The Impact of E-Government and Informati PDF

ِ‫الر ِح ِيم‬
ِ ‫ن‬ ِِ ‫الر حْ َم ٰـ‬

ِ ‫بِس ِِْم اللـ ِِه‬
AY 2014
THE IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT AND

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGY (ICT) ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT:
A comparative study of Ethiopia, Kenya and Japan
SEID, BURHAN YASIN
Major in International Relations 4012R028
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ASIA-PACIFIC STUDIES

WASEDA UNIVERSITY
PROF. KAWAMURA, YUKIO

C.E. PROF. OBI, TOSHIO D.E.
PROF. LIM, HUA SING
Contents
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .............................................................. 2

SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 2
SECTION 2: BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................ 4
SECTION 3: OBJECTIVES, SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ................................................. 9
SECTION 4: RESEARCH METHOD ..................................................................................................... 11
SECTION 5: STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS .......................................................................................... 11
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF PRIOR LITERATURES ......................... 12
SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 12
SECTION 2: CURRENT STATE OF E-GOVERNMENT AND ICT UTILIZATION IN ETHIOPIA .................... 16
SECTION 3: CURRENT STATE OF E-GOVERNMENT AND ICT UTILIZATION IN KENYA ........................ 18
SECTION 4: CURRENT STATE OF E-GOVERNMENT AND ICT UTILIZATION IN JAPAN ......................... 20
CHAPTER 3: CASE STUDY AND IMPACT ANALYSIS .................... 23
SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 23
SECTION 2: RESEARCH METHOD ..................................................................................................... 24
SECTION 3: RESEARCH FRAMEWORK .............................................................................................. 26
SECTION 4: THE IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT AND ICT UTILIZATION ON EDUCATION, HEALTH AND
WELFARE IN ETHIOPIA.................................................................................................................... 28
WELFARE IN KENYA ........................................................................................................................ 33
WELFARE IN JAPAN .......................................................................................................................... 38
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ..................................... 43
SECTION 1: FINDINGS ...................................................................................................................... 43
SECTION 2: DISCUSSION ON QUALITATIVE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF E-
GOVERNMENT AND ICT .................................................................................................................. 46
SECTION 3: DISCUSSION ON THE IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT AND ICT ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
IN ETHIOPIA, KENYA AND JAPAN ..................................................................................................... 47
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ........... 52

SECTION 1: CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 52
SECTION 2: POLICY IMPLICATIONS................................................................................................... 53
SECTION 3: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE WORKS ................................................................... 54
REFERENCES .......................................................................................... 55
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This chapter has five sections which deal with the introduction, background information,
objectives, scope of the study, research method, and structure of the thesis.
SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION
This section presents the overall introduction, propositions, method and significance of the study.
This research aims to investigate the impact of electronic government (e-government) and
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on Human Development (Education, Health and
Welfare), based on a comparative study among Ethiopia, Kenya and Japan. Governments in the
developed countries often utilize e-government and ICT in their organizations to deliver better
quality of service and enhance efficiency and transparency. In Africa, e-government adoption and
ICT infrastructure development and service delivery remain in early stages and governments are
reluctant to change this situation as they focus on other pressing development challenges such as
disease, poverty and low level literacy. This research, will thus, employ a qualitative research
method based on the case studies of three countries through website content analysis, reviewing
reports from organizations (such as the World Bank, the United Nations (UN), the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)) and review
of related literatures from other authors. This research will help to answer the question: What impact
e-government and ICT have on Human Development in Ethiopia and Kenya as compared to
developed countries such as Japan?
Advancements in emerging digital technology make the utilization of the internet, computer and
mobile technologies in people’s daily lives for communication, business and many other applications
easier. Nowadays, people in the developed and developing world are becoming highly dependent on
such technologies for many activities. Meanwhile, governance in public administration is improving
and becoming more flexible by utilizing technology to serve the people. Governments utilize
technology in their organizations to improve operational efficiency, flexible inter-agency
communication (e-governance), education (e-learning) and health (e-health, telehealth, telemedicine
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or Electronic Health Records (EHR)). E-government implementation is anticipated to make
government interaction with citizens (G2C), businesses (G2B), or other government body (G2G)
more flexible and convenient. Eventually, it will bring greater transparency and easier access to
government information.
On the other hand, Human Development (Education, Health and Welfare) has always been a
critical societal issue in the developing world. Many developing countries (including those in Africa)
and their development partners are endeavoring to change the dire situation in their society
surrounding sustainable development, poverty eradication, good governance, education, health and
welfare. Organizations as the United Nations (UN), United Nations Development Program (UNDP),
the World Bank, and many other organizations strive to improve the Human Development
(Education, Health and Welfare) status in developing countries. Forums such as the Tokyo
International Conference on Africa’s Development (TICAD) gave special attention to Africa.
However, (although some improvements and progresses made) the current human development
situation in the developing countries is far from changing in a sustainable way.
This research focuses on the impact e-government and ICT have on sustainable Human
Development (education, health and welfare), through the case studies of Ethiopia, Kenya and Japan.
This research helps to understand the impact and it is expected to benefit policy makers, researchers
and individuals by showing the gaps in the developing countries as compared to developed countries
such as Japan. The aspects of e-government and ICT and Human Development are the core essences
of this thesis as it attempts to highlight, through its findings, the claim of International Financial
Institutions (IFI) such as the World Bank. These institutions regard e–government and ICT as the
major components of the public administration reform programs. Such reform programs, through the
use of technology, attempt to improve efficiency, transparency, citizen participation and bring
customer oriented governance (especially in the developing countries). However, the attempts
implement e-government and several ICT related projects proved, to fail in many developing
countries. Furthermore, the expected outcome of e-government and ICT initiatives and projects is an
area that has been the least studied with respect to its impact on Human Development.
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SECTION 2: BACKGROUND
This section provides the background information, definition and general overview regarding the
research on e-government, ICT and Human Development accompanied by the status of Ethiopia,
Kenya and Japan in the global E-Government Development Index (EGDI) and Human Development
Index (HDI) trends.
E-government programs can be a facilitator in increasing productivity, thereby increasing the
benefits of newer technologies to the people. E-government innovation and development can
position the public sector as a driver of demand for ICT infrastructure and applications in the broader
economy. E-government programs can be a facilitator to improve efficiency and access to
government services, thereby increasing the benefits of newer technologies to the people. In the last
few years, many countries employed ICT in the areas such as businesses, innovation, research and
development promoting e-learning, e-health, e-agriculture, e-tax, e-commerce and e-governance.
E-government and ICT utilization increase as each country’s Human Development increases.
Those countries with high rank of Human Development Index demonstrate matured e-government
and intensive utilization of ICT, resulting in strong e-governance. This may indicate the proper and
strategic utilization of e-government and ICT in government public service results in improving the
Human Development aspects in education, health and welfare of their society. On the contrary,
developing nations, although they have low levels of infrastructure development and technology,
attempt to utilize ICT in public sector service delivery and internal structure improvement. But, the
Human Development condition of these developing countries did not improve as desired. This can
be caused by either the low level of ICT infrastructure development and utilization in public
administration or lack of strategic focus on advancements in technology. Most of the developing
countries have other burning issues and challenges (such as famine, disease, extreme poverty and
regional security). These challenges receive highest priority and attention over technology adoption
for public service improvement.
In fact, several causes may also be attributed to the low level of Human Development and
lagging behind in terms of e-government adoption and ICT infrastructure in the developing countries.
4
Consequently, in order to understand the contribution of e-government and ICT and the impact on
Human Development requires rigorous study. Moreover, to benefit from the advantages and
maximize the contribution of e-government and ICT to the society, it requires taking proper
measures backed by sufficient scientific justification and research.
What is e-government?
E-government is a generic term for internet-based services from the administrations of local,
state and federal governments. In e-governance, the government uses information technology and
particularly the Internet to support government operations within the organization. E-government is a
mechanism to provide government services to the public through the internet or web applications
made available at some specific communication network. The interaction may be in the form of
obtaining information, downloading forms, submitting e-filings, or making online payments,
participating in decisions and votes and a host of other online activities via the internet. Several
authors and organizations have their own version of definition of e-government. The following are
some of the widely referred definitions:
According to the World Bank (2011): ““E-Government” refers to the use by government
agencies of information technologies (such as Wide Area Networks, the Internet, and mobile
computing) that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of
government. These technologies can serve a variety of different ends: better delivery of government
services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through
access to information, or more efficient government management. The resulting benefits can be less
corruption, increased transparency, greater convenience, revenue growth, and/or cost reductions.”
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2003:11) defines e-
government as “the use of Information and Communication Technologies, and particularly the
Internet, as a tool to achieve better government”. Further, (OECD, 2003:17) refines the definition as
“The term ‘e-government’, as used by the OECD E-government Project, applies to the use of ICT as
a tool to achieve better government.”
Palvia and Sharma (2007:1) set out: “E-government involves using information technology, and
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especially the Internet, to improve the delivery of government services to citizens, businesses, and
other government agencies. E-government enables citizens to interact and receive services from the
federal, state or local governments twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.”
In general, while definitions of e-government by numerous sources may vary widely, there is a
common theme; the use of ICT (computers, mobile technologies and the Internet) in public
administration to provide better services to citizens and enhance the internal structure and operation.
For instance, a government tax office utilizes servers, computers and the internal networks to
facilitate activities between different departments (this is regarded as e-governance). Meanwhile, the
tax office may inform a tax paying individual or business - the details of the tax that should be paid
by him, then collects the payment through online payment systems and sends the confirmation of the
payment made to the payer (such activity is an example of typical e-government service).
The perspective of culture is one of the least studied aspects of e-government and ICT
technology adoption. E-government must carefully be addressed not only from technological
perspectives but also from social, cultural, and organizational perspectives. The research conducted
by Al-Hujran, Al-dalahmeh, and Aloudat (2011:103) attempted to find out the role that the national
culture plays in the citizens’ adoption of technology and e-government by developing a model
“Technology Adoption Model (TAM)”. Their findings and conclusion were: “While two cultural
dimensions: power distance and uncertainty avoidance had significant impacts on citizens' intention
to adopt e-government, the other three cultural dimensions: individualism, masculinity, and long-
term orientation had no discernible impacts. The results also indicate that perceived usefulness,
perceived ease of use, attitude are significant indicators of citizens’ intention to use state government
services online”. This may indicate that similar behavioral and cultural dimensions need proper
research and consideration in implementing e-government services in a country.
Governments in the developed countries are utilizing e-government and ICT in their
organizations to improve their service deliver to citizens. E-government is widely utilized in
developed and developing countries as it helps to improve citizen satisfaction while protecting their
rights (of getting service and information) with better quality, enhanced efficiency and transparency.
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In Africa, e-government adoption and ICT development are in the early stages and governments are
reluctant to change this situation while they are focusing on other pressing development challenges.
The United Nations (UN) report and ranking on e-government (“E-Government Survey”) trend
shows both Ethiopia and Kenya ranked way far behind Japan (See Table 1.)
Table 1. E-Government Development Index Trend of Ethiopia, Kenya and Japan.
Global E-Government Development Index

