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THE RILEY REPORT - April 2007
from Thomas B. Riley RTRiley6@cs.com
www.rileyis.com
Following is the Riley Report for April 2007. Please feel free to pass this on as you see fit. If you wish to use any part of the Report in an offline publication please acknowledge the author or contact the author for permission if it is to be fully republished offline. If you are not currently subscribed to the Riley Report (there is no charge) you may email RTRiley6@cs.com and simply put "subscribe" in the body of the text.
This month’s report assesses the
importance of e-governance in relation to achieving success in e-government
applications. New technologies bring increasing changes for governments around
the world. This phenomenon is resulting in new challenges to governments whose
citizens want access to government through an array of technologies, sound
policies, privacy and security assurances, accessible services and other
interactive programs between government agencies and the citizenry.
The “e” in Government Projects: Basic Issues
By Thomas B. Riley
Any discussion on the growth and evolution of e-governance
and e-government around the world has to address the issue of new technologies.
Microsoft’s Bill Gates, recently speaking at a conference in Brussels,
stated that technological growth will continue to expand exponentially in the
years to come. This is not
surprising given the leaps and bounds we have seen in the past decade.
We are witnessing more and more innovations on how we network.
At one point the Internet was recognized as the primary network in
cyberspace and mostly accessed through our computers. Now we have multiple
networks to access such as through our cell phones, blackberries, I-pods,
through our vehicles, personal digital assistants (pda) with more to come. Even
the elevator in our building is networked to a company in the USA in the event
of a failure. It can be fixed on
the spot from some town we probably never heard of.
Movies are now going to be downloaded onto cell phones.
We are networked in ways we did not fathom only a few short years ago. Yet, this is just the beginning of the next stage of change. As we did not envision where we would be with technology, in just a few short years now we will see even more change in our lives. The Internet and new technologies have given people opportunities to communicate and exchange information globally. This is the biggest evolutionary change in history since the beginning of the transportation revolution when the train was invented back in the mid-nineteenth century. We live in a continually changing landscape. It is important for organizations to adapt and to build in capacities to change. Many of the technology experts envision that our current high tech evolution could go on for decades. These constant changes have implications for governments that are continuing to evolve their e-government programs. This essay looks at where e-government and e-governance stand at the moment.
As has been stated in
earlier Reports, it is important to distinguish terms when developing
e-government projects. It is a
general principle now widely understood in this “Digital Age”. Thus, terms
have evolved such as e-government, e-governance, e-democracy, e-health and so
forth. There are any number of “e’s” attached to terms as the world of
governments increasingly go online. Here
are some useful terms to differentiate when dealing with the overall subject of
governments and the IT world.[1]
- e-governance and e-government are often used interchangeably, e-governance being the verb, and e-government being the noun.[2] With some users, the choice of terms depends on what they are emphasizing: e-governance emphasizes the governing processes whereas e-government emphasizes the electronic infrastructure. The rationale for this model is that it covers three different types of activities that can be identified and analyzed in terms of their own goals and operations.
- e-services refers to those aspects of e-governance involved in information and service distribution, both to and from the public in the form of documentation and remuneration, and to and from other governments in the form of information sharing (best practices) and joint program delivery (funding and/or facilitation).
- e-administration includes those aspects of e-governance requiring policy and workflow coordination – it comprises “horizontality” between member departments and sections, and “verticality” between decision-makers (supervisors) and knowledge workers (service providers).
- e-democracy concerns those aspects of e-governance that engage the public in electronically-mediated consultation and participation, whether these occur during elections (electronic voting), in the midst of the process of policy formulation (electronic “town-hall meetings”), or subsequently during program implementation (on-line feedback and fine-tuning of regulations).[3]
The use of electronic infrastructure for the purposes of governance has become, by the 21st century, a globally accepted goal. Literally every country, party, jurisdiction and candidate, endorses the goal, regardless of their position on the ideological spectrum. Where differences emerge determine:
(1) how quickly to proceed;
(2) the amounts to be invested; and
(3) the various functions to be prioritized. It is important to note here that there are huge divergences among developed, medium developed and developing countries in the degrees to which the new technologies can bring universal e-government programs.
In response to these
types of concerns, international agencies have devoted considerable research,
and come up with a variety of guidelines. These
guidelines are said to address what are regarded, from a comparative
perspective, as the most salient issues in the efforts to apply electronic
infrastructure to governance. Key
international agencies and organizations that have developed best practices and
essential strategies for successful e-government implementation have been the
OECD, the United Nations, the World Bank and the Commonwealth Secretariat.
In the development of
e-government practices and principles over the years, privacy and security have
become key factors to ensure success. Both of these are important issues due to
the changing nature of technologies and the way people react and use these
technologies. From an e-government perspective in government the new
technologies are invaluable in connecting with citizens. Privacy is an
important value and in surveys on e-government implementation the issue arises
of people wanting assurances that their personal information is secure.
