Management solutions using Workflow and Imaging.

COMMENTARY

Governance “with and of ICTs”

Need for new institutional designs Matthias Finger, Gianluca Misuraca and Pierre Rossel

he development of e-Government and e-Governance takes place in a very specific environment and contextual pressure, which we must understand and learn in order to steer at best. This overall change can be identified as manifold, although producing a composed impact on our lifestyle, level of wealth and relationships, inter-regionally and inter-nationally speaking. Globalisation appears as an emerging and constantly reinforcing process. Globalisation is more than just the “mundialisation” identified by previous researchers, from Braudel to Wallerstein, rooted in Middle Age discoveries and expressed through successive expansions, themselves supported by ever more efficient communication means, up to the complete coverage and information production upon, of the planet, as ultimate cognitive object. Globalisation is the effect of this building process in the sense that its overall power relationships (let us think about conflicts or the inequalities of means and performance), but also local initiatives may impact instantly or gradually the rest of the world, thanks to highly interconnected processes and interests. Needless to say that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) reinforce this process. Globalisation can be perceived as a source of opportunities, as the scale for any activity tends to take place in a much broader arena than before, but also as a constant pressure, with positive and more negative consequences. Economic competition, as a result of the previous phenomenon, became pervasive and almost a safeguard free paradigm, with significant consequences in terms of energy and material output, nature transformation and technology mastering, but also social and knowledge divides as well as damages at various scales and severe environmental threats ahead; economic competition is believed to benefit the customer, encourage innovation at all levels, and as a consequence, generate a better society. It also generates local shifts, and undesired effects, with economic, social and cultural dimensions, to which remedies must be found. Public policy and more profoundly political elites and leaders in major OECD countries have set up a framework for developing competition at even further steps, changing the rules of politico-economic regimes in a heavy trend program called liberalisation. State transformation in this context, reinforced local means to express needs, projects and alliances in separate terms grow in parallel with globalization pressure and transnational forms of economic competitiveness; it is therefore no surprise to see the State entering into a phase of redefinition. Sovereignty is often the core of the discussion, but more profoundly, what 36

Development of ICTs is highly impacting our day-to-day lives. Today, eGovernance has come a long way and it duly constitutes a new approach to overcome some of the current difficulties we are dealing with seems to be the essential of State prerogatives is most regions of the globe, is being reshuffled: public service delivery can often be delegated, with then a necessary re-enforcement of policy-making and regulation capabilities towards more efficiency, ethically consistent supervision of services. It is of course particularly the case of industries traditionally owned by the State in many countries (telecommunications, energy industries, transport, health, etc.), but also of more specific administrative services (let us think of geographic information systems for instance). Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) either as a tool or structural productivity lever support both ordinary communication and innovation networking environments; they also, along the way, modify lifestyles, organizational boundaries and institutional adaptation capabilities. They not only help solve problems but also feed divides of various nature. They are supposed to define a new social paradigm, the Information Society, a world of promises, still to a large extent to be verified. The e-world developed in this context, Internet was the tool that on topic of already existing computing instruments and applications changed it all. Private initiatives came first, pioneering sectors being the banks, tourism, aviation, the military, then as somehow a post Internet bubble remedy, but for sure in the continuation of messianic announcements by Al Gore and Martin Bangemann in the early nineties. State-supported efforts to develop converging efforts emerged, in OECD countries first, before expanding as standard program or at least expectation in all countries, regions and municipalities of the world. After a few hesitations on terms, digital Government, e-administration or other lead to a more consensual formulation to this underpinning effort, e-Government (the former concepts still coexist).

Defining e-Government… The definitions of e-Government are numerous; let us propose here a middle-of-the-road concept. e-Government is the www.egovonline.net |

COMMENTARY

are sufficient to understand the general pattern).

Pending challenges

Source: EPFL-CDM-MIR-e-Gov

composite trend governments at all level, mainly through their operational arm, the administration, and subsidiarily through the access of citizens to public affairs, aims at promoting a better and more efficient administration, more effective interadministration and administration- enterprise relationships, and user-empowering servicing and more transparent access of citizens to political decision-making. The model of development for this pervasive effort is the famous stage concept of Gartner (2000), which has been reformulated ever since with minor variations. Its supposed stages of phases and complexity through which government, and in most cases it should be more accurate. To say, the administration deploys means of providing information, and gradually more interaction-based service access to the users online. This development has started in some isolated cases somehow before the Internet (digital cities, like Amsterdam, for instance), but of course, the nineties were the period during which all this really took off. Measuring the deployment of eGovernment became a considerable business, benchmarking countries and regions in terms of initially, how much they could show as far as computer and Internet accesses were concerned, then various forms of “readiness” or administrative sophistication they could report upon. More recently, measurement started to become a more scientific endeavour, coping with complex and partially contradicting features to benchmark such as efficiency, effectiveness, openness, etc. This debate is now open as to emphasize real impact or track effectiveness with figures and verifiable models and all our indications show that we are only in the beginning of this process. Technological evolution may also soon prove to be a strong modifier of the initial e-Government development framework, wireless solutions, satellite coverage and access and even more, mobile phone expanding potential. Let us proceed now to a brief evaluation of the situation, globally speaking (for the inequalities of e-Readiness, major consulting firms’ report | May 2006