Ethiopia Kenya Japan Total
Year Index Rank Index Rank Index Rank
2003 0.128 166 0.299 118 0.693 18 191
2004 0.1365 170 0.2959 126 0.726 18 191
2005 0.136 171 0.3298 122 0.7801 14 191
2008 0.1857 172 0.3474 122 0.7703 11 192
2010 0.2033 172 0.3338 124 0.7152 17 190
2012 0.2306 172 0.4212 119 0.8019 18 190
Source: Author (collected and organized from UN EGDI reports)
This trend, to some extent, shows the developed countries, such as Japan, utilized technology
such as ICT in government service delivery through the Internet. The i-Japan strategy of the Prime
Minister of Japan and his Cabinet (2009) elaborated how the country plans to further utilize ICT in
public administration and the report from the task force of the cabinet (2011) showed the results of
ICT strategic implementation in the health case sector (e-health). Similarly, the White Paper from the
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (2011) revealed the achievements made through
the utilization of ICT in public administration, social welfare, the business, disaster prevention and
recovery efforts in the country.
On the other hand, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) releases the Human
Development Report (HDR) and the Human Development Index (HDI) every year since 1990 with
the latest version in 2013. The latest version gave emphasis to “The rise of the South” – as an
emerging trend of continual human development and greater human progress in the developing
countries residing in the global South. Nevertheless, this trend also shows the two countries
(Ethiopia and Kenya) ranking far behind Japan in the HDI (See Table 2).
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Table 2. Human Development Index and Ranking trends of Ethiopia, Kenya and Japan.
Human Development Index