Beyond privacy there are the security issues on a broader scale, where we are
seeing the rise in spam, spyware, ad-aware, phishing, identity fraud and a host
of other hacker activities (good or bad) that make people uneasy when going
online. Governments who have evolved e-government and digital strategies
have put a lot of emphasis on the importance of security and on ensuring that
secure networks are viable.
Unfortunately, as users
around the world are well aware, whether they are government agencies,
corporations, not-for-profits, educational facilities or, more importantly,
individuals going on-line, we are all subject to cyber attacks in one way or
another. Lack of online security can be a major barrier to a government
developing e-government programs. But, in a wider context, threats to computers
around the world can in time have wide-ranging negative impacts. Cyber attacks leave many feeling uncomfortable about being
online. These negative developments
in cyberspace have resulted in individual citizens having to pay more for
security. The negative aspects of
cyberspace are now an international problem resulting in serious financial
costs.
However, on the
positive side of this debate, emerging developments in e-government provide the
opportunity for citizens to interact with their government, such as going online
with governments to file taxes, getting the weather forecasts, finding the
coordinates of a government official, looking for information on a multitude of
health issues and a host of other applications, from downloading forms to
getting specific information on government web sites. We have developed an
e-Governance course for government officials to address and deal with many of
these issues.[4]
There
are many challenges or obstacles that governments, in general, face to implement
a successful e-Government strategy. Following
are five important challenges:
1.
The most important factor when meeting the challenge of e-government
implementation is to develop a strategy that is realistic, particularly in terms
of the scope and size of the programs. One size does not fit all for
e-government projects.
2.
It is essential that a practical and well thought-out assessment be made
of what exactly a particular government agency or government overall wants to
achieve and how. This means that a careful analysis will be needed of:
what the object of the e-government program will be, what strategy has been
evolved to bring the program to fruition, what resources are needed, what funds
for the technology will be forthcoming and how does the government decide what
the public wants in their e-government programs?
3.
There needs to be a mechanism for input through surveys, on-line
questionnaires on what the citizen is looking for from online government and
focus groups. These are just three of the means that may be used so that a
government agency, for example in a developing country, can determine that they
are going to give the citizens what they want and not what the government
officials developing the program think they want.
4.
It is essential that when developing such a strategy for implementation
there be:
a) a major component ensuring there is sufficient funding;
b) the needed personnel resources, including outside resources, are secured; and
c) most importantly, approval and support from the political and administrative
jurisdiction of the country, state/province region or town.
5.
The
implementation process must ensure that the projects are managed directly by
government officials and not from outside consultants, especially when decisions
on large technology infrastructures are being purchased. Experts and
consultants are crucially important to the implementation process in an advisory
capacity. However, the standard rule should be that when being done by
government the leaders, overseers and administrative officials are in
government. It is the public officials who should take the leadership role
and be the officials to make these crucial decisions.
Note: Bringing Growth and Success through
e-Governance: Case Studies in Cyprus and Malta, is a book
researched and written by Thomas Riley and William Sheridan for the Commonwealth
Secretariat in London. The aim of the book is to provide readers
with a synopsis of e-governance issues and experiences, as well as an overview
of the course, an outline of international efforts at e-governance, a comparison
of e-governance efforts in Cyprus and Malta, and a compendium of lessons learned
in the course, and what steps can now be taken to move the deployment of
e-governance forward. The book’s
purpose has been to assess key e-governance principles, strategies and best
practices with specific concentration on developments in e-government in
Commonwealth countries in the Mediterranean. The theory covers the foundation in
assessing the practical applications of e-government and the delivery of
e-services. The book is based on interviews and questions posed to officials in
Cyprus and Malta, academic research and studies conducted by international
organizations such as COMSEC, the United Nations, the OECD and the World Bank.
The book is slated to be published sometime in the Autumn, 2007.
You can also go to:
http://www.rileyis.com and http://www.electronicgov.net
and click on publications to find the paper:
[1] William Sheridan, Researcher, Commonwealth Centre for e-Governance, http://www.electronicgov.net
[2] J. Satyanarayana, e-Government: the science of the possible, Prentice-Hall, New Delhi, 2004, pg. 22
[3] Sheridan, William and Thomas B. Riley, co-authors, Bringing Growth and Success through e-Governance: Case Studies in Cyprus and Malta. To be published autumn, 2007.
[4] If further details are needed contact us at: RTRiley6@cs.com
Thomas Riley is available for consultations, preparation of reports, presenting workshops or delivering speeches at conferences and seminars on e-government, e-governance and e-democracy. Please contact me at the email address below for further details.
Thomas B. Riley
Executive Director and Chair
Commonwealth Centre for E-Governance
www.electronicgov.net
Visiting Professor, University of Glasgow
President, Riley Information Services Inc.
www.rileyis.com
email:
rtriley6@cs.com
Author: Time's End
www.amazon.com
(see under books: Thomas B. Riley)
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