He said the quick adoption of technology is the only way officials will be able to deliver a higher quality, more reliable and faster service to citizens and businesses. It will also play a key role in improving the region’s global competitiveness and provide the platform for transforming its social and public service systems.
“Often responses to simple requests such as for a birth paper or company registration take days and weeks to be fulfilled.”
Speaking to government officials at the 7th Annual Government Technology conference hosted by Microsoft in Dublin Ireland, in December, Viera said governments should be one of the first adopters of IT as their responsiveness to providing information and requests by citizens will have a major impact on the region’s competitiveness.
Microsoft hosted this year’s conference of more than 35 senior government officials from across the Caribbean in an effort to encourage networking between regional agencies and to share information from project designers and IT experts.
Microsoft West Indies also provided an update on its eGovernment strategy for the region, an overview of several successful government technology projects from developers that use Microsoft’s software platforms as well as eGovernment projects initiated by the global software maker.
Viera, who was a key designer of Puerto Rico’s successful eGovernment project, said the impact of a competitive government is a key factor in improving the public’s perception of the government and the local economy, and this confidence has been reflected by improvements in local investment, higher standards of living, increased revenues for government and real improvements in the country’s global competitiveness.
He said what has been driving the eGovernment movement in the Caribbean has been a stronger demand by citizens for a better quality of social services that are less time consuming and require less paper work.
On the technology side, this requires agencies to adopt new emerging technologies with proven stability and higher inter-departmental integration to lower costs and reduce the time required to deliver responses to requests from citizens.
“The objective of eGovernment is to improve the relationship between citizens, businesses, governments and employees. Government IT transformation projects also provide worldwide presence on the Internet and improve the country’s visibility on the global stage to attract investment and business from international customers.
“In the process of implementing technology projects, governments will become more responsive, transparent and will also collaborate and share information for improved efficiency.”
He said Puerto Rico’s eGovernment project has been a success because it changed the government-private business relationship by lowering transaction costs, simplifying the government regulatory processes and it improved products and services delivery times.
He said more governments around the world are recognizing the importance of applying technology to their operations and the Caribbean region must move forward urgently or they will risk being left behind in an increasingly competitive world.
Viera added that the United Nations Global E-Government Readiness Report 2004 notes that 93 percent or 178 countries out of 191 member states had a website presence. Around 85–92 percent of all the countries online, now provide laws, policies and other documents to their citizens over the internet. One-third of all the countries provide online public services and 75 percent (170 countries) allow the downloading of services, such as drivers license. Eighteen percent (32 countries) offers the facility of making payments online – usually by credit card.
Quelle: The New Executive TIMES, 25.01.2006