Some general challenges, as previously evoked are linked to the fact that e-Government., just like all e-activities, tends to modify organisational boundaries, statuses and even more, to generate new risks and opportunities that were not part of the pre-Internet landscape. Some of these changes concern the networking capabilities of the organisations, their internal or shared processes, the rationale of the valuechain and even some institutional adjustments. In fact, one could say that full-fledged digital transformation of services, with the possible supporting incorporation of several technological innovations, most certainly lead to institutional redesign, unless some new problems are immediately recreated (let us evoke for instance the risk inflation of back-office due to exaggeratedly accessible online services). However, this organisational and institutional dimension of ICT-induced changes modify in a considerable manner the issue of measuring and comparing achievements as they necessarily involve more complex changes than just efficiency or optimization effect due to the digitization of existing administrative services. A whole new domain of what to measure and how to do it is therefore open to exploration, much beyond the rather simple and always difficult to demonstrate reality of the “e-indexes”. Some other issues or challenges are more specific, but no less important to envisage a more holistic perspective, such as security and identity management, mobility of actors and organizations supported by enhanced technological means and accesses, territorial and data mining-rooted surveillance and private sphere reconsideration, productivity and benefit capturing, ICTs as a trigger for development, cultural diversity etc. In a more generic statement, we see e-Government as very heterogeneous and having quite many difficulties, almost everywhere, to evaluate, before, during and after projects undertaken, with effective and sustainable cost-benefit criteria and setting priorities for high impact solutions (vs. quick wins). In addition to this, while e-Government initiatives have so far reached in many cases spectacular inroads in terms of service delivery, especially by digitizing the front-office that in many cases are just “mirroring” existing and not always wellrestructured back-office, ICTs are so far not being systematically (or at all) used with regard to the other functions of the State (namely, regulatory and policy-making). Thus, the potential of ICTs in linking the overall functions of the State and the different levels and actors involved in the governance process, is far from being realised (or in many cases even started). Combining the abovementioned, general or more specific, challenges that 37

COMMENTARY

e-Government is confronted with, and the necessity to address these issues with a consistent toolbox and terms of multi-actor, multi-level and multi-sector involvement, we are obliged to ask whether e-Government is not forgetting some important “missing masses” in its linear, optimistic and mostly mono-factor type of deployment.

From e-Government to e-Governance The numerous e-activities, e-products, and e-services which are currently being displayed in the public sector cannot be fully understood, appreciated, and assessed if they are not placed within the much broader framework of State transformation, as mentioned in the introduction. However, it is important to stress why. Indeed, the transformation of the State’s status encompasses changes in three separate dimensions, namely the growing emerging of non-state actors, basically transnational corporations (TNCs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Increasingly, the State has to share its power with these non-state actors. Such power sharing is most pronounced at the supra- and at the infra-national levels; the growing emergence of levels of managing public affairs, other than the nation-state level. In particular, the emergence of supra-national levels (EU, global), as well as of infra-national levels (local, regions) is being given an afterthought; and, the growing differentiation of the State’s three main functions namely the service delivery function, the rule-making function, and the (rapidly emerging) regulatory function. These three functions can increasingly be treated as being separate from each other and therefore being shifted to the different levels and the different actors. These three movements are being combined with each other, which leads to the fact that public affairs become more and more fragmented (functions), diluted (levels), and outsourced (to nonstate actors). There is in particular a deficit of cross-functions, seamless operations in which non State-stakeholders can play a proactive role. At the same time, enterprise-based and private individuals’ e-activities develop quite freely and growingly. There is therefore a place for a different type of steering that the one eGovernment promotes. We call it e-Governance. It is quite clear that our concept is not shared worldwide. It is quite the contrary. For many, e-Governance is just one more buzzword for e-Government. For others, who aim at specific identifications, e-Governance is merely an indication of the impact of e-Government outside of the administration outreach, in particular when private economy actors are active stakeholders. We postulate, as for ourselves, that there is a need to consider a more radical paradigmatic shift, as a complement but inherently different than e-Government, e-Governance is the field of activity where coordination, negotiation, arbitration, networking and regulation (just to mention essential steering function), with ICTs but, also, of ICTs, involved all sorts of nonState actors, the State representatives being at best one of the stakeholders. There are basically two converging processes that support the activities in the e-Governance arena. One which stems from insufficient coverage from the State, of problems that need to be solved but in which most solutions, experiments and expertise, 38