Ethiopia Kenya Japan Total
Year Index Rank Index Rank Index Rank
1990 0.282 112 0.481 89 0.996 1 130
1991 0.166 141 0.399 113 0.993 1 160
1992 0.173 138 0.366 114 0.981 2 160
1993 0.172 151 0.369 127 0.983 1 173
1994 0.249 161 0.434 125 0.929 3 173
1995 0.227 171 0.481 130 0.937 3 174
1996 0.237 168 0.473 128 0.938 3 174
1997 0.244 170 0.463 134 0.94 7 175
1998 0.252 169 0.463 137 0.94 8 174
1999 0.298 172 0.519 136 0.924 4 174
2000 0.309 171 0.508 138 0.924 9 174
2001 0.321 158 0.514 123 0.928 9 162
2002 0.327 168 0.513 134 0.933 9 173
2003 0.359 169 0.489 146 0.932 9 175
2004 0.359 170 0.488 148 0.938 9 177
2005 0.367 170 0.474 154 0.943 11 177
2006 0.371 170 0.491 152 0.949 7 177
2007/2008 0.406 169 0.521 148 0.953 8 177
2009 0.414 171 0.541 147 0.96 10 182
2010 0.328 157 0.47 128 0.884 11 169
2011 0.363 174 0.509 143 0.901 12 187
2013 0.396 173 0.519 145 0.912 10 187
Source: Author (collected and organized from UNDP Human Development reports)
Certainly, being one of the leading countries in technology and innovation, Japan ranked well
with respect to Human Development even before the adoption and utilization of ICT and the Internet
in the public services as e-government. However, as the technology advances including the ICT
sector and its utilization in the public sector, the Human Development indices and rank slightly
tumbled. Meanwhile, the developing countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya remained in the lowest
positions notwithstanding the improvements in ICT sector especially in mobile (cellular)
technologies.
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SECTION 3: OBJECTIVES, SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This section explains the purpose of the research and the scope under which it will be conducted.
The general objective of this study is:
 To examine the impact of e-government and ICT on Human Development.
The specific objectives of this study are:
 Examine the impact of ICT and e-government on Human Development through
comparative case study of Ethiopia Kenya and Japan.
 Investigate the outcome obtained from utilizing ICT for public administration,
economic and social benefits.
 What policy implication will the experience of the developed countries impose on the
developing countries.
The rapid proliferation of Information and Communication Technology has significantly
contributed to the communication for business, public administration, education systems and health
information beyond individual benefits. ICT is proving to be an emerging way of life as the
utilization of technology improves, resulting in booming demand for technology and further
infrastructure development. Individual life in today’s society is highly reliant on the use of smart
phones, Computers, the Internet and all forms of ICT. However, in order to transform theory into
action with the outcomes of ICT and e-government in public administration, various factors such as
infrastructure, social, cultural and economic aspects need to be taken into consideration
The need for advancing e-government and utilizing ICT in public governance to make it a
universal service obligation mostly does not initiate from within the developing nations especially in
Africa. Rather, the development partners and International Financial Institutions (IFI) such as the
UN, UNDP and the World Bank have been shoving these countries in that direction. For instance,
according to the UNDP’s Annual Report 2011/2012 “Democratic Governance Thematic Trust Fund”,
the 2011 spending related to e-governance and governance support covered more than 30% of the
total fund in that sector. Similar spending were made through the World Bank and the UNPAN. It is
9
widely believed that e-government, through the automation of public administration and services,
helps to strengthen democratic governance, reduce corruption and improve transparency. Therefore,
governments must progressively continue to think about human development through the use of ICT,
e-government and e-governance. This can be achieved by placing greater emphasis on organizational
interconnections among the tiered government structures in a bid to create collaboration for inclusive
sustainable development. An important aspect of this approach is to broaden the scope of e-
government; making it a tool for transforming the role of governments towards unified, harmonized,
integrated processes and institutions through which sustainable development is realized. Failure of
an e-government project in developing countries is a real setback because of the high opportunity
cost of the scarce capital resource investment.
Therefore, it is significantly important to study the role e-government and ICT play in
sustainable Human Development. Comparing the situation in the developed countries with that of
the developing countries helps to investigate the consequential outcome obtained from utilizing ICT
in public administration, economic and social benefits. This research will thus, examine the impact
e-government and ICT have on Human Development and it helps to understand the implication on
policies in the developing countries. The findings will help to understand the relationship between
ICT, e-government and Human Development; and benefit the society in the developing countries
through the policy implications. Furthermore, the research contributes to the development partners
such as the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and other organizations on strategies for
future assistance related to the issues of technology adoption and Human Development in developing
countries such as Ethiopia and beyond. The research will contribute to the existing works thus far, of
the e-government research community and Human Development policy implications. Likewise, it
may also be useful to other researchers and institutions who want to study e-government, ICT,
Human Development and their correlation. In fact, not all previous studies related to either e-
government, ICT or Human Development, investigated the impact in greater details.
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SECTION 4: RESEARCH METHOD
This section elucidates the research method to be used in conducting the study.
Research is conducted through review of prior literatures from several academic articles books
and reports. The research follows a qualitative research approach based on Case Study Method to
investigate the situations in the countries under consideration. Further studies on general and country
specific reports from the World Bank, the e-government readiness reports from the United Nations,
Human Development reports of UNDP, ICT statistics from the International Telecommunication
Union (ITU), government policy documents, website content analysis and other related literatures
are made. In due course, a qualitative comparative study on the state of e-government, ICT and
Human Development in Ethiopia, Kenya and Japan is made to compare the current status and its
impact in these countries.
According to Yin (2009) “the case study is preferred in examining contemporary events, but
when the relevant behaviors cannot be manipulated”. The case study relies on many techniques as
direct observation of the event being studied and its unique strength is the ability to deal with a full
variety of evidence – documents, literatures, reports, artifacts, interviews and observations.
SECTION 5: STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS
This section explains how the overall thesis is organized.
The thesis is organized in five chapters. Chapter One focuses on the introduction, background
information, objective and Methodology of the thesis. Chapter Two presents reviews of prior
literatures, documents, reports and website content analysis. Chapter Three covers the impact
analysis and case study of e-government and ICT in Ethiopia, Kenya and Japan. Chapter Four
presents the findings of the qualitative comparative study on e-government and ICT with that of
Human Development dimensions (Education, Health and Living standard) in Ethiopia, Kenya and
Japan. Chapter Five is about the conclusion, policy implications and recommendations for future
works.
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CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF PRIOR LITERATURES
This chapter presents the review of related literatures. The first section presents the general
reviews of prior literatures related to ICT, e-government and Human Development. The subsequent
sections present the current state of e-government, ICT and Human Development in the countries
under study and their corresponding policies and strategies towards implementing ICT and e-
government for service delivery.
In this section, the general reviews of prior literatures related to ICT, e-government and Human
Development is presented.
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and electronic government (e-government)
have been advancing very fast and were studied extensively in the past few decades. The impact of
both ICT and e-government covered many different aspects such as social, cultural, technological,
developmental and governance policy. Many individuals, studying e-government (e.g., Adam 2010;
Al-Hujran, Al-Dalahmeh and Aloudat 2011; Bertot, Jaeger and Grimes 2010; Chekol 2010; Rosissa
and Demissie 2010; Schuppan 2009), focused mainly on government service delivery and
infrastructure development, while organizations (such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD) 2003, 2005; and the United Nations (UN) 2008, 2010, 2012 and the
World Bank n.d.) worked on policy implications; finding ways to standardize the service delivery
across the governments of different countries. These organizations, established institutions dedicated
to study ICT and e-government, citing the global impact on people around the world. According to
the OECD, the UN and the World Bank, democratic governance can be achieved through the
implementation of e-government and utilization of ICT in government services. However, Schuppan
(2011) and the Working Group on e-Government in Developing World (2002) argued that wider
contexts such as administrative, social and infrastructure issues should be considered. If it is not well
conceived and appropriately implemented, e-government initiatives may waste resources by failing
to deliver clean and useful services. Furthermore, nations might fail to deliver sustainable
12
development, adequate socioeconomic progress in education, health and welfare. Failing to bring
economic development, budget saving, transparent and efficient services in public administration
would increase public frustration at the governments. And these failures highlight the importance of
governance for development. “Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) requires
promoting growth, in particular pro-poor growth, and accountability and transparency. These are the
prime objectives of economic governance. Political governance, besides improving accountability
and transparency, aims at empowerment of the people, particularly the vulnerable, their participation
in decisions of the state and enhanced access – particularly of the marginalized.” (United Nations
Department for Economic and Social Affairs, 2007).
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is one of the leading institutions working on
Human Development. The organization measures and publishes Human Development Report (HDR)
that collates data from different countries every year since 1990, with exception of 2012. This report
has a profound impact on policies around the world. The three key indicators used in the Human
Development Report (HDR) are Education, Health and Decent Standard of Living (UNDP 2011). On
the other hand, the United Nations Public Administration Network (UNPAN) conducts and
publishes the Global E-Government Development Index (“UN Global E-Government Survey”)
every two years since 2008. Prior to that, the report was published in 2003, 2004 and 2005 with the
name changed to Global E-Government Readiness Index (“Global E-Government Readiness
Report”) in 2004 and 2005. The UN E-Government Development Index is based on the web measure
index, the telecommunication infrastructure index and the human capital index (UN 2008, 2010,
2012). The advancement of ICT infrastructure is fundamental for service flexibility and accessibility
through e-government, e-health and m-health applications (WHO 2011a, 2011b; World Bank 2009,
2012), improving democratic governance and e-participation (UNDP 2011) and creating job
opportunities (Adam 2010).
Japan, one of the well developed countries in the world, is ranked as top in both the Human
Development Index (HDI) and Global E-Government Development Index (EGDI). While Ethiopia is
among the least developed countries in the world and East Africa, Kenya fares a little better than
13
Ethiopia. However, both countries remained in the lowest positions of both rankings. According to
Das, Singh and Joseph (2007:10): “countries’ e-government matures as they become more affluent
(in terms of GDP per capita) and as their ICT infrastructure improves. Human capital and the
quality of governance have no significant effect on the development of e-government maturity. The
results suggest that countries investing in leading-edge ICT infrastructure can maintain or improve
their global standing in e-government without substantial changes to human capital or governance.”
which stands in favor of the rich and developed countries. This study conducted by Das, Singh and
Joseph (2007) used mixed-effects regression model applied to panel dataset obtained from various
sources. It attempted to find out how e-government development was influenced by factors such as
ICT infrastructure, human capital and governance. Von Haldenwang (2004) argues that e-
government, apart from “being fashionable”, it cannot be considered to “leapfrog” good governance
in developing countries. He further states that: “there is no ‘easy’ way to good governance by means
of ICT”. The author concludes that internal reform is a vital step before the adoption of e-
government; and if governments pursue administrative modernization, the development and
implementation of e-government strategies serve as an additional factor to accelerate changes in
development.
In contrast, the UN E-government Survey (2012) pointed out that the developing countries
showed a remarkable progress in e-government development and e-services delivery. Despite the
dire problems (e.g. lack of infrastructure in remote areas, the shortage of human capital, lack of
strong information society demanding more e-services and the digital divide), the developing
countries are catching up with the developed countries very fast. However, the survey report
highlighted that, while the people are ahead of governments in utilizing the benefits of the social
media, there is a lack of progress by governments in those countries to reach out citizens.
The research conducted by Estavez and Janowski (2013) attempted to set up a conceptual
framework for others who want to study e-government for sustainable development ‘EGOV4SD’.
The paper claims that its main goal is to establish the platform for research in the area of EGOV4SD.
The findings of this study suggest that such research should pursue multi-disciplinary approach;
14
extending the need to strengthen theoretical foundations. Similarly, Bankole et al. (2011) explored
different contexts to find out the impacts of ICT investment in two dimensions (Living Standard and
Health) of Human Development through regression splines analysis. This research attempts to find
out whether large-scale ICT investments are justifiable to create impact on Human Development.
The result suggests that there are varying, conditional and complex impacts on Standard of Living
and Health.
Therefore, governments must progressively continue to think about Human Development
through the utilization of ICT, e-government and e-governance – placing greater emphasis on
organizational interconnections; creating linkage between the tiered government structures in a bid
to build collaboration for inclusive sustainable development. An important aspect of this approach is
to broaden the scope of e-government for its transforming role in the government towards unified,
harmonized, and integrated processes and institutions through which such sustainable development
takes place and is realized.
E-government development in a country can be categorized in any of the four stages of growth
model (Layne and Lee (2001). Online presence (web presence) is the first and the lowest stage where
government organizations have a simple website to provide one-way information to citizens.
Transaction stage is the second stage of e-government development where information from
government websites have further included some downloadable forms for the users (citizens), to fill
and submit online through e-mail, fax or other sort of electronic communication. The third stage,
Vertical integration, is more mature and has an online application and systems where users access
and interact with the government through such systems, accessing cross agency e-services. For
instance, a citizen may apply for renewal of an ID, driving license, or similar services. He/she
provides the required information, includes the security information and prints out the document.
The system verifies all the information related to the individual (say, registered police record or
traffic fines) and confirms the accuracy and requirement from other agencies. Or an applicant may
want to pay taxes for an income he earned to a tax authority; logs in to the system, fills the necessary
information about his income, provides his payment information and receives a confirmation of the
15
payment made. The fourth stage is the most advanced and comprehensive level characterized by
complete e-service delivery (including all services in stage three) and citizen involvement (e-
participation). In e-participation the citizens make decisions on government policy, legislation and
services through e-voting, e-polling and other electronic means of communication made available
through government portals, websites, applications and the social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
SECTION 2: CURRENT STATE OF E-GOVERNMENT AND ICT UTILIZATION IN ETHIOPIA
This section reviews the current state of e-government ICT and Human Development in Ethiopia.
The section also presents the corresponding policies and strategies in the country towards
implementing ICT and e-government for socioeconomic service delivery.
Despite the recent flick of economic growth hailed as one of the fastest-growing economies in
Sub-Saharan Africa (International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2013), Ethiopia is one of the least
developed countries in the World. Although its economy is progressing very well, Ethiopia trails
many of the Sub-Saharan African countries in the utilization of computers, broadband Internet, and
mobile technologies. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) is the
responsible government body to initiate, coordinate and follow up with the implementation of all
national ICT and e-Government related projects in the country. The ministry has put in place the
“National ICT Policy and Strategy” in 2009 and “The e-Government Strategy and Implementation
Plan” in 2011, as part of its wider development goals. These plans set out several objectives,
outcomes and targets to be achieved within a specific period of time. The e-Government Strategy
and Implementation Plan (2011:29) presented three strategic dimensions as: “Services enablement
through the implementation of 12 Agency priority projects, delivery of services through 4 alternate
channels of service delivery and the enablers which will facilitate the creation of a sustainable
ecosystem for the implementation of the e-Government strategy”. The strategy aimed to implement
219 e-services composed of seventy nine (79) informational and one hundred forty (140)
transactional services over a five year period of time.
On the other hand, reports from International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (2013) suggest
that the global mobile phone users and subscription are close to exceed the world population. Albeit
16
telecommunications and mobile technologies are spreading very fast in the world and the developing
countries alike, the progress in Ethiopia is neither as desired nor as expected. The country ranked
below the regional average in Africa in almost all global indices and rankings. In 2012, Ethiopia was
ranked 151th out of 157 countries (indexed 1.24, the regional average was 2.00) in the ITU ICT
Development Index (IDI); 172nd out of 190 countries (0.2306, the regional average was 0.278) in the
UN E-government Development Index (EDI); 173rd out of 187 countries (0.396, the regional average
was 0.475) in the UNDP Human Development Index (HDI).
As it can be observed from the telecommunication indicators presented in Table 2.1 below,
fixed-telephone, mobile-cellular, broadband subscriptions and Internet access in the country are
among the lowest in the world.
Table 2.1 Ethiopia - demographics of ICT indicators as of 2013 (data for 2012)
Population 86,538,534
Fixed-telephone Subscription 797,501
Fixed-telephone Subscription per 100 inhabitants 0.921555939461604
Mobile-cellular telephone subscriptions 20,523,889
Mobile-cellular telephone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants 23.7164740969612
Fixed(wired) broadband subscriptions 37,754
Fixed(wired) broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants 0.043626807914264
The percentage of individuals using the Internet 1.48281013861396
Revenue from ICT/telecommunication services (2010) 318 (Million USD)
Source: ITU World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators database
In 2010 the Ethiopian government announced its five year strategic plan to leapfrog the
countries range of social and economic development under the “Growth and Transformation Plan
(GTP)” being implemented during the 2010/11 - 2014/15 period. Notwithstanding some highlights
that mention the importance and benefits of ICT to support the GTP, the plan does not consider ICT
and e-government as significant tools to transform the country’s economy. This might lead to the
conclusion that the government does not have the clear vision to promote ICT as a driver of the
economy and e-government as facilitator of the governance process. Meanwhile, “The e-
Government Strategy and Implementation Plan” of MCIT states that its “goal is to rapidly transform
17
the country‘s subsistence on agricultural-based economy and society into a predominantly
knowledge- and information-based economy and society, the focus of the policy will be on the
country‘s ICT development process”. Hitherto, there is no clear evidence that shows the government
is committed to realize an information society in the country and improving the economy by utilizing
the opportunities of the ICT sector. Thus, it would be desirable to further study that the country
might be missing a chance in this regard.
SECTION 3: CURRENT STATE OF E-GOVERNMENT AND ICT UTILIZATION IN KENYA
This section reviews the current state of e-government ICT and Human Development in Kenya.
The section also presents the corresponding policies and strategies in the country toward
Kenya has been a pioneer country in terms of innovative mobile applications, such as mobile-
banking services, which are now used by 68 per cent of adults in the country, the highest proportion
of mobile-money users in the world (ITU, 2012). M-PESA, Kenya’s mobile money, was a
breakthrough in the financial services utilizing mobile phones in East Africa. It has transformed the
Kenyan economy where payments made through mobile-facilitated services reaching to a fifth of the
country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Eventually, as mobile-money is adopted across e-
commerce, agricultural banking, health insurance, and other sectors, the impact of mobile money is
widening its sphere of application in the country (World Bank, 2012). The Ministry of Information
and Communications (MIC) in Kenya is the responsible body for all ICT related projects with a
mission to “develop Kenya as a globally competitive and prosperous nation by creating an enabling
environment that encourages and enhances the development, expansion and use of Information
Communications Technologies (ICTs)”. The MIC, Directorate of e-Government (DeG) headed by the
ICT Secretary at the Presidency and Cabinet Affairs Office, Office of the President, coordinate all e-
government related activities in the country. The recently launched Kenyan Government’s open data
website (http://www.opendata.go.ke) is one of the most comprehensive portals in sub-Saharan Africa
which has the potential to demonstrate availing integrated and transparent government information
to its citizens and stakeholders.
18
In 2012, the Kenya ICT Board under the MIC publicized the “National ICT Master Plan” with a
vision to make the country “Africa’s most globally respected knowledge economy by 2017”. This
master plan aims to build and promote an environment where more service sector businesses are
created and are able to thrive through leveraging on ICT. The document is a strategic tool to develop
a robust ICT sector that will enhance economic growth through creation of businesses and hence
employment. “In the execution of this plan, Kenya will become a leading ICT hub for the region,
improve the lives of her citizens and see significant ICT-led economic growth in line with Vision
2030” (National ICT Master Plan, 2012:3). The master plan is based on three pillars: Enhanced
public value, the development of ICT Business and strengthening ICT as a main driver of the
economy. Liberal government policies and adequate ICT infrastructure in the country as compared to
other countries in the region, make it a leading favorite place for several international companies.
The favorable market system attracted World’s famous ICT companies to set up their regional
headquarters in Nairobi; creating jobs for citizens, extending opportunities for local businesses and
generating revenue for the government. Kenya was ranked 116th out of 157 countries (indexed 2.46,
the regional average was 2.00) in the 2013 ITU ICT Development Index (IDI); 119th out of 190
countries (0.4212, the regional average was 0.278) in the 2012 UN E-government Development
Index (EDI); 145th out of 187 countries (0.519, the regional average was 0.475) in the 2013 UNDP
Human Development Index (HDI). The following table presents the current state of some indicators
used in the ITU’s IDI.
Table 2.2 Kenya - demographics of ICT indicators as of 2013

