Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Electoral Reform, Public Enterprises and Anti-Corruption, Industry, Tourism, Trade and Communication under the government of Fiji was the first speaker of the day and presented his talk entitled "Transforming lives: Fiji's experience of e-Gov".
His talk detailed how Fiji was faring with its development of e-governance and the many advantages it has brought to the nation. He also highlighted the need for a country to develop its information communication technology (ICT) sector as it may open up opportunities for other industries to flourish.
'E-governance is also a deterrence to corruption and it can improve the lives of citizens by making tasks such as filling out applications more convenient," lie said, adding that it can also lead to improving the economic infrastructure in terms of creating greater confidence in the country's economy through online trades.
Bashir Patel, director of programmes under the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), delivered the next talk entitled "Assessing your readiness to make full use of e-Governance techniques".
In his talk, he introduced a United Nations Public Administration Programme (UNPAN) e-government online training tool known as METER (Measurement and Evaluation Tool for E-Government Readiness), which could be used to assess the level of readiness a country is in terms of adopting e-governance.
He added that in order for Brunei to be regarded as top 10 in terms of its e-readiness index, it should measure itself monthly using the METER to evaluate what else it needs and what its lacking as well as areas it could improve on to further stem the development of e-government.
Bashir went on to say that Brunei was in a good position to develop its e-government because although it is a bit behind, the country could use this to its advantage by observing and learning from other countries' experiences as to the obstacles and challenges they had to face to develop their form of e-government.
"In order to ensure the growth of its e-government, the country should also constantly review the current technology that is available as well as upgrade it continuously," he said.
"There's a digital gap which needs to be closed and while a country might have a high literacy rate, its population might lack the computer literacy needed for an e-government to be accepted," he said, adding that citizens needed to be educated in terms of broadband technology as well as to be made aware of its services.
He went on to say that the private sector also played a vital role in ensuring as well as developing e-government in the country.
Other speakers included Sitiveni Nabua, director of e-Government programme, ICT Service of Fiji, with her talk entitled "Achieving Success Through e-Governance; the Practical Experiences of Fiji", and John Budden, Asia-Pacific Secretariat, Head of Economics, with his talk entitled "Encouraging take-up of e-Government services amongst the most social and economic vulnerable society".
The forum also saw a panel discussion led bt Bashir Patel, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum and Brian Galbraith, director of Optimise International, where they discussed the next steps for e-Governance reform and how governments should respond to it.
The three-day forum is in association with the Ministry of Communications and supported by the Pacific Telecommunications Council, Telecommunications Insights, Asia Monitor, Telecom Watch, and Communications and Manufacturing Association of India.
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Quelle/Source: Brunei Direct, 20.08.2009
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