from design to usage, are mainly motioned by non State actors, as innovative move or as survival need. The other one, emerging from technology or service users, as inhabitants or as specific customers of a given economic market, individuals, communities or local enterprises, expresses some form of bottom-up creativity in which the State may play a role but only after the interactions and processes tackled reach a certain consistency level. It is particularly true in the ICT area, where new services, habits, components or even technological ecosystems (let us think of Ipod, digital photography, smartphone applications or GPS-based services) emerge with barely any State presence of any kind. eGovernance is an intermediation arena in which negotiations, experiments and networking make important use of ICTs and in turn may also be dealing with some regulation of ICTs. After a while, in particular in the second case, the State tries to get a hold on it, sometimes with success (standardization in WIFI for instance), sometimes not (governance of the Internet). In other cases, the issues are still open (pornography, intellectual property rights of ICT multimedia products, etc.).

We postulate, as for ourselves, that there is a need to consider a more radical paradigmatic shift, as a complement but inherently different than e-Government, e-Governance is

the

field

activity

where

coordination, negotiation, arbitration, networking and regulation... Beyond an illusion Information is not knowledge neither competence. As a matter of fact, information access and sharing, expert data handling, much the contrary, necessitates a lot of knowledge. Information is nor the first stage towards, neither the pre-condition of knowledge; it is quite the contrary. In the same perspective, the increase of participation in the usage of ICTs is no automatic and linear step towards a deep, effective, sustainable or democratic evidence. Just the opposite, one has to stress that to carry out a collective learning of some significance through ICTs, more horizontal processes, empowerment and trial and error linked with experience sharing must somehow take place “upstream” or at least considered quite early in an ICT-based project to constitute a democratic enhancement chance. The Internet, e-Government, e-learning, etc., do not lead in a straightforward manner to better chances and awareness among practitioners. e-Governance stresses the importance of the “how” things are done rather than what is done, the learning residing much more in the causality chain than the other way around. Altogether, in particular if mishandled, wrongly put into perspective, or simply shortsightedly tied with short-term, low impact efficiency goals of substituting actual processes with digital equivalent without any further reflection of the organisation, ICTs may not be always necessarily profitable, www.egovonline.net |

COMMENTARY

Some key domains

nor e-Government in all cases, lead to betterment of administration performance or servicing to the citizen. Recent studies have found vast differences among countries in the maturity of their e-Government efforts. One of the key findings is that even the most mature countries have tapped less than 20% of the potential. Furthermore, only very few governments have opted to use e-Government applications for transactional services or networking; and even fewer governments use it to support the genuine participation of citizens in politics. Those who do, in most cases, apply it at a very rudimentary level. The pitfall suggested here, that involves a mere digital translation of existing services, with all the technological solutions outsourced and no particular change induced in the value chain, we call it “Change I type”. The e-Governance type of interactions and collective-problem solving negotiation, which may involved State agencies and condition some redesign to fit the new assignments, experiments or opportunities of alliances and partnerships, we call it “Change II type”. Change I is ICT driven, Change II is basically the art of reconfiguring processes, tasks, roles and if necessary, institutions in order to make better use of ICTs. Change I is mainly a substitution operation, Change II a new deal to enhance each stakeholder’s chances. Change I is mostly an administration-focused preoccupation, rhetorically concerned with servicing customers or users better, Change II is often multi-actors, multi-levels and multi-sectors. eGovernment, namely the exercise of administratively governing a territory through the intensive use of ICTs, can be considered as an industry which must be steered or managed. We are rather short of all the political claims of the e-Government concepts, in particular on the one hand the promotion of facilitated interrelationships between the administration and the private economy and on the other hand, the empowerment of the citizen (no necessarily equal to his ICT-supported participation in public activities, as said before). To give an example, in November 2005, all four e-Government Good practice awards distributed to innovative e-Government projects by the European Commission were Change I type of operations. | May 2006

