IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

All Latin American countries should consider five key elements for their respective digital transformation agendas, according to an expert.

Countries should focus on a strong institution, a set of concrete objectives, financial resources, technology tools, and human talent, Miguel Porrúa, e-government specialist and digital cluster coordinator at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), told BNamericas.

Investment in the 700 MHz spectrum is one of the most appropriate options to accelerate adoption of mobile broadband services in Latin America, said 4G Americas.

The 700 MHz band will be cleared as a result of the migration from analog to digital television in the Latin America region. The band is suitable for providing wireless service coverage in rural areas and offers better signal coverage than higher band spectrum for inside buildings and homes.

The growth of the internet in Latin America has been swift in the past few years, due largely to the mobile network and smartphone boom in countries like Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Argentina, according to the Latin Post. As Cisco’s 2015 VNI report found, last year Latin America as a whole grew in IP traffic by 25%, with traffic growth of the mobile internet at 87%. But& Cisco vice president Robert Pepper told the Huffington Post that the VNI report shows Latin America poised to fall behind when it comes to industrial IoT adoption.

The plan, known as eLAC2015, was approved by delegates by means of the "Lima Declaration", at the end of the Third Ministerial Conference on the Information Society of Latin America and the Caribbean, which was held from 21 to 23 November in the Peruvian capital.

Participants reaffirmed their conviction that public policymaking must incorporate the mainstreaming of information and communications technologies (ICTs) for countries' development.

Colombia, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Uruguay, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil were other highly-ranked countries in Latin America and were all rated among the top 60 countries worldwide for e-government.

The highest-ranked Central American country was Panama, at number 66 worldwide, followed by El Salvador and Costa Rica.

The government launched a tender information site, contratos.gov, in 2003, which has seen a leap in monthly visitors from an initial 5,000 to an average of 34,750 in March 2005.

Overcoming state dependence may be crucial for digital innovations to transform democracy by engaging more citizens in the political process.

Latin America has always been a region of deep contradictions, and this is especially true when one considers its politics and democracy. Despite its authoritarian past that continues to show through in some political practices and institutions, the region has experimented with democracy in very innovative ways in recent years. Likewise, whereas the region still suffers from deep social inequality and is not yet free from poverty and hunger, Latin America is the world’s third largest regional online market and its internet penetration rate is above the world’s average, half of which is due to intense smartphone usage.

Public management involves a combination of actions undertaken by an entity in the pursuit of its goals, ends and objectives, based on its priorities. To this end, for local, regional and national governments, information and communications technologies (ICTs) have become one of the most important means for achieving such goals and objectives.

alk to any taxi driver, student or small businessman from Mexico down to Argentina, and they’ll likely make one thing clear: Latin America has a corruption problem. The solution, however, may lie less in the legislatures of Bogotá, Brasília and Buenos Aires and more in the tech incubators of Silicon Valley, São Paulo, Medellín and Guadalajara.

In the past couple of years, a wave of anti-establishment candidates running — and winning — on vague platforms of combatting graft has shown just how salient the issue of corruption is in Latin America. Indeed, it is likely the region’s greatest ill, actively working against prosperity and progress. It’s not a new phenomenon, but one that’s now risen to the top of the agenda — and for good reason.

1. Political Support

   The first of these common ingredients is the political support of the highest authority in the country. In all three cases analyzed, the support of the president has been instrumental in mobilizing other critical elements, such as legislative changes, institutional strategy, and budgetary allocation.

2. Latin America: Claro Chile's smart cities bet

   

   Claro Chile, a subsidiary of Mexico's América Móvil, is involved in two smart city projects and wants to establish itself as an integrator and facilitator of urban solutions.

   “The demand for solutions for smart cities is constantly growing due to several global trends such as the concentration of population in cities, security and the incorporation of sustainability variables in urban development and urban mobility,” Francisco Guzmán Marín, vice president of B2B unit Claro Empresas, told BNamericas.

3. Latin America: Cross-Border Pediatric Telemedicine Works Well

   After studying more than 1,000 pediatric telemedicine consultations offered in Latin America, researchers at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh--a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center hospital--found physicians in those countries were highly satisfied with the services and believed they had improved patient outcomes.