Fixed-telephone Subscription 251,567
Fixed(wired) broadband subscriptions 42,913
Revenue from telecommunication services (2010) 1,893 (Million USD)
19
Kenya’s bold “Vision 2030” anchored in three key pillars - economic, social and political
governance, targets to create a globally competitive and prosperous nation with its high quality of
life by 2030. It is expected to transform the country into a newly industrializing, middle-income
country providing a high quality of life to all its citizens by 2030 in a clean and secure environment.
The second Medium Term Plan (MTP) (2013-2017) launched in June 2013 will be implemented
within the context of the Kenya Constitution 2010, which gives rise to a devolved structure of
government and hence new and distinct governance structures at the national and county levels.
SECTION 4: CURRENT STATE OF E-GOVERNMENT AND ICT UTILIZATION IN JAPAN
This section reviews the current state of e-government ICT and Human Development in Japan.
The section also presents the corresponding policies and strategies in the country towards
Japan, a highly advanced country in technology in general and ICT in particular has been
struggling with economic stagnation and slowdown in the past several years. However, the economic
hurdles did not prevent the telecommunication and ICT sector to expand and meet the demands of its
citizens. Furthermore, with increasing ageing population, the role the ICT plays in providing flexible
healthcare and other social services is expected to be significant. “ICT is expected to, as a GPT
(General Purpose Tool) available in all fields, contributes to economic growth and play the role of a
driving engine. Faced with demographic ageing and global competition we have three options: work
harder, work longer or work smarter. We will probably have to do all three, but the third option is the
only way to guarantee increasing standards of living” (Ministry of Internal Affairs and
Communication, 2012). Tasked with several activities, the ‘Strategic Headquarters for the Promotion
of an Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society (IT Strategic Headquarters)’
at the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Secretariat and Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
(MIC) are responsible to develop and promote national ICT and e-government strategies. In due
course, the 2001 “e-Japan Strategy”, the 2003 “e-Japan Strategy II”, the 2006 “New IT Reform
Strategy” and the 2009 “i-Japan Strategy” were delivered by the IT Strategic Headquarters.
Nevertheless, Minami (2010) states that, despite the advancement in broadband speed and price
20
reduction, practical use of ICT in governance, education and health for the benefit of the people
remain a critical challenge (a claim affirmed by the White Paper from the MIC). Once more, “Japan,
which saw one of the lowest increases in use sub-index value in 2012, lost four places compared to
2011” (ITU, 2013). This unprecedented result showed notwithstanding the effort that the
government was trying to realize e-government for the benefit of citizens as a core policy program
and high level leadership commitment. This might be attributed to the existence of sophisticated
bureaucratic procedures in the administrative service delivery at the front office and back office
operations requiring paper documents; and weak collaboration between these administrative sections
of the government (Minami, 2010). Increasing global competition in ICT utilization and
advancement in e-government for public service delivery present a significant challenge for
countries like Japan to sustain highest indices in the global rankings. Japan was ranked 12th out of
157 countries (indexed 7.82, the regional average was 4.37) in the 2013 ITU ICT Development
Index (IDI) after losing four positions from 2011; 18th out of 190 countries (0.8019, the regional
average was 0.4992) in the 2012 UN E-government Development Index (EDI); 10th out of 187
countries (0.912, the regional average was 0.683) in the 2013 UNDP Human Development Index
(HDI).
Table 2.3 Japan - demographics of ICT indicators as of 2013
Fixed-telephone Subscription 64,273,073
Fixed(wired) broadband subscriptions 35,295,509
Revenue from telecommunication services (2010) 152,293 (Million USD)
It can be clearly seen in the above table (Table 2.3) displaying some indicators of ITU’s IDI that
Japan has an advanced ICT infrastructure that can potentially be utilized in public administration
service and economic development. As we approach 2015, the i-Japan Strategy tries to find some
21
means to utilize digital technologies in a smarter manner that is universally accepted as a standard to
fulfill daily needs of its citizens, creating a digitally inclusive environment throughout the economy
and society. The vision of Digital Society 2015 aims to “overcome distance and time to link people,
goods, capital, knowledge, and information while integrating all economic activities to drastically
increase the efficiency of socioeconomic systems, generate new added value and culture, and serve
as a force that will bring about structural reform in Japan’s economy and society” (i-Japan Strategy
2015, 2009). Thus, working smarter in order to improve its service delivery through the utilization of
ICT is the best choice for the country.
22
CHAPTER 3: CASE STUDY AND IMPACT ANALYSIS
This chapter deals with the individual case study of the three countries, Ethiopia, Kenya and
Japan preceded by brief explanation of the case study method and the research framework under
which the study is conducted.
There is a growing recognition that effective public sector governance requires the use of ICT to
achieve more efficiency in the functions of government and to improve government service delivery
to organizations and individuals. E-government has its potential to enhance social and economic
development of countries by enabling improved access to government services. For instance, citizens
will have better access to information available on various services to complete online processing of
requests for certificates, registrations, licenses, making payments and so on. An example of such
services includes e-tax, online payment of traffic fines, registration fees and other charges to reduce
corruption. The appropriate utilization of ICT improves the efficiency of the public sector
governance and linkages between government agencies. The use of computers and networks
improves the personal productivity of government employees. This will bring changes through
efficient business processes associated with offering government services electronically.
Thus far, there exists little research conducted based on scientific facts and findings supporting
this global optimism towards ICT and e-government utilization in public service. In order to measure
and compare the significance of e-government, relevant research based on sets of feasible and
comparable indicators is required. The findings of such researches will be a useful input to the
formulation of policies and strategies for effective governance. In this context, an emerging
imperative is to rethink e-government policies and programs to exploit these capacities. Today,
global ICT infrastructure and e-government development in the developed and developing countries
is at varying stages. Developed economies are relatively advanced in their use of ICT to improve the
public sector service delivery. On the other hand, the developing countries are less advanced and, in
order to improve the infrastructure and e-government in these countries, a comparable measurement
23
framework is important. Thus, it opens a door to this research which is timely and significantly
important for the ICT infrastructure and e-government development in the developing countries.
SECTION 2: RESEARCH METHOD
Yin (2009) recommends the Case Study as a preferred method in examining contemporary
events where the relevant behaviors cannot be manipulated. This is due to the reason that the case
study relies on many techniques as direct observation of the event being studied and its unique
strength is the ability to deal with a full variety of evidence – documents, literatures, reports, artifacts,
interviews and observations. A case study is an empirical investigation that studies the contemporary
phenomenon within the real-life context especially when there are no evident boundaries between
the phenomenon and context. As shown in Figure 3.1 below, the case study is a research strategy
that comprises an all-encompassing method covering several stages ranging from designing the
research logic, preparation, data collection, analysis, reporting and drawing conclusions.
Figure 3.1 Case Study Method
Source: Adapted from Cosmos Corporation (Yin 2009)
One advantage of case study is pattern-matching (for instance, time-series patterns) whereby
several pieces of information from different origin for the same case may be related to some
24
theoretical proposition and draw conclusions.
The case studies of the three countries, Ethiopia, Kenya and Japan is thoroughly conducted to
find out the impact of ICT and e-government on Human Development. This research is conducted
through the case study of reports, documents and data from several authentic organizations and
institutions in the world. Study on general and country specific reports from the World Bank, the “E-
Government Survey” reports from the UN, “Human Development Reports” from the UNDP,
“Measuring the Information Society” and ICT development Indicator statistics from the ITU,
government policy and strategy documents, website content analysis and reviews of other related
literatures has been made.
The UN “E-Government Survey” report presented on 190 UN member states delivers the E-
Government Development Index (EGDI). The EGDI is composed of the “Web Measure Index”,
“Telecommunication Infrastructure Index” and “Human Capital Index”. The report was released in
2003, 2004, 2005 and every two years since 2008. Similarly, the ITU “Measuring the Information
Society” report presents the ICT Development Index (IDI) of 157 countries around the world every
year since 2009 with its latest edition in 2013. The IDI is constructed from ICT Readiness
(infrastructure and access), ICT Capability (skills) and ICT Use (intensity) indicators. The UNDP
Human Development Report published annually since 1990, presents the Human Development
Index of countries around the world. The index is comprised of Education, Health and Welfare
indicators. While the Education indicator is constructed by using the “Expected Year of Schooling”
and “Mean Year of Schooling”, the Health indicator is based on “Life Expectancy” and the Welfare
is decided by calculating the natural logarithm of a country’s “Gross National Income (GNI) per
capita in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)”. Some of the indicators used in the UN EGDI and the ITU
IDI overlap with each other. Therefore, data from the ITU indicators is considered in this research
whenever available and the data from the UN reports otherwise. The basis for this decision is due to
the fact that the UN EGDI used data from the ITU. In due course, a qualitative comparative analysis
on the state of e-government, ICT and human development in Ethiopia, Kenya and Japan has been
conducted to understand the current situation and its impact on education, health and welfare in these
25
countries using the parameters presented (Table 3.1) below.
Table 3.1 Parameters for case study and impact analysis
Emerging Expected
years of
Web Measure Enhanced schooling
Index (Online Interactive
Education
Presence / e- Transactional Mean
Participation) e-information years of
e-consultation schooling
e-decision making
Personal
Telecommuni Computers
e-government cation Internet Users Human
Impact Life
and ICT Infrastructure Telephone lines Development
expectancy Health
Index Broadband
at birth
(per 100 subscriptions
people) Number of Mobile
phones
Adult literacy rate
(2/3)
GNI per
Human Gross enrollment
capita Welfare
Capital Index ratio (Primary,
(US$ PPP
secondary,
tertiary) (1/3)
Source: Author (Adapted from UN’s EGDI, UNDP HDI and ITU WTI)
SECTION 3: RESEARCH FRAMEWORK
The research framework establishes the conceptual basis to investigate, analyze and understand
the relationships between the important components of the ICT, e-government and Human
Development. The parameter presented in the previous sub-section paved the way to develop the
research framework containing the fundamental logic and the domain under which the study is
conducted. Therefore this research is conducted with the assumption and the proposition that:
 Does a country’s ICT infrastructure development has a positive impact on its e-
government development?
 Does a well established ICT infrastructure and a mature e-government in a country has a
positive impact on the Human Development through better, transformed governance? And
 Does a country with high human development easily develop its ICT infrastructure and e-
government services that are easily be adopted by its citizens?
26
Figure 3.2 Proposed Research Framework
ICT Development E-Government ＋ Human Development

