"Evidence of Taiwan's strong competence in advancing e-government is not fading. There is ongoing development of online government services with enriched Web site content and the widespread promotion of usage of these Web sites, " said Sung Yu-hsieh, deputy minister of the RDEC, at the 2009 Asia-Pacific E-Governance International Conference in Taipei.
Noting that key e-government programs include e-tax services, e-job services and official document interchanges, Sung said efforts are also being made to improve service quality and government information disclosure.
Taiwan's e-government initiatives have received global recognition, as Taiwan has ranked among the top five countries in the annual Brown University global e-government survey since 2001, Sung said.
According to the survey, Taiwan ranked first in 2002, 2004 and 2005, and second in 2001, 2006 and 2008.
With the promotion of e-government services already delivering results, Sung said it is time to move on to pursuing the best practices in e-governance in order to enhance public values and establish a trusting and connected society.
To achieve the goal, the government will need to create a “5-I Government" -- integrative, innovative, interactive, instant and individual -- to provide multi-channel services, offer informative services and strengthen citizen interaction, he added.
According to Sung, moving from e-government to e-governance will require better transparency in e-services, better accountability in e-administration, and better approaches to public participation.
Therefore, bridging the digital divide is one of the keys to achieving the best e-governance practices, and small devices such as smartphones and netbooks, as well as Web 2.0 services, will play a leading role in helping e-governance become more efficient and timely, he added.
Frank Leyman, chairman of the Belgium-based International Council for Information Technology in Government Administration, said in his keynote speech titled "Vision and Strategies of E-Governance Worldwide" that building up a good "back office, " as opposed to the "front office, " such as a Web site, is the key to the best practice of e-governance.
Noting that successful e-government programs should give considerable attention to back-office support, Leyman said that governments should focus on citizen centricity and agency interoperability to achieve the goal.
He cited as an example the European Union's effort to create a comprehensive common back office, or database, to store all electronic identity card information.
The scheme is good for e-governance, he said, because it is a layered and open model with authentic sources that provide a unified identification system for citizens and companies.
While public authorities keep control over their core product -- "the identification of citizens" -- the model also gives access to the back office to private companies, leaving them free to develop the applications they need, he added.
The two-day conference has gathered experts and scholars from the United States, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Belgium, Singapore and China to share their research and experience in e-government and e-governance, and to discuss issues and challenges in future e-governance projects.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Rachel Chan
Quelle/Source: eTaiwan News, 02.09.2009
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