Any complex issue will bring quite quickly issues to deal with, which may well be e-Governance problems rather than eGovernment ones. Let us mention a few areas in which we are involved and for which new concepts, experiments, designs and expertise need to be fostered. These include Public security development and regulation; Identity management; Risk management, not only technological, but also economic, political and social ones; keeping up the motivation for innovation beyond the best or good practice trend (which aims at not always reinventing the wheel, a goal quite noble in itself); developing new mobility schemes for individuals and organizations, with the kind of knowledge and environments which will enable them; Cross-border applications and projects; Cross-function learning beyond the boundaries of the various network industries in which e-activities are deployed (telecom, post, transport, energy, health, education, etc.); Territorial management for development; and the various types of digital divides to be taken care of. For all these problems, and of course many more to be identified and documented, which most of the time do not occur separately but in conjunction (the above listing is in reality in matrix of issues), there is a need for new competence, leadership and combined efforts and learning patterns, first in projects, experiments, knowledge sharing and benchmarking as until now, but also in knowledge management and neo-institutional skills. We have worked in that direction and will pursue research and advisory services to support these claims. In this regard, the Chair MIR (Management of Network Industries) at the College of Management of Technology of the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne (EPFL), had crafted a one-year part-time high-level Executive Master in e-Governance, in partnership with renowned Universities and research centers worldwide, in order to undertake a continuous “learning journey” around the Governance “with and of” ICTs (http://egov.epfl.ch/). e-Governance is an open area for innovation and solution pooling, which at this moment seems only to be in its infancy. A lot remains to be done to really harness ICTs as tools, as they should be, instead of being steered by them, as it unfortunately happens to often. About the authors: Matthias Finger is Chair, Management of Network Industries, College of Management, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland. Gianluca Misuraca is Managing Director, Executive Master in e-Governance, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Pierre Rossel is Senior Research Fellow for the Chair of Management of Network Industries, Lausanne, Switzerland

NEWS REVIEW

INDIA Coal India hugely profits through e-auction

The state-owned Coal India Limited (CIL) has reported an impressive 74.71% increase in its earnings to a record gross profit of INR838.80mn (US$18.61mn) as against INR480.12mn (US$10.65mn) year-on-year (y-o-y). It is expected that the net profit would be about INR500mn (US$11.29mn) as compared to INR242.40mn (US$5.39) y-o-y, up 100%. However, the net profit amount has still not been made available. The CIL interim report on annual performance for the year 2005-06 said that all its subsidiaries including Eastern Coalfields Ltd and Bharat Coking Coal Ltd reported profit earnings during the last fiscal. Earlier, the two subsidiaries were running huge losses but closed 2005-06 with a gross profit of INR35.74bn (US$7.93bn) and INR15.61bn (US$3.46bn) respectively. It must be noted that the CIL achieved high profitability due to the success of eauction. Through the e-auction route, CIL sold 19.5 tonnes generating additional revenue of about INR92mn (US$2.04mn).

UP to have 6 e-districts in 12-16 months The State of Uttar Pradesh would soon have 6 ‘e-districts’ — Sultanpur, Sitapur, Rae Bareli, Ghaziabad, Gautambudh Nagar and Gurgaon. The government departments in these districts would be interlinked and all information available online. According to R. Chandrashekhar, Joint Secretary (e-Governance), Union 40

Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, the e-districts would come up in the next 12-16 months. S. Abbasi, Director of the Department of Information and Technology (DIT), said, “We will be assisting the UP Government, which has recently approached us to transform six of its districts into ‘edistricts’. Once this happens, better government services will be available to residents. We are considering the reports sent by the UP Government for granting e-status, and are holding discussions with the government representatives at regular intervals.” He further informed, “You need not deposit INR20-25 (US cents 4455) to get the information you want. You can apply online for the information at the kiosks, which will be established in these districts, and the information will be delivered to you. This will be the most important utility of the e-districts.” The residents of e-districts would also be able to avail facilities such as online information about land registration, apply for birth and death certificates and pay taxes at the kiosks and Common Service Centres (CSCs). Some of the added benefits include direct referrals to hospitals, online requests for appointments and consultations and vet consultancy services.

Under CM Nitish Kumar, Bihar dates with e-Governance Bihar’s date with e-Governance has begun in the right earnest with the newly elected chief minister Nitish Kumar firmly in the saddle. As a first step towards eGovernance, 100 Dell laptops at the cost of INR75,00080,000 (US$ 1,658.13- 1,768.68) would be imported from Malaysia. The laptops would be given to officials at Commissioner and Secretary level. Later, other officials from various departments would also be provided with laptops.

Works are already underway to create a high-tech command centre from where Mr. Kumar would monitor developments of the entire state. The Chief Minister’s bungalow, his office, Chief Secretary’s office and his conference hall are being equipped with high-tech gadgetry necessary for e-government. Under the eGovernance scheme, steps are also being undertaken to create a number of websites that would contain latest information on all developmental issues, NRI-related facilities etc.