＋
Source: Author
The case study method uses several techniques such as pattern-matching, explanation building,
time-series analysis, and cross-case synthesis to find ways of linking data to propositions.
Supporting publicly available and widely used data for the case study research is collected from
UNPAN, ITU and UNDP websites and reports. Furthermore, additional information from other
related government websites, reports and statistical data are carefully picked. However, the data
presented here is just an illustrative rather than an exhaustive one, aiming to support the qualitative
research, analysis and its findings. The research attempts to draw the conclusion through the analysis
of the individual cases in each country independently; then conducting comparative cross-case
synthesis supported by e-government, ICT and Human Development indicators trends data collected
from the UN, ITU and UNDP in the respective countries.
27
SECTION 4: THE IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT AND ICT UTILIZATION ON EDUCATION,
HEALTH AND WELFARE IN ETHIOPIA
Ethiopia is a landlocked country located in East Africa that covers a total area of 1.25 million
square kilometers, with an estimated total population of 91.73 million (2012) growing at an annual
rate of 2.6%. The majority (more than 85%) of its population lives in rural areas and mainly depends
on traditional agricultural and pastoral production vulnerable to severe climatic conditions such as
drought. The growing population trend poses significant consequences to education, health and
economic development. Traditional social development programs should be supported by utilizing
ICT in order to meet the high demand for primary, secondary and tertiary education as well as health
facilities. E-learning and e-health (tele-health, m-health) systems could facilitate service delivery and
increase access to the rural community. Furthermore, the agricultural economy in the country needs
to be supported by research and development to increase productivity and reduce vulnerability.
Farmers living in a rural community, through the use of ICT, can get the latest weather forecast in
order to plan well for planting suitable crops or receive commodity price and demand information in
urban areas.
In Ethiopia, where the monopoly government is the only Internet Service Provider (ISP), fixed
telephone, mobile cellular, broadband and fixed Internet subscription are very low compared to other
African countries such as Kenya. In addition to the underdeveloped infrastructure, economic and
human capital development, several other reasons hinder the advancement of the aforementioned
services which are lagging behind the rest of the world. Bureaucratic government policy and
regulatory environment coupled with the slow technology acceptance behavior of the society, make
adoption of ICT for public sector governance and socioeconomic benefits challenging. Despite the
initiatives from the government to implement e-government service delivery for the citizens, the low
human development in the country poses the challenge to realize such plans. In 2009, the Ethiopian
government, recognizing the development of ICT as one of its strategic priorities, developed and
enacted the “National ICT Policy and Strategy”. The objective of this document is to lay down the
strategic priorities in order to accelerate the ICT infrastructure, applications and skilled human
resource development in the country and make it accessible to its citizens. The document also aimed
28
at promoting the use of ICT in modernizing public service delivery and strengthening the role of the
private sector in ICT development. In order to achieve the objective of promoting the use of ICT in
the public sector, the government developed the “e-Government Strategy and Implementation Plan”
in 2011. This plan maneuvered the details of implementing ICT in government service delivery in
education, health and agricultural modernization coupled with other civil service transformation
through the use of ICT. However, this diminutive endeavor did not match the fast paced global ICT
development and growing public demand in the country. ICT infrastructure development in the
country remained low and access to infrastructure by the rural community remained a dream.
Reports, articles, books and other publications reviewed in this research reveal the low level of e-
government, ICT and Human Development in the country. The following table (Table 3.2) presents
the e-government and ICT Development Index trends in Ethiopia.
Table 3.2. Ethiopia - E-government and ICT Development Indices trends

