Two is company, but 21 is definitely a crowd. Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is the region's largest multilateral grouping and (one hopes) an excellent forum for trade-related issues. But as the largely inconsequential outcome of last year's 2nd Apec High-Level Symposium on e-Government shows, e-government and regional declarations of intent make for uneasy bedfellows.
At the Malaysian government's 8th annual Multimedia Super Corridor International Advisory Panel summit last week attention was focused on the region's current boom in outsourcing. But as the audience sat through an endless series of powerpoint slides, it became clear that one vertical was being uncharacteristically slow to reexamine its approach to sourcing - government.
According to Nathan Midler, research manager of Internet and Government at the International Data Corporation (IDC) Asia Pacific, government IT spending in the Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12.1 per cent between 2002 and 2007.
Read more: Security to drive govt IT spending in Asia Pacific
In the past few years, governments in Asia-Pacific have invested millions in online initiatives in the hope of giving citizens easier access to services ranging from the filing of taxes to the application of government permits.