Globally, Korea emerged at the top of the rankings for the second year running ahead of the US and Canada.
In Africa, Mauritius and the Seychelles were the front-runners with Kenya in the third place.
This year’s report, titled Leveraging e-Government at a time of financial and economic crisis, is the fifth in a series that started in 2003.
The report provides a comprehensive assessment of national online services, telecommunication infrastructure and human capital.
Interestingly, the report finds that citizens are benefiting from more advanced e-service delivery, better access to information, more efficient government management and improved interactions with governments, primarily as a result of the public sector’s increasing use of information and communications technology.
The report also says that countries have published a tremendous amount of information online, many going beyond basic websites to provide national portals that serve as a major starting point for users to connect to government services in different ministries.
At the same time, many developing countries need to devote additional energy to transactional services as well as the electronic means of engaging citizens in public consultation and decision-making.
It is worthy of note that Kenya’s national portal (www.kenya.go.ke) scored the highest points in the region, followed by Mauritius and Madagascar.
The report identifies the entry of m-Government especially in developing countries where mobile penetration is highest as the next big thing.
Cellular phones and other mobile devices have the potential to transform the public service offering if governments are able to come to terms with the changing face of technology and innovate with a citizen-centric mindset.
Good examples of m-Government are the alerts sent through short message services (SMS) to notify citizens that a request for assistance has been processed, that a permit needs to be renewed or that an emergency advisory notice has been issued.
According to the report, the mobile revolution and growth of high-speed broadband and wireless access is beginning to have a measurable economic impact, reinforced by expansion of e-government capacity in the public sector, even in least developed countries with limited economies of scale.
Mobile cellular subscriptions have grown exponentially in developing regions in the last 10 years, but most governments are not exploiting this technology fully in public service delivery.
The 2010 assessment of government websites revealed that many governments continue to focus on online and mobile dissemination of information rather than expansion of interactive services.
So as our technocrats craft the way forward on government transformation through a connected government, think Government 2.0 — the next generation e-Government.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Harry Hare
Quelle/Source: Business Daily Africa, 22.04.2010
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