IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

Lately and as a result of the political debate traversing Lebanon, there has been much discussion on technocratizing the government - i.e. depoliticizing some government functions in favor of specialists and experts working within the confines of institutions. Here's a no-brainer starting point; Lebanon's hi-tech (ICT) sector. In Lebanon, we have come a long way in ICT. In 1992, the telecom infrastructure was in shambles and we had an estimated 250,000 badly maintained phone lines serving a population of more than 3 million. We did not have any mobile telephony. The business sector had little if any investments in IT. The government itself conducted its operations mostly based on pen and paper - if at all (I remember one MP closely involved with the budget process back then describing to me that the budget documents used to arrive to the Finance Ministry bound with rope typically used for fruit boxes). Schools and universities considered technology a luxury and in fact half of the private schools and all of the public schools had no technology as late as 1996 as per a study conducted by AUB ... but that was then. Today, as with all major sectors, ICT in Lebanon has advanced by leaps and bounds. A state-of-the-art fixed-line network was installed in the mid-1990's capable of handling about 1.2 million lines. A cellular network grew beyond projections serving some 700,000 clients. The government itself, due to the good offices of Omsar, the Finance Ministry, the Central Bank and others, and with international technical assistance actually led the private sector in the mid-1990's with technology adoption yielding excellent results in areas such as customs automation, cadastre, national archives, not to mention the security apparatus. Over the past two years there has also been much talk about jump-starting e-government initiatives.

While there have been good advances, ICT in Lebanon is far from reaching its potential, and seems to have fallen behind the likes of Jordan and Egypt. There is one basic reason for this - lack of institutionalized government ICT sponsorship - as opposed to ad hoc ICT projects. In a study conducted for Harvard University in 2002 and titled "Institutionalizing National ICT Strategies: The Case of Lebanon," the main conclusions reached were that Lebanon's primary ICT strength was in its abundance of highly qualified human resources - as compared to regional nations such as Jordan, for instance. Lebanon's entrepreneurial initiative created a bottom-up dynamic that could easily be the envy of advanced places such as Dubai and Malaysia. However, what was found was that Lebanon lacked institutional strategy, support and guidance for its ICT sector. In other words, whereas nations such as Jordan, Egypt, and UAE had a predominantly top-down approach that sometimes lacked the initiative at the bottom to take advantage of this government support; Lebanon was found to have the opposite problem - complete reliance on the bottom's initiative without much institutionalized support from the top.

That is not to say Lebanon has not tried. In 1997, the Lebanese government saw the need for a national ICT strategy and hired some consultants to draw up the necessary ICT strategy. The institution delegated to carry out these resulting strategies was Omsar - which did a lot but constantly found it hard to fully commit given its much more massive (and politicized) responsibility of overall administrative reform. By 1998, with a new government in place and whose mantra was tight fiscal controls, the ICT initiatives fell into the lap of the Economy and Trade Ministry. The minister in charge - an economist - changed focus to e-government and made an honest effort; but there was only that much mindshare that ICT could capture given all his other responsibilities - particularly since most ICT issues - at the infrastructure level - are multi-ministry issues that require not so much macro-views and ideas, but rather micro-issues needing ICT experience and understanding in standards, compatibilities and constantly shifting IT market tendencies. With the government's change in 2000, the ICT ball would fall back once again into Omsar's court with the same political shackles it had prior adding to it serious budgetary restrictions that made any ICT much harder to implement.

It is therefore no surprise that issues such as offering DSL to the Lebanese market - something that according to a study conducted by Microsoft in Lebanon is likely to draw tens of millions of dollars into the government's coffers - has never taken off. It is no surprise that the plans drawn up with the help of Ustda for a technology park in Damour several years ago is still a pipe dream. It is no surprise that e-government initiatives that could touch the lives of the citizen are usually delivered in a ministry-specific "island" format as opposed to an overall centralized citizen-centric approach reducing from their impact. Therefore, it is no surprise that ICT strategies set years ago have yet to be implemented even though the ICT assets are already sitting idle and could yield sizeable revenues to a government and a nation in dire need of new sources of income and employment opportunities.

So what to do about it? In the aforementioned Harvard study, the primary recommendation given to solve this problem was to create a quasi-government ICT institution along the lines of arguably the most stable, sturdy, and consistent of Lebanon's institutions - the Central Bank. This may seem grandiose and over-ambitious, but to set the expectations straight, what is being sought with this analogy is not so much magnitude as structure. In its simplest form, the idea is to create an independent and relatively nonpoliticized institution whose mission it is to support and coordinate all Lebanese ICT initiatives within a strategic framework put together by ICT technocrats and with the participation of the Lebanese government - very much in the spirit of the Central Bank (whose mission has always been to coordinate with the Lebanese Bankers Association, the Finance Ministry, and the Council of Ministers in order to set the proper monetary strategies and policies, all the while maintaining recognized and respected technocratic independence. The proposed ICT institution needs a similar setup, but need not be massive in structure. The idea is for it to be lean and efficient sub-contracting studies and coordinating with the different national ICT stakeholders within and outside the government - including ICT infrastructure players such as the telecoms. The idea is for it to also have some regulatory prowess, particularly on issues such as piracy and intellectual property. The direct effect would be a proper and independent ICT institution charged with setting strategy, assuring continuity in deployment and accountability for the results.

The first reaction from some might be: "It is better to let the market function." Unfortunately it hasn't been the case either in Lebanon or internationally, which is why countries such as Jordan, Egypt, UAE, Malaysia, Singapore, Colombia and many others have adopted this kind of structure. The next concern might be: "How would the Lebanese government even afford yet another institution with all the current budgetary problems?" In all fairness, this response is akin to killing the goose that lays the golden egg. The Lebanese government's second source of income (after taxes) comes from ICT (this includes money from the mobile sector and the fixed line networks). If strategies are implemented properly, much more revenue is bound to come - be it from DSL or ISDN bandwidth rents; e-government initiatives which could become revenue-generating as citizens would be willing to pay for higher degrees of efficiency and expediency; other ICT rents from initiatives such as incubators and business accelerators whose funding could also come from international NGO's and donors; not to mention professional IT associations and businesses who might be interested in pitching-in for such an institution for their own benefit (fighting piracy). Surely, the proposed ICT Institution could be self-funded by allocating a small portion of the marginal benefits received from the sector.

Sounds too easy? It will certainly require institutional building vision, ICT expertise, and overall persistence. But if the government leaders have a genuine desire to technocratize Lebanon, why not start with the tech sector?

Autor: Wissam S. Yafi

Quelle: MENAFN, 23.09.2004