Country Index 2003 2004 2005 2008 2010 2012 Decade
Online Service Index 0.031 0.027 0.0154 0.1739 0.2 0.4706 0.4396
E-Participation Index 0.034 0 0 0 0.0429 0.3421 0.3081
E-Government Index 0.128 0.1365 0.136 0.1857 0.2033 0.2306 0.1026
Ethiopia Human Capital Index 0.35 0.38 0.39 0.3796 0.4027 0.2119 -0.1381
Infrastructure Index 0.003 0.0024 0.0027 0.004 0.0073 0.0093 0.0063
E-Government Rank 166 170 171 172 172 172 -6
Online Service Rank - 172 176 142 111 - 61
Source: Author (collected and organized from UN reports and ITU IDI database)
The indexes above speak for themselves that the country had very little ICT infrastructure
development. This in turn is reflected in the minimal advancement in utilizing ICT for public sector
governance (e-government and e-services), education, health and economic development. Human
Capital development in the country was the lowest in the past decade, showing the decline in
progress. The slow progress can be attributed to several other reasons such as the nation’s inability to
cope with the rising population and inadequate education facilities for its citizens. ICT infrastructure
measured sluggish development in the past decade with only 0.0063 increase since 2003. As it was
mentioned earlier, the monopoly government in Ethiopia is putting in efforts to utilize ICT in service
delivery on top of several sectors. The result of the utilization effort is reflected in the Online Service
delivery and E-participation indices in the country. Although both of these indices are some of the
29
lowest in the world, looking into these indices shows that the country had better progress in those
areas. Online Service index saw the highest progress in the decade at 0.4396 (rising to 0.4706 in
2012 from 0.031 in 2003 advancing it 61 positions in the Online Service ranking); E-participation
progressed with 0.3081. Further, the e-government development in the country saw the least
significant progress of 0.1026 in the past ten years, resulting in its global ranking to slip back six
positions. Looking further behind the indicators resulting the above indexes, we will find the data
presented in the table (Table 3.2) below.
Table 3.2 Ethiopia - E-government and ICT Development indicators trends
Country Index Indicators 2003 2004 2005 2008 2010 2012 Average
Emerging - 0 2 0 32 83 23.4
Enhanced - 5.7 2 22 23 62 22.94
Web Measure
(Online Transactional - 2.4 0 29 3 10 8.88
Presence / E- Connected - 0 0 1 5 45 10.2
participation) e-Information 2
e-Consultation 0 0 0 0 0.0429 0.342 0.3975
e-Decision making 0
Personal computers
0.22 0.31 0.2 0.5 1.4 2.1 0.788333
/100
Internet users /100 0.11 0.16 0.1 0.21 0.45 0.75 0.296667
Ethiopia Telecommuni Telephone lines /100 0.63 0.63 0.63 0.91 1.13 1.1 0.838333
cation
Infrastructure Broadband
- - - 0 0 0 0
subscriptions /100
The number of
0.14 0.25 0.25 1.09 3.93 7.86 2.253333
mobile phones /100
Adult literacy rate
36 36 35.9 35.9 35.9 39 36.45
(2/3)
Capital ratio (primary,
41.5 42 42.1 42.08 49.02 55.25 45.3245
secondary, tertiary)
(1/3)
Despite the low level of global rankings and slow progress in ICT indicators, there are several
specific achievements through utilizing technology for social and economic sectors. The Ethiopian
government acknowledges that human resource development should be supported by applying ICT
to accelerate social and economic development. As the majority live in remote villages and receives
low quality education, ICT plays a crucial role to address the issue of access to a better quality
education. With this objective of integrating ICT in the education system, the government
implemented the SchoolNet (a network of more than 750 high schools and pre-college schools) and
30
the EthERNet (Ethiopia Education and Research Network) of 12 public universities, education and
research centers (MCIT, 2011).
According to the WHO (2006): “Disseminating HIV/AIDS information for health professionals
through ICT which has been produced by the HIV/AIDS resource center has been particularly
effective. Ensuring the success of the resource center is a top priority for the Ethiopian government
in its work on HIV/AIDS prevention”. A 2012 World Bank report on ICT for Development (ICT4D)
focusing on mobile technology utilization in the developing countries articulates that: “while
Ethiopia have achieved notable success in some policy initiatives, it is likely to meet only one of the
six health-related targets under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Well-trained
health staff, health care coordination, sufficient funding, monitoring, and supply chain management
are largely deficient”. The report, however, presented a remarkable example called “RapidSMS”
used by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to facilitate large-scale food distribution in
its disaster relief program for famine affected regions in the country. Moreover, “the field of mobile
health, or mHealth, is still in its early stages, but hundreds of pilot projects, initiatives and
experiments have created enough interest that health decision makers are beginning to explore how
mHealth could be integrated into health systems more comprehensively. The government of Ethiopia,
having invested heavily in expanding the capacity of its health system, is at the beginning of this
process. If managed successfully, mHealth can be an effective tool for advancing the government’s
key health initiatives, particularly community-based interventions that have women at their center”
(Vital Wave Consulting, 2011).
The contribution of the telecommunication sector to the economy of Ethiopia also comes mainly
from mobile phones, which contributed to 67% of the total revenue in 2012, followed by
interconnect (international service) revenue that accounts for 22.35%. The total income from the
sector amounted to 12.35 billion Birr (approx. $686,111million).
On the other hand, the 2013 UNDP Human Development Report (HDR) ranked Ethiopia as
173rd out of 187 countries, making it one of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the world. The
following table (Table 3.3) presents the Human Development indicators trends of Ethiopia since
31
2005 (2000 included for comparison). (Note that the report was being published since 1990)
Table 3.3. Ethiopia - Human Development sub-indicators trends
Human Development sub-indicators – Ethiopia

Expected years of Mean years of Life expectancy at GNI per capita
Year
schooling schooling birth (US$ PPP)
2000 4.4 1.5 51.7 519
2005 6.7 1.5 55.2 630
2006 7.3 1.6 56 688
2007 8 1.8 56.8 753
2008 8.5 1.9 57.5 811
2009 8.5 2 58.1 866
2010 8.7 2.2 58.7 928
2011 8.7 2.2 59.3 974
2012 8.7 2.2 59.7 1,017
Average 7.7222222 1.877778 57 798.444444
The Human Development indicators show the reason for the country being at the bottom of the
global rankings. Education, health and welfare in the country have had little change for more than a
decade. Yet, as can be observed from the data presented in the table above, the human development
indicators trends progressed more than average in the past few years. These trends correlate with the
government’s focus on development through the implementation of ICT in social and economic
sectors. However, the development indicators in the country are far below the global and regional
averages. The human development trend of Ethiopia constantly remains below the regional (Sub-
Saharan Africa) average, which in turn is below the global average.
32
HEALTH AND WELFARE IN KENYA
Kenya is a country located in East Africa covering 580,637 square kilometers (slightly more
than half the size of neighboring Ethiopia). It has an estimated total population of 43.18 million
growing at a rate of 2.7% annually (2012) with close to 70% of its population living in the rural area.
Even though Kenya is the most industrialized country in East Africa, the agriculture sector is the
main contributor to its GDP (25%) and employs 80% of the total population. Horticultural products,
tea and coffee with other agricultural produce account for 50% of the total export. The industry
represents only 10% of GDP. Its coastline along the Indian Ocean that covers more than 536
kilometers, gives the country tremendous advantages in accessing the international submarine cables,
on top of the customary port, tourism and aquatic benefits.
Following the landing of five submarine cables (The East African Marine System (TEAMS),
SEACOM, the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy), Lower Indian Ocean Network
(LION) and LION2) on its coast since 2009, Kenya became the country with the largest amount of
international Internet bandwidth per Internet user in the Africa region (which jumped from less than
1,000 Mbps in 2008 to 574,054 Mbps in 2012), substantially increasing its bandwidth per Internet
user. Prior to that, satellite infrastructure which now accounts for less than 5% of its international
bandwidth was the only gateway to the Internet. According to ITU (2012), TEAMS is a Public-
Private Partnership (PPP) project between the Kenyan Government and Etisalat (a United Arab
Emirates (UAE) incumbent telecommunication operator in the region). The government, pleased
with the success of TEAMS, launched another PPP to expand the country’s national backbone
network. The newly launched National Optical Fiber Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) terrestrial
network complements the cable systems and brings bandwidth to the districts in Kenya, extending
open access to the rural community. So far, despite the positive effect of the liberalized telecom
market on infrastructure development, opening up the sector did not improve access to the
underserved and rural communities. This is due to the fact that investors tended to concentrate
operations and service in areas where return on investment is guaranteed. Similarly, the ITU (2013)
IDI report stressed that: “Kenya has made significant advances in its access sub-index, which rose
33
from 2.35 in 2011 to 2.73 in 2012. This allowed the country to climb ten places in the access sub-
index rankings, although it did not improve in the overall IDI ranking, where it still stands in the
116th position in 2012”. It is understandable that despite the submarine infrastructure development
which gave the significant amount of international bandwidth per Internet user to the country, usage
and access to this infrastructure remains a challenge. Thus, the Communication Commission of
Kenya (CCK), the responsible organization for ensuring access to affordable communication
services to all its citizens, enforced the Universal Access Fund (UAF). The purpose of the UAF is to
support widespread access to ICT services in un-served and under-served areas, promote capacity
building and innovations in ICT services in the country. The commission, in order “to rectify the
access gaps, has implemented pilot projects in some parts of the country. These projects include the
establishment of 16 school based ICT centers distributed in the eight provinces of the country, four
tele-centers and eight centers for persons with disabilities. The Commission has, in collaboration
with industry players, provided computers and internet connectivity to the beneficiary institutions. In
order to enhance access and promote capacity building in ICTs, CCK has partnered with the Kenya
Institute of Education to support the digitization of the secondary school curriculum”
(Communication Commission of Kenya, 2012).
In Kenya, utilizing ICT for public sector governance (e-government and e-services), education,
health and economic development has seen significant progress. The UN global EGDI and ITU’s IDI,
position the country above the regional (Sub-Saharan Africa) averages throughout the decade. Yet, it
was indexed below the global averages in both the rankings, demonstrating the long way the nation
has to stride in order to reach the level of the developed countries. Unlike Ethiopia which lost six
positions in the EGDI, Kenya gained one position in a decade since the report began publication.
However, there is a similarity in the trends of Human Capital Index and Online Service Index in the
two countries. While Human Capital Index recorded downward development, Online Service Index
was the highest development in both cases. Online Service Index advanced to 0.4314 in 2012 from
0.157 in the beginning (2003) growing by 0.2744 throughout the decade, followed by the EGDI. The
EGDI surged to 0.4212 in 2012 from 0.299 in 2003 marking a positive growth of 0.1222 throughout
34
the decade. There is a remarkable development in the Infrastructure Index in Kenya which ascended
significantly in ten years time from 0.021 to 0.1212. E-participation is the least developed index in
the case of Kenya. It developed to 0.0526 in the year 2012 from nonexistent in 2003. A typical
indicator for such failures in e-participation in Kenya was the e-voting attempt in 2012. It forced the
electoral commission to switch to manual voting after the e-voting proved to fail for several reasons,
despite the lack of access to the e-voting system by the rural community. The table (Table 3.4) below
presents the e-government and ICT indicators trends in Kenya for almost the past decade.
Table 3.4. Kenya - E-government and ICT Development Indices trends