Chandigarh earns INR23.90mn through e-Sampark

The Union Territory of Chandigarh’s eGovernance initiative ‘e-Sampark’ has enabled it to earn INR23.90mn (US$5.29mn) through the facilitation of about 11 lakh transactions in the fiscal year 2005-06. According to S.K. Sandhu, Finance Secretary, Information Technology, Chandigarh, eight e-Sampark centres spread across the city are providing the services. Besides, the services could also be availed through online gateway facilities available on the website http://chandigarh.gov.in. Sandhu informed, “Out of the available services, two recently introduced services namely space booking and HFCL bill payment, were widely accepted and in a short span of two months registered 7,513 transactions. The administration is planning to open one more e-Sampark centre in Sector 40 and 18 mini e-Sampark centres, one in each village of Chandigarh UT, so that the facility can also be extended there. Among the available services, electricity and water bill collection have been the most popular.” www.egovonline.net |

NEWS REVIEW

e-Governance as Puja gift from Kolkata Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, Mayor of Kolkata, has said that in the near future he would be able to participate in an online interaction. Bhattacharya said this while speaking at a meeting on ‘Image Building of Kolkata’ organised by the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BNCCI). Bhattacharya said, “You will be able to speak and chat with me. Things will be at your fingertip. This will be KMC’s puja gift to the city. The KMC’s attempt to provide e-Governance will be successfully accomplished.”

National Informatics Centre has decided to offer the software to nine select members of Parliament for helping them monitor development initiatives in their constituencies.” In his address, Tarun Malik, Head of Microsoft’s Rural Computing, said, “Softrack would be part of the company’s IT initiative — SAKSHAM (self-sustaining), under which the company plans to roll out 50,000 kiosks over the next three years.”

India’s DGS&D launches e-bidding

e-Stamping in Maharashtra to curb stamp duty frauds

In its e-Governance initiative, the Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals (DGS&D), Government of India, has announced the launch of e-bidding for DGS&D rate contracts in an attempt make the process more transparent while reducing procurement costs simultaneously. Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, said, “The e-Governance initiative would largely benefit small-scale industries as they would now be able to bid online for a contract and secure payments. This initiative has four components — e-purchase, e-tendering, einspection and e-payments.” The DGS&D handles orders worth INR350mn (US$7.73mn) annually.

In order to curb stamp duty frauds, the Stock Holding Corp of India (SHCIL) has launched e-Stamping for legal documents in Maharashtra under mandate from the Government. Appointed as a Central Record Keeping Agency (CRA), the SHCIL has been authorised to undertake the build-operate-transfer project in the states, which are willing to join the stamping system as envisaged by it.

Softrack.net to address rural e-Governance initiatives Vortex Technologies has developed Softrack.net intended to enable people bring up issues to the concerned authorities via the rural eGovernance initiatives being implemented by various State governments. The software would be made available on Microsoft’s rural portal soon. K.R. Suresh Reddy, Speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly, launched the software. Speaking on the occasion, Reddy said, “IT should be used to bridge the rural-urban divide. I suggest that simple software should help the introduction of e-Petitions, which will get a villager’s query answered in the Assembly by the Minister concerned. It could be routed through the Rajiv Internet Village kiosks coming up in the State.” V.V.V. Satya, CEO of Vortex, said, “The | May 2006

Madhya Pradesh to have 8,000 IT kiosks

SHCIL has started initiating the process of making presentations to various state governments. The Maharashtra government has authorised SHCIL to act as a CRA to undertake the computerisation of Stamp Duty Administrative System. In e-Stamping, online payment for stamp duty can be done either through a credit or a debit card. The said facility can also be availed through other payment mode of the nearest Authorised Collection Centre (ACC). After the payment is done, the certificate of stamp duty can be printed instantaneously for attachment to the legal document.

Kailash Vijayvargiya, Madhya Pradesh Information and Technology Minister, announced that altogether 8,000 IT kiosks would be set up across the State. Besides generating employment for 16,000 people, through the kiosks the people would be able to avail information regarding various departments, civic bodies, public services, forms and directives of the government. Vijayvargiya said, “A lot of efforts are being made for enhancement of industrial centres and communication devices related to the IT Park through encouraging private sectors. Of this, the infrastructural work for IT Park at Indore has been completed and a wellknown multinational company is developing software for it further. IT Park in Bhopal is also being developed. A portal service of “mponline” is also being figured out.” 41