   The study, published in Telemedicine and e-Health, showcased Children’s multi-center experience in telemedicine at three hospitals in Colombia and one in Mexico from July 2011 to June 2013. Children’s physicians provided 1,040 consultations for 476 patients, with a real-time intervention taking place in 23 percent of those encounters, including echocardiography, adjustment of pacemaker settings and pharmacologic therapy. In 6 percent of the tele-consultations, a different diagnosis was suggested based on the interpretation of cardiac or imaging studies.

4. Latin America: ICT: Hype or Panacea?

   Are new information technologies a panacea, hype, or somewhere in between?

   For over two decades now, Information Communication Technologies (ICT) have been sweeping the globe, from the industrialized nations of the North to developing nations of the South. Some of the most dynamic growth of the latter has been in Latin America and the Caribbean, although connectivity, participation rates, product offerings, services, and costs and revenue vary widely.

   Internet retailing provides a good case example. As pointed out by Daniel Latev, writing in this publication, Latin America topped Internet growth globally, achieving a 24 percent increase together with the Asia Pacific region; and it is expected to achieve a compounded annual growth rates of 17 percent through 2015. Generating $12 billion in sales in 2010, with Brazil, Chile and Argentina leading the way, Internet retailing now ranges from extensive online product catalogues (e.g., Walmart, Carrefour) to online purchasing from both bricks and mortar stores and e-commerce only companies. Additionally, collective buying sites, such as US-based Groupon, are emerging in more developed markets such as Brazil.

5. Latin America: Spain releases US$ 816,000 for IFAP projects

   Thanks to funds now released by the Spanish Government, four projects of UNESCO’s Information for All Programme (IFAP) can now begin. All four projects deal with e-governance in Latin American countries.

   E-Government and e-Governance are complimentary concepts adopted by the public sector to increase the use of information and communication technologies with the aim of improving information and service delivery to citizens and to stimulate citizen participation in the decision-making process and making governments more accountable, transparent and effective.

6. Latin America: Will We Have Confidence in the Development of Infrastructure for Smart Cities

   

   As digitization increases, vast amounts of data will be collected, analyzed and stored. According to Forbes, the world produces more than 2.5 trillion bytes of data every day. The corresponding challenge is to create the platforms to support these volumes of data.

   In the case of smart cities, platforms help manage the collection and processing of data from multiple sources to provide information on topics of interest such as weather conditions, events, parking, or transportation, both for analysis, and decision making.

7. Linux für Lateinamerika

   Nach Brasilien steigen auch in Argentinien, Venezuela, Chile und Peru immer mehr Schulen, Regierungsstellen und Unternehmen um | Neue Verordnungen und Gesetze treiben den Umstieg auf freie Betriebsysteme an

   Angeführt von Brasilien scheint der Trend zu Open Source in Südamerika stärker zu sein als auf jedem anderen Kontinent.

8. Microsoft and the OAS partner for e-gov in Latin America

   Organizations to promote adoption of Internet systems in Latin America.

   Microsoft and the Organization of American States (OAS) have partnered to promote the adoption of Internet-based systems among Latin America's municipalities and public-sector agencies, they said Wednesday.

9. S. Korea taps deeper into South American e-government market

   

   A South Korean government delegation will visit Brazil and Peru next week to promote its electronic government systems, the ministries of interior and foreign affairs said Wednesday.

   The team led by a senior official of the Ministry of the Interior plan to visit the South American countries through Tuesday.

   In Peru, the delegation plans to hold talks with senior officials from the Prime Minister's Office, and the Ministry of Transport and Communications. It is also scheduled to hold sessions to train Peruvian civil servants on the use of e-government.

10. The digital strategies of Latin American governments

    

    Several Latin American countries have unveiled new digital development agendas during 2021 for the coming years.

    The most recent case was Mexico, which three years after the start of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government, created a framework for its digital strategy.

11. UNESCO’s IFAP ends e-government project in Latin American World Heritage cities

    The ‘Electronic Government Model for World Heritage Cities’ project, launched by UNESCO’s Information for All Programme (IFAP) in 2006 and financed by the Government of Spain through its Ministry of Public Administration, was officially closed in Quito on 24 November.

    During the ceremony chaired by Quito’s Mayor, Mr Paco Moncayo, representatives of the three participating cities, Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), Cusco (Peru) and Quito (Ecuador), shared the experiences derived from the project and evaluated its results.