E-Participation Index 0 0.0656 0.0317 0.0455 0.2286 0.0526 0.0526
Kenya Human Capital Index 0.72 0.73 0.74 0.6926 0.7026 0.7109 -0.0091
E-Government Rank 118 126 122 122 124 119 1
Hitherto, there are success stories emerging from the country through the utilization of mobile
phones. Mobile technology continued to provide a set of applications that facilitates a variety of
financial transactions via mobile phone such as purchasing air time, transferring money and paying
bills. Mobile payment systems have also transitioned from a pure money transfer system into a
mobile payment platform that allows schools, hospitals and other organizations to send and receive
online payments. All mobile operators currently provide mobile money services with Safaricom’s M-
Pesa (M – mobile, Pesa – money in Swahili) having the highest market share of 77.3 percent in
terms of subscription. The liberalization of the communications sector significantly encouraged
private investment for the development of mobile phone infrastructure in the country. Further,
service providers being encouraged by the high volume of subscription and conducive environment,
devoted their efforts to utilizing mobile phones mainly for m-payments. Other applications of mobile
platform by the private sector include m-health (e.g. medAfrica, a mobile application by Shimba
Technologies PLC, aims to increase access to health care related information and to provide content
to mothers, health care workers and other citizens).
35
The following table (Table 3.5) presents the trends of the indicators comprising the indices
presented in the table (Table 3.4) above.
Table 3.5 Kenya - E-government and ICT Development indicators trends
Emerging - 75 29 6 34 100 48.8
Enhanced - 8 35 38 29 62 34.4
Web Measure Transactional - 25 0 43 8 17 18.6
(Online -
Connected 0 0 4 4 28 7.2
Presence / E-
participation) e-Information 0
e-Consultation 0 0.066 0.032 0.046 0.2286 0.053 0.070667
e-Decision making 0
Personal computers
0.95 1.36 0.7 6.3 8 10.8 4.685
/100
Internet users /100 3.15 4.63 1.3 7.89 8.67 20.98 7.77
Kenya Telecommuni
Telephone lines /100 1.04 0.92 0.82 0.84 0.65 1.14 0.901667
cation
- - - 0 0.05 0.08 0.043333
subscriptions /100
The number of
5.02 7.85 13.46 18.44 41.88 61.63 24.71333
mobile phones /100
Adult literacy rate
73.6 73.6 73.6 73.6 73.6 87.01 75.835
(2/3)
52 60 60.6 60.57 63.6 66.73 60.58317
(1/3)
Source: Author(collected and organized from UN reports and ITU IDI database)
In addition to the private sector, the government is taking several measures in order to expand
ICT utilization of public sector service delivery in the country. Cascaded from the flagship “Kenya
Vision 2030” plan, the “National ICT Strategy” and the “National Broadband Strategy” plans
explicitly lay down ICT bound measures of the government. In addition, specific sectoral plans such
as the “National ICT strategy for Education and Training”, intend to develop roadmaps for service
delivery through the utilization of ICT. These plans, in order to realize socioeconomic benefits for its
citizens, develop specific ICT utilization pathway in education, health and economic activities.
On the other hand, the 2013 UNDP Human Development report ranked Kenya as 145th country
(with an index value of 0.519) out of the 187 UN member states included in the report. The table
(Table 3.6) below presents the Human Development indicators trends in Kenya.
36
Table 3.6. Kenya - Human Development sub-indicators trends
Human Development sub-indicators – Kenya

Year
2000 8.3 5.9 52.3 1,274
2005 9.7 6.5 53.1 1,350
2006 9.8 6.6 53.7 1,395
2007 10.4 6.7 54.4 1,450
2008 10.4 6.8 55.2 1,437
2009 11.1 6.9 55.9 1,440
2010 11.1 7 56.6 1,478
2011 11.1 7 57.1 1,509
2012 11.1 7 57.7 1,541
Average 10.333333 6.7111111 55.1111111 1430.44444
The education sub-indicators grew 0.8% and 0.3% above average while the health indicator rose
2.6% above average and the welfare indicator rose by $110.56 more than the average value since
2000. In the UNDP Human Development reports, considering the data from year 2005 onwards
(including data for the year 2000 for comparison) the sub-indicators for Kenya are steadily growing
more than average since 2008. This coincides with several government policy measures (e.g. the
USF (2008), ICT Strategy (2006) and plans (such as the Strategic Plan 2008-2013)) poised for an
ICT-driven social and economic transformation in line with the country’s Vision 2030. Kenya’s 2012
HDI (0.519) is above the average for countries in the low human development group (0.466) and
above the average for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (0.475). But, the country has a long way to go
in order to reach its rural community, solve their problems and achieve a global level human
development standard.
37
HEALTH AND WELFARE IN JAPAN
This section deals with the analysis of the impact of ICT and E-government utilization in Japan
on the three dimensions of Human Development.
Japan has an estimated total population of 127.6 million declining -0.2% annually. The country
is currently experiencing the fastest population ageing, waning birth rate and gradually declining
labor force. According to National Institute of Population and Social Security Research projected
estimation, it will have just above 97million people by the year 2050 (NIPSSR, 2012). Japan, a
highly industrialized nation, supported by well educated citizens and mastery of high-tech,
developed a resilient economy that is reliant on advanced technology. While the services sector
employs nearly 70% of the population contributing about 72.5% of GDP, the industry sector employs
more than 26% of its population contributing about 26.3% of GDP. Agricultural products are highly
subsidized commodities contributing just above 1% of GDP by employing about 3% of the
population (CIA, 2012). The technologically advanced industries in the country produce and export
motor vehicles, electronics, heavy-duty equipments, machineries, metals, ships, chemicals, textiles,
and other range of products.
In Japan, ICT is the core constituent of its economy, significantly contributing both to the
services and the industry sectors. The country well understood the significance of utilizing ICT “as a
driving engine” in public sector governance, economic growth and social services such as education
and health. Sequences of policies and strategies have been developed and implemented by
designated administrative entities of the government to enhance utilization of ICT and benefit its
citizens since 2000. Compared to other competent developed countries, however, ICT utilization for
social and economic benefits did not reach the desired levels. The 2012 White Paper from MIC
affirms that: “While the countries around the world, paying considerable attention to the economic-
growth driving-power of ICT, have taken strategic actions, Japan, as pointed out in the previous
status reports, has problems in ICT utilization in spite of its world-leading ICT environments.
Furthermore, the ICT industries that have led Japan’s economy are losing their global
competitiveness, in recent years”. In a manner that strengthens this trend of slipping in ranks, Japan
38
disappeared from the top ten ranking table in the recent report “Measuring the Information Society
2013” of the ITU, released on October 2013 on the global ranking of IDI. The IDI is composed of
three sub-indices: ICT access, ICT use and ICT skills. Each sub-index consists of a set of indicators
that captures these three stages in the evolution of countries towards becoming information societies.
It was ranked at the 12th position in the 2012 rank, which fell from the 8th position in 2011.
According to the report, the major reason for its ranking slip was the weak performance in the “use
sub-index”. “Japan, which saw one of the lowest increases in use sub-index value in 2012, lost four
places compared to 2011” the report stated. The following table (Table 3.7) displays the e-
government and ICT Development Index trends of Japan.
Table 3.7. Japan - E-government and ICT Development Indices trends

E-Participation Index 0.431 0.2787 0.4603 0.6136 0.7571 0.7368 0.3058
Japan Human Capital Index 0.93 0.94 0.94 0.9462 0.9496 0.8969 -0.0331
E-Government Rank 18 18 14 11 17 18 0
As presented in the table (Table 3.7), there is a remarkable progress in almost all the indices in
the past decade. Unlike Ethiopia and Kenya who have a declining Human Capital Index in a growing
population, the decline in the Human Capital Index of Japan is expected due to the declining
population and ageing society. A significant increase in the Online Service Index of 0.3387 (from
0.524 in 2003 to 0.8627 in 2012) improving its rank by 12 positions. This elucidates the robust
development in the past decade through the application of ICT for government service delivery,
education and health. The E-Participation Index follows this trend of vigorous progress at 0.7368 in
2012, which saw an increase of 0.3058 during the decade. Eventually, the aggregate E-Government
Index, despite a positive development trend, saw a slight rise throughout due to the tough global
competition among the developed and top ranking countries. Japan’s global position in the e-
government ranking, which reached its peak at 11th in 2008, did not change its position in the decade
overall as it remains at 18th in 2003 as well as 2012. The table (Table 3.8) below will help to further
39
understand the driving indicators and trends behind the indices and ranks discussed above.
Table 3.8 Japan - E-government and ICT Development indicators trends
Emerging - 100 94 8 59 100 72.2
Enhanced - 92 92 88 78 79 85.8
Web Measure
Transactional - 64.3 37 76 56 75 61.66
(Online
Connected - 26.8 56 50 19 70 44.36
Presence / E-
e-Information 10 2.1410833
participation) 0.757
e-Consultation 10 0.279 0.46 0.614 0.737 10
1
e-Decision making 5 5
Personal computers
40.75 54.15 38.2 85.9 88.5 80 64.583333
/100
Internet users /100 48.3 50.2 48.3 68.27 69.16 80 60.705
Japan Telecommuni Telephone lines
47.19 46 45.89 43.02 40.21 31.94 42.375
cation /100
- - - 20.09 23.65 26.91 23.55
subscriptions /100
The number of
67.9 71.58 73.97 79.32 86.73 95.39 79.148333
mobile phones /100
Adult literacy rate
99 99 99 99 99 99 99
(2/3)
84 85 85.9 85.85 86.88 88.06 85.949
(1/3)
Noteworthy the Online Service sub-indicators developed in the trend due to the intensity of
different government entities providing online services. Telecommunication Infrastructure sub-
indicators also rose significantly, with the rise of the number of mobile phone subscribers. According
to ITU, Japan is one of the five countries where the mobile phone subscription rose more than
hundred per cent standing at 114% in 2013. Consequently, the subscription for fixed telephone lines
declined with similar trends in many countries in the world. The population of individuals with
Personal Computers doubled since 2003 reaching 80% in 2012. Broadband subscription also steadily
increased with the introduction of advanced fixed and wireless broadband technologies. The
cumulative effect of the telecommunication infrastructure is reflected by the percentage of Internet
users, which has reached 80% in 2012. “It should be pointed-out that Japan, having advantages in
the mobile-Internet which is globally expected to grow, and possessing a large domestic market with
the most skilled and sophisticated consumers around the world and advanced technologies, still has
40
many promising fields of high growth potential” (MIC, 2012). This will further create a prolific
environment for policies and strategies of the government to give an all inclusive services in every
sector of public administration. The latest national strategies, the “i-Japan Strategy 2015” and “New
Strategy in IT”, feature citizen-oriented e-government, e-health, education and human resources
development as a key aspect in order to create a vibrant, inclusive and innovative digital society.
As far as the e-government service is concerned, some of the ICT services such as e-tax and e-
filing are well in place receiving significant recognition from the public. Some other services such as
the unified national-ID system and e-PO Box is still under consideration (MIC, 2012). The one stop
government portal, the Open Data portal and e-stat websites provide up-to-date information to the
public, further increasing the transparency of the government and enhancing public trust.
Likewise, in the education sector, despite its failure to deliver substantial achievement compared
to other industrialized countries, e-learning (digital equipment, networked environment, information
terminals), online teaching materials (digital textbooks, audio/video materials) together with ICT in
special needs education have been implemented in several stages. “The Vision for ICT in Education”
of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology published in 2011 illustrated
the past achievements and depicted the future works the country need to deal with, in order to create
a “Learning System and Schools Suitable for the 21st Century”.
Remarkable progress has also been made in the health sector even though it fell short of
government targets. Electronic Health Record (EHR) System (patient information, medical health
checks and history), Remote Medical Service (including health management service), Medical
Institution Information System (for improvement of internal operation) and others (receipt computers,
online billing system, health guidance support system, web based medical service and nursing care
support system) are in place. Until now, the utilization of ICT in the health sector (e-health, m-health,
telehealth and telemedicine) is the least exploited sector according to the “Task Force Report on IT
Strategy in the Healthcare Field” (2011) and the 2012 MIC White Paper.
In terms of the contribution of ICT to the economy, domestic and international ICT markets
provide a favorable environment for Japanese technology companies. ICT products market (such as
41
electronic equipments, softwares, applications, services, etc.) has been significantly contributing to
the economy. Once more, comparative evaluations show that Japan lags behind the major
industrialized countries, in terms of the benefits of the ICT sector to the economy (MIC, 2012).
In contrast, the 2013 UNDP Human Development report ranked Japan as the 10th country (with
an index value of 0.912) out of the 187 UN member states included in the report. Table 3.9 presents
the Human Development sub-indicators trends in Japan.
Table 3.9. Japan - Human Development sub-indicators trends
Human Development sub-indicators - Japan

Year
2000 14.6 10.8 81.2 29,313
2005 15 11.2 82.3 31,150
2006 15.1 11.3 82.5 31,837
2007 15.1 11.4 82.7 32,698
2008 15.1 11.5 82.9 32,358
2009 15.2 11.5 83 30,422
2010 15.3 11.6 83.2 31,754
2011 15.3 11.6 83.4 31,766
2012 15.3 11.6 83.6 32,545
Average 15.111111 11.388889 82.7555556 31538.1111
Japan, since the beginning of the publication of the HDR, has been enjoying a high human
development rank. Despite the recent slip in ranking from the top spot, the global ranks trend of
Human Development in Japan was above the world average since the report debuted in 1990. The
2013 rank of 10th is two positions lower than 12th in 2012. The sub-indicators presented above (Table
3.9) constitute the trends of the country for almost a decade since 2005 (with figures for 2000
included for comparison). The growth of education, health and income sub-indicators almost
matched the decade average, indicating robust base of human development in the country.
42
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter presents the findings and discussions of the case study and impact analysis. The
next section presents the findings of the study. The succeeding section presents the discussion
concerning the qualitative comparative study on the general impact of e-government and ICT. The
last section will deal with the findings of the comparative impact study of the three countries,
Ethiopia, Kenya and Japan.
SECTION 1: FINDINGS
In this section the highlight of the findings of the case study and impact analysis is presented.
Broad range of government policies and strategy documents, reports from international
organizations, books and articles are covered under this study. And they show the fact that e-
government had become the de facto means for government modernization and transformation. ICT
had become the immediate option to improve internal administration and government service
delivery in all aspects of public service. Eventually, ICT utilization for education, health and
economic proliferation become the most important strategies employed by the governments
worldwide. Needless to say, there exists a significant amount of evidence and information regarding
the development and utilization of ICT in the countries to improve the social and economic status of
people. To what extent e-government development and ICT utilization affect the Human
Development in these countries, is the core essence of this study. The answer for this probe, though a
difficult one to pinpoint exactly what significance it has, the findings of this research show the
existence of considerable level of impact on improving quality of education, healthcare services and
living standard in both the developed and developing countries.
The 2013 edition of the ITU report “Measuring the information Society (MIS)”, showed that
there is an estimated total mobile subscriber (6.8 billion) close to the world’s total population. And
more than one third of the world’s population (2.7billion) has access to the Internet. Despite the
growing population of mobile subscribers reaching equal to the total population of the world, people
who never used mobile phones remain in existence. The majority of these marginalized people are in
43
the developing and Least Connected Countries(LCCs). With the exception of fixed-telephone
subscription, all other areas of ICT infrastructure such as mobile-cellular, internet access and
broadband connection have progressively developed in the past decade. The developed countries,
having been advantageous with their established infrastructure, received tremendous benefits from
ICT. Democratic administration structures laid workable policies and strategies to utilize ICT for
public sector governance that has a positive impact on the social and economic sectors. The
education and health services sectors received a useful application of ICT to improve the quality of
service, providing alternatives for human resource in a declining population. The developing
countries, on the other hand, are attempting to close the digital divide between the rural and urban
communities through the use of Universal Service Funds (USF). Such USFs facilitate and promote
infrastructure development and spread of technology for the rural and least served vicinity. These
countries have improved the quality and uniformity of education throughout schools, universities and
institutions with the help of ICT. ICT is also helping the medical practitioners in the health sector
through information provision, patient supervision, disaster prevention or management and logistical
support for relief efforts. Furthermore, remarkable values in the economic sector are also achieved
both in developed and developing countries. While the developed countries have wide ranges of
economic benefits from ICT equipment production to service provision in the developing countries,
ICT in general, mobile phones in particular, facilitated payments and finance. From the public
governance perspective, the UN E-Government Survey report gives detailed emphasis on how the
member states are utilizing ICT in order to deliver a simplified and transparent e-governance to their
people. In its 2012 debut, the report stressed that “e-government can be an engine of development for
the people. In delivering e-government for the people, public services are designed to be responsive,
citizen-centric and socially inclusive. Governments also engage citizens through participatory
service delivery processes” (UN, 2012). The overall recommendation of the report is for
governments to rethink and strengthen their strategic approach to governance through the application
of ICT in order to sustain the development progress, effectiveness and transparency achieved.
The 2013 Human Development Report, “The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse
44
World” on the other hand, focused on the emerging global human development issues and trends.
The Report gave emphasis to the fact that “the striking transformation of a large number of
developing countries into dynamic major economies with growing political influence is having a
significant impact on human development progress” (UNDP, 2013). Emerging powers in the
developing world are already sources of innovative social and economic policies and are major
sources of trade, investment, and increasingly development cooperation partners in other developing
countries. According to the report, all nations improved their achievements in the education, health,
and welfare dimensions measured in the Human Development Index (HDI) over the past decade, to
an extent that every country has a higher HDI value in 2012 than in 2000. The Report had a
momentous contribution to development research that portrayed specific drivers of development
transformation. It also suggested that future policy priorities should be identified to sustain
development momentum. “As countries are increasingly interconnected through trade, migration,
and information and communications technologies, it is no surprise that policy decisions in one
place have substantial impacts elsewhere (UNDP, 2013).
Eventually, this research found that there exists varied, multifaceted and conditional impact on
Human Development as a result of e-government and ICT infrastructure development. E-
government strategies and ICT policies are developed and implemented to utilize ICT in public
service such as education, health and welfare in the countries. These strategies and policy measures
themselves had the greatest effect and contribute to bring improvements in the dimensions of Human
Development after successful implementation. Infrastructure development, despite being the basis
for service delivery and application development, does not have a momentous effect on education,
health and income in either the developed or developing countries unless it is guided by a firm
strategy and policy measures to properly utilize it. The developed countries, having a well-
established ICT infrastructure that can be exploited for social and economic benefits, may not
achieve sufficient level of usage. A country, while having a limited or medium level infrastructure
development, would achieve a significant level of utilization through solid policy and strategic
measures accompanied by a leadership commitment to follow its implementation and outcomes.
45
SECTION 2: DISCUSSION ON QUALITATIVE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF E-
GOVERNMENT AND ICT
As the method used in this research was qualitative through reviews of documents, reports,
artifacts, literatures and strategy