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Intel Community PC launch

Bridging urban-rural digital-divide

ommunity Personal Computers (CPCs) suited to meet the requirements of the rural villages in India was launched at New Delhi on 29th March 2006 by Intel, the leading chip and PCs maker. The event was marked by the presence of senior officials of Government of India, Bollywood film director Ashutosh Gowarikar, delegates from government and non-governmental organisations, among others. Frank Jones, President, Intel India, while speaking at the launch, said, “The Community PC launch aims at solving the problems faced by the rural regions in India. This initiative is an effort towards social inclusion, which will enable positive change in India in terms of increased technological penetration and access and thereby higher standards of living for the citizens.” In his keynote address, Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of State for Commerce, remarked, “Scalability and replicability of efforts are utmost requirements for any project to be successful. These are dependent on the cost-factor. The low cost IT solutions on mass scale are big issues and needs consideration.” The launch of Community PC adds to the efforts by Intel, which is considering applying its technology to emerging markets such as India, China, Brazil, Russia, South America and African countries. Designed as a result of defining locally relevant computing solutions based on Intel technology, the PC platform is equipped to operate in a community setting while accommodating the varying environmental conditions prevalent in the country. The PC can withstand dusty conditions, varying temperatures and high humidity. The objectives of the Community PC includes delivery of a shared mainstream PC, specially designed to work in the harsh conditions of rural environments, providing massive rural populations access to the Internet and thus opening up a world of business and personal communication opportunities, and aggregating demand and enabling shared access thereby making entire rural communities and not merely an individual the end-customer. With a pronounced objective to bridge the urban-rural divide, Intel also announced the introduction of its ‘Jagruti’ initiative. By collaborating with leaders in business, government, education, online services and Internet service providers, Intel’s Jagruti program would be supporting the spread of rural Internet kiosks based on the new Intel-Powered Community PCs. These PCs would be available through Intel partners, HCL and Wipro. The inaugural session was followed by an interaction with four “end users” drawn from rural areas of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, which was moderated by Ashutosh Gowariker, the noted film director from India. When asked about how community reacted to computers, all the end users were unanimous in saying that the community was excited

and very forthcoming to it since they felt it is going to systemise the very process of governance and ease their burden. The interaction was followed by video and actual demonstrations from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh kiosk operators. At the outset of the launch, Frank Jones arrived into the main hall driving a tractor and bringing along with him the “Community PC”. This was followed by a Lecture-cumDemonstration by Will Agatstein, Vice President - Intel, and Rakesh Godhwani, Product Manager – Intel. They displayed a set of applications — adult literacy (from TCS), children education (from Azim Premji Foundation) and Entertainment (Hindi movie) — convincing the audience that the hardware is “best” (no deficient functionality) and “cheap” (shared access will bring down the costs to INR10 (US$0.22) per person per day for 3 persons over 3 years). This was followed by talks by Intel Corporate VP Bill Siu and Amar Babu, Intel South Asia MD. They informed that the PCs have already been tested in pilot projects in locations such as Bedeti, Assam; Juna Chamu, Gujarat; Mandya, Karnataka; Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh; and Mallapuram, Kerala. Further deployments are currently underway. “We took the proposed product to villages and made changes in accordance with the rural requirements,” said Amar Babu. He said this kind of PC would meet the e-Governance requirements. It could be used for communication (e-mail); eGovernance applications including online bill payment, processing and submission of Government documents; delivery of agriculture, healthcare and entertainment services; in education, research and information sharing; and for e-commerce activities including commodity price information, online trading and banking transactions. Intel expects many of these Community PC platforms to be deployed in Internet kiosks. The kiosks, proposed as Common Service Centres under the National e-Governance Plan — are operated by local entrepreneurs and provide neighbouring communities with access to services including e-Governance forms (land records and marriage licence among others). www.egovonline.net |

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

FEATURES OF INTEL’S COMMUNITY PC System Overview •

• • •

• •

A battery back-up module that serves as an alternative source of power in environments where power cuts are prolonged and frequent. Low power consumption, enabling functioning in poor quality power supply environments. Rugged design that enables operation in the dusty, humid and hot environs of rural India. System Diagnostic and Recovery switch, which provides real time technical support when the system crashes and enables boot from a diagnostic partition for system recovery. Remote asset management features that allow enabling / disabling of the PC through a system of keys. Connectivity, for enabling a wide variety of wired and wireless connectivity options, including Wifi , GSM or CDMA and Wimax.

Key Product Features Battery Power Module The Intel powered Community PC features a battery power module that serves as an alternative power source that may enable PC operation for up to 6 – 8 hours during power outages. The battery is designed to recharge itself during periods when the PC operates on normal power. The battery module empowers the PC to operate in environs where prolonged and daily power outages are a fact of life. Low Power Consumption Architectured in such a fashion as to enable extension of the business model even in low quality power supply environments, the PC consumes less power than other comparable computing platforms. High Temperature Tolerance Factor Designed to operate in conditions of high temperature and Intel also used the occasion to acknowledge the contribution of its partners like Wipro, HCL (Hardware), IIIT Bangalore (Research), HLL & ITC (Logistics) and several NGOs. They were felicitated with a memento from Intel. There was an interesting panel discussion, which was coordinated by Professor Sadagopan of IIIT Bangalore. The distinguished panelists included Professor MS Swaminathan (who joined over a video link), Mani Shankar Iyer, Union Panchayati Raj Minister, Alok Bhargava, Chief Executive, Rural CSC Program of IL&FS (Infrastructure Leasing & Financing Services), Ajai Chowdhury, CEO, HCL Infosystems, and Rohit Kumar, Director, Public Sector, Microsoft India. “India is not only the largest democracy with 3 million elected representatives of Panchayati Raj (village government) but it also has the largest elected representatives,” Mr. Iyer disclosed. Professor Swaminathan stressed on the need to work in “mission mode” to create rich content and reach the goal of | May 2006

