e-Governance Challenges

Presentation by
M Abdus Sobhan, PhD
Professror
School of Engineering and Computer Science
Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB)
Dhaka, Bangladesh
asobhan@secs.iub.edu.bd, sobhan30@gmail.com
Tel: 01552 335892

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
Introduction
 Global shifts towards increased deployment of IT by governments emerged
in the nineties, with the advent of the World Wide Web. The technology
as well as e-Governance initiatives have come a long way since then.

 With the increase in Internet and mobile connections, the citizens are
learning to exploit their new mode of access in wide ranging ways.

 They have started expecting more and more information and services
online from governments and corporate organizations to further their
civic, professional and personal lives, thus creating abundant evidence
that the new “e-citizenship” is taking hold.

 The concept of e-governance has its origins in Bangladesh during the late
nineties with a focus on development of in-house government
applications in the areas of economic monitoring, planning and the
deployment of IT to manage data intensive functions related to elections,
census, tax administration etc.
National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning
GoB, 03 May, 2010
 There has been an increasing involvement of international
donor agencies under the framework of e-Governance for
development to catalyze the development of e-Governance laws
and technologies in developing countries.
 While the emphasis has been primarily on automation and
computerization, the governments have also endeavored to use
ICT tools into connectivity, networking, setting up systems for
processing information and delivering services.
 At a micro level, this has ranged from IT automation in
individual departments, electronic file handling and workflow
systems, access to entitlements, public grievance systems, service
delivery for high volume routine transactions such as payment of
bills, tax dues to meeting poverty alleviation goals through the
promotion of entrepreneurial models and provision of market
information.
National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning
GoB, 03 May, 2010
 The expectations of public from the Government are very high.
Delivery of services has to be highly efficient to meet these
expectations and the use of technology for delivery is inevitable.
 Traditional methods of delivery of services will no longer suffice.
 Investment decision for roping in technology have to be made on
the basis of resultant efficiency of services.
 e-Governance cannot happen until we are able to bring in
paradigm shift in the attitude and mind-set of government
functionaries.
 Shifting of focus from regimented processes to ‘Citizen Centric
Governance’ involves a real transfer of power from the government
officials to the common man.

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
So it is important that the challenge of bringing about this change in the
mind-set of the government officers is met head on.

• Lot of efforts have been made to bring in technology. Yet, the net result is
hardly commensurate with the effort. Partly it is due to the old mind set of our
old official system and this needs to be changed quickly.

• With pro-active governance, ICT can become a very powerful agent of

change.

• All that is needed is keen desire to re-work government processes and

objectives to suit the requirements of the citizens.

• The common man now-a-days is fully ready to adapt to fast changing

technologies and the excuses “citizen is not ready for change” is no longer
available to governments which do not want to change. Radical change is
needed in the way governments address the problems of the citizens.

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
 At the end of the twentieth century, there was loss of confidence in governments
worldwide. For example, in the US in the ‘Visions of Governance for the Twenty-
First –Century’ project, it was noted that confidence in US government has
sharply declined.
 
 It is in this environment that the e-governance appeared on the scene and was
widely subscribed to by various stakeholders in government.

 However, the experience of last more than a decade shows that the expectations
aroused by e-governance, by and large, continue to remain unfulfilled. What are
then the emerging challenges e-governance faces today?

The following ten appear noteworthy:

Challenge #1: How to achieve the objective of efficient public

service delivery which is not yet being successfully met by e-
Governance?

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
 The e-Governance is driven by a number of stakeholders – the politician, the
civil servants, the technology vendors and the civil service organizations (CSOs).
Citizens too endorse the widespread acceptance of e-governance as it promises to
be government online and not inline.
 
 Yet what drives e-governance today are not these stakeholders, important as
they are, but the need for efficient public service delivery. Governance has become
a key concept in the international development debate. Public services are widely
perceived as unproductive, dilatory and insensitive to the changing needs of
citizens.
 
The emergence of e-governance in mid-1990s therefore caught the imagination of
different stakeholders and e-governance was subscribed to almost an
unquestioned way. It is the need for administrative reforms, which incorporates
business process reengineering (BPR), that drives e-governance to-day. The first
and foremost emerging e-governance challenge, therefore, is: how to achieve the
objective of efficient public service delivery which is not yet being successfully met
by e-governance?

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
Challenge #2: How to make e-governance anticipate emergence of new
technologies and respond to them quickly?

Governments are usually taken up by surprise by new technological

developments. In developing economies, for example, demand is gradually
building up for m-government (mobile government) and some public services are
also being made available (for example, railway reservation status, school result,
bank balance). In Bangladesh a demand for m-governance may escalate as
mobile phones start penetrating deeply its rural hinterland, thus exerting pressure
for launch of m-governance etc.
 
It is essential that legislators and policy makers are trained in e-Governance
generally and in technological developments in particular.  
 
For many developing economies e-governance efforts are still to gather necessary
momentum. Thus, the second emerging e-governance challenge, therefore, is:
how to make e-government anticipate emergence of new technologies and
respond to them quickly? 

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
Challenge #3: How can global and national league tables contribute to e-
Governance policy formulation and implementation?
 
The last decade has seen emergence of many global e-government and related
information and communication technology (ICT) league tables.
 
However, the contribution to e-Governance policy formulation and
implementation, has so far ,not been very significant.

It is imperative to make such efforts more e-Governance policy-oriented so that

they can provide independent inputs to crucial e-Governance policy formulation
and implementation. The third emerging e-Governance challenge, therefore, is:
how can global and national league tables contribute to e-government policy
formulation and implementation?

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
Challenge #4: How to set up dependable management information systems (MISs)
in government the light of information explosion and other developments?

An unprecedented information explosion has taken place.

The decision-making in government has not significantly and visibly improved is

the fact that appropriate management information systems (MISs), making use of
information explosion, exploiting ICTs, breaking inter-departmental
communication barriers and utilizing principles of change management (CM) and
knowledge management (KM) including setting up of communities of practices
(COPs), have not been put in place.

The fourth e-Governance challenge, therefore, is: how to set up dependable

management information systems (MIS) in government in the light of information
explosion and other developments?

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
Challenge #5: How not to keep on overloading government websites with all sorts
of information but to anticipate and meet information and/or transaction needs of
the citizens quickly and in user-friendly manner?

Challenge #6: How to set up appropriate search capabilities on e-Government

websites to ferret out the required information?

 Google –type strong search engines are to be developed for finding the
required information. Off course ,this has not happened for the Bangladesh
government websites yet.

Challenge #7: How to make use of semantic web in e-Government websites to

improve the quality of the required government information?

Governments face the difficulties of management of too much information,

created by too many heterogeneous, distributed sources. Resulting issues such as
inconsistent terminologies, information overload and too little maintenance of
outdated knowledge are only too frequent. One way out is to develop “semantic
web” for e-Governance.
National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning
GoB, 03 May, 2010
The seventh emerging e-Government challenge, therefore, is: how to make use of
semantic web in e-government websites to improve the quality of the required
government information?

Challenge #8: How to make use of wiki technology in e-Governance if public

sector is constrained by resources as it is?

Challenge #9: How to monitor investments in e-Governance as serious problems

of unproductive investments in e-Government have started surfacing?

Challenge #10: How to put proper customer relationship management (CRM)

and/or electronic customer relationship management (eCRM) programs in place
in e-Government in developing/transitional economies?

ICTs have complicated and have not made any significant contribution to the
solution of the largely intractable problem of efficient public service delivery.

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
The problems of privacy/security are yet to be resolved to the satisfaction of
citizens and non-citizens.

The widely-used interactive voice response system (IVRS) is not only time-
consuming, as it follows a predetermined path, but often exhausts patience in
reaching a human being at the end of a long line.
 
Telephone, and not the Internet, is still the best friend of a citizen as far as public
services are concerned even in developed countries.

Proper customer relationship management (CRM) and/or electronic customer

relationship management (eCRM) programs are urgently required to secure the
loyalty of citizens and non-citizens to e-Government.

The tenth emerging e-Governance challenge, therefore, is: how to put proper
customer relationship management (CRM) and/or electronic customer
relationship management (eCRM) programs in place in e-Government in
developing/transitional economies?

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
Challenges to e-Governance Development in Bangladesh

1. Absence of good ICT and Legal infrastructure.

 Country-wide robust technical infrastructure like very high

speed broadband Internet connectivity, Large citizen-registers with
adequate measures for preserving privacy and security etc.

2. Absence of good ICT and Legal infrastructure.

 Sufficient Legal infrastructure such as digital signature act with

robust PKI infrastructure with strong central certification authority.

 Other e-Governance friendly laws such as for land registration,

cyber crimes, telemedicine, multimedia, evidence etc.

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
3. Developing web contents in Bangla so that general public can
interact with government and corporate websites with sufficient
confidence.

4. High rates of Internet adoption possibly, through mobile phones

or community center using BTCL’s ADSL technology and WiMAX
services . Tariff to be brought within the reach of common people
like that of mobile phones.

5. Strong political will.

6. Due to paucity of funds and material resources in Bangladesh,

she must exchange its experiences and establish collaborations
among themselves to adopt the best strategies and systems.

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
3. Developing web contents in Bangla so that general public can
interact with government and corporate websites with sufficient
confidence.

4. High rates of Internet adoption possibly, through mobile phones

or community center using BTCL’s ADSL technology and WiMAX
services . Tariff to be brought within the reach of common people
like that of mobile phones.

5. Strong political will.

6. Due to paucity of funds and material resources in Bangladesh,

she must exchange its experiences and establish collaborations
among themselves to adopt the best strategies and systems.

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
7. Priorities should be decided based on actual needs and priorities
of the citizens and businesses and not at the discretion of
government. There should be continuous consultation with the
users.

8. Further prioritization should be done based on immediate needs

of the people giving priority to poverty, rural development, health,
education and employment.

9. Establishing institutional infrastructure and change management

mechanism. But the paradigm shift has to be accommodative and
adaptable to local conditions.

10. Human Resources Development for changing mind set of

Government Staff.

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
11. Priorities should be decided based on actual needs and priorities
of the citizens and businesses and not at the discretion of
government. There should be continuous consultation with the
users.

12. Establish proper mechanism for monitoring and evaluation of

the projects.

13. Proper use of publicity material and means in proper awareness

about the new projects.

14. Development of low cost solutions, use of open source software

should be encouraged. Adoption of e-governance Standards and
security issues is very crucial.

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
15. Private sector participation in creating implementable/delivery
framework. The partnership should be based on mutual trust,
respect and benefits.

16. Promoting and encouraging people to lead the initiative in order

to inspire, galvanize, mobilize and implementing new initiatives.

17. Introduction of computer education and working on virtual

classrooms to facilitate the children of far flung areas.

18. Deploy e-Governance initiatives in universities, NGOs and other

public and private sector corporate offices to harness its benefits.

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
Some Notable e-Governance Projects

1. Passport Information System-online processing of passports.

2. Mobi Taka Railway Ticket by Railway-GP joint initiatives.

……………. ……………. ……………. …………….

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
Conclusion

 In the context of building Digital Bangladesh by 2021, challenges

mentioned here are to be met on emergency basis.

 We must see these challenges on war-footing

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010
 Thank You

National Academy for Planning and Development (NAPD), Ministry of Planning

GoB, 03 May, 2010