humidity, the IntelÒ powered Community PC can withstand ambient temperatures as high as 45 degrees Celsius with ease. The Intel powered Community PC is clad with a rust proof, dust proof casing and is equipped with a special dust filter that ensures functionality of the system even in environments that are highly dusty. One Touch System-Management Function Button The Intel powered Community PC features a one touch system diagnostic and recovery button, that enables even nontechnically trained users to boot the system from a special diagnostic partition in the event of system / O/S crashes. Particularly useful in areas where access to service technicians is low and a system crash would normally mean a prolonged absence of the system while it undergoes repair at the nearest urban destination Asset Management Function Operation of the Intel powered Community PC, or its applications, may be remotely enabled or disabled through a system of passkeys, thus ensuring a high level of securitization of the asset. This is of particular importance where sensitive government information, like land records, etc., are accessed via the system. 100,000 kiosks by August 2007. Ajay Chowdhury opined that there was a need for layered applications — literacy, eGovernance, entertainment, and communications — each though small, contributing enough to make the stack rich and sustainable. The details of the ambitious 100,000 Common Service Centres projects of the Ministry of Information Technology (under the National e-Governance Plan) were provided by Alok Bhargava. Rohit Kumar mentioned that what Intel is launching – a platform that can scale that is maintainable and broad enough to sustain a whole range of exciting applications - is “an idea whose time has come”. He also talked of Project Shihksha of Microsoft that addresses capacity building. Finally, Intel’s Willy Agatstein talked of his thirty years experience with the IT industry. He said that the Community PC holds promise and has the potential to “double the income” of the rural community.

Prachi Shirur 43

NEWS REVIEW

GeoSpatial Experts adds Google Earth functionality to GPSPhoto Link software

Geo-Informatics

Mapping for air pollution abatement in India To use the air ambient data meaningfully, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has initiated a 10-year programme in collaboration with Nagpur-based National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI). The project will be funded by the CPCB and leading oil companies. Besides locating high pollution areas, the project will undertake mapping technology, which will focus on health benefits in cleaner areas. The findings, after mapping the city, would be converted into an action plan to reduce pollution in each area.

NE-SAC takes up projects with remote sensing agencies North-Eastern Space Application Centre (NE-SAC), an autonomous body under the Department of Space, India, has taken up several major collaborative projects with the state remote sensing agencies to identify problems of states in the region. The programmes for 2006-07 include application of remote sensing and GIS technology in North-East to undertake activities such as natural resource census of the region, large-scale mapping of selected towns, the Loktak peripheral area development study in Manipur and road re-alignment study for Sikkim. A number of village resource centres with VSAT connectivity would be set up in each north-eastern state with Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur covered under the ‘Edusat’ project.

China’s first HighResolution Satellite Imagery User Conference Beijing Space Eye Innovation Technology Corporation, a business partner of DigitalGlobe and a supplier of imagery 44

products to government and commercial markets, hosted a user conference in Beijing, China, on March 7. The conference was dedicated to support the use of high-resolution satellite imagery in China. The event was intended to create a forum for discussing the applications of DigitalGlobe satellite imagery, ways to improve application technologies and fostering relationship-building and smooth coordination among BSEI, DigitalGlobe and end-users of the data in China.

GeoSpatial Experts has introduced Version 4.0 of GPS photo link digital image mapping software, which automatically links digital photographic images to GPS location data in the Google Earth environment and also creates web pages in which water marked pictures are integrated with satellite imagery, street maps, or other GIS-based mapping layer. New functionality enables users to display their photo locations as icons in a Google Earth map layer.

GIS mapping to aid urban services in Delhi

GTG products and services selected by US municipalities Geographic Technologies Group (GTG) has announced that several municipalities and local governments of Carolina, US have selected GTG to provide GIS products and services. GTG is selected to provide GIS Professional services, which include custom application design, development and deployment and training and support, to offer GIS Consulting Services, to offer GIS Services to provide Technical Staff Augmentation which includes business process analysis, reengineering, and management; GIS programming and design; GIS data collection, integration, and quality assurance; GIS application development and integration of GIS spatial objects; and mobile computer application development, deployment, and maintenance.

Development of a dynamic web portal enabling citizens to download all the forms for utility services, GIS mapping of all services Construction of entry gates at all entry points to the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) area, redevelopment of Connaught Place and construction of multi-level parking are some of the key areas on which NDMC would focus on in 2006-07. The NDMC presented its budget on March 30.

Satellite link to monitor health schemes The Union health minister of India, Dr. Ambumani Ramadoss linked the National Institute for communicable Diseases, Delhi with Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bhopal, Bangalore and Rajpur on 29 March for integrated disease surveillance. This satellite link through EDUSAT will be used to monitor and review health schemes. www.egovonline.net |

numbers 11,000 500,000 emergency calls during the past four years remained unanswered by the Strathclyde Police in Scotland. The Strathclyde Police typically receives about 350,000 emergency calls each year.

17,500 customers have so far benefited from broadband Internet services Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation.

150

local authorities in England are required to offer an online school admissions system by September 2006. This is the goal set by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

1500 community PCs under Rajiv Internet Kiosk Project were launched by Radiant Infosystems in 14 districts of Andhra Pradesh, India. The community PC platform is designed to operate in a community setting while accommodating the varying environmental conditions prevalent in the country. | May 2006

US$ grant from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to the Civil Service Commission (CSC), Philippines, for an e-Governance project aimed at improving the selection process for civil servants.

29 registration offices in the state of Jharkhand, India, will be computerised in an initiative towards e-Governance.

3.2 million customers will receive information about local council services on the advanced 3G network in the UK, a service launched to provide information on council services to citizens.

Source 3.2

http://www.publictechnology.net/modules.php?op=modload&name= News&file=article&sid=4767

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=123464

150

http://www.publictechnology.net/modules.php?op=modload&name =News&file=article&sid=4776

1500

http://www.newindpress.com/Archives/Login.asp

11,000 http://www.pstm.net/article/index.php?articleid=805 17,500 http://allafrica.com/stories/200604040522.html 500,000 http://news.inq7.net/infotech/index.php?index=1&story_id=72531

WHAT’S ON

This section lists upcoming e-Government conferences, exhibitions, and other public events for the benefit of our readers. 26 - 28 April 2006

5 June 2006

Bangkok Thailand

eValues Bled, Vienna

www.egovasia.net www.DLasia.csdms.in

http://www.bledconference.org/

6 - 9 June 2006 27 - 28 April 2006 ECEG 2006: 6th European Conference on e-Government Marburg, Germany http://www.academic-conferences.org/eceg/ eceg2006/eceg06-home.htm

4th International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security (ACNS’06) Singapore http://acns2006.i2r.a-star.edu.sg

20-21 June 2006 04 - 05 May 2006 Getting eGovernment out of the acceptance trap Postdam, Germany http://www.kgst.de/kgst/skripte/kgst_ veranstaltungen/show_one. phtml?snr=51-06

Procurement solutions for the public sector London, UK http://www.procurementsolutions.gov.uk/ page.cfm

26 - 27 June 2006 10 - 12 May 2006 National and Sectoral Strategies for e-Government Gaborone Botswana http://www.comnet-it.org/news/National_ and_sectoral_strategies_for_egov.pdf

International Conference on Mobile Business (ICMB) 2006 Copenhagen Denmark http://www.cbs.dk/forskning_viden/ fakulteter_institutter_centre/institutter/ oekonomi/inf/h_jreboks/arrangementer/ 1151309100_icmb_conference_2006

10 May 2006 e-Government Forum, 10 May 2006 Sydney, Australia http://www.cebit.com.au/eGovForum/

16 May 2006 e-Procurement in the public sector London United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland http://www.headstar-events.com/e-proc/

15 - 19 May 2006 Government Technology Conference West 2006 Sacramento, CA, USA http://www.govtech.net/gtc/index.php/ GTCWest2006

26 – 29 June 2006 EEE’06- The 2006 International Conference on e-Business, Enterprise Information Systems, e-Government, and Outsourcing Monte Carlo Resort Las Vegas, Nevada, USA http://www.world-academy-of-science.org/ worldcomp06/ws/EEE/index_html

23 - 25 August 2006 Hotel Taj Palace New Delhi India 3 – 5 September 2006 The EURO mGOV 2006 Sussex University Brighton UK www.icmg.mgovernment.org

4 – 8 September 2006 International EGOV conference 2006 Krakow (Poland) http://www.uni-koblenz.de/FB4/ Institutes/IWVI/AGVInf/Conferences/ egov2006

22 September 2006 2nd International Workshop on eGovernment and Data Protection (EG&DP-2006) Varna Bulgaria www.tu-sofia.bg/saer/

17-19 October 2006 e-Government 2006 (South Asia) New Delhi, India http://www.egovworld.org/

6 December 2006 2nd Annual Event Information Management in the public sector London http://www.kablenet.com

12 - 13 July 2006 The European Conference on IT Management, Leadership and Governance Paris, France

December 7, 2006

http://academic-conferences.org/ecmlg/ ecmlg2006/ecmlg06-home.htm

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp? containerId=IDC_P11911

eGovernment Conference 2006 Copenhagen Denmark

Tell us about your event at info@egovonline.net 46

www.egovonline.net |

LARGEST

Indian conference and exhibition on e-Government, 23 - 25 August 2006, The Taj Palace, New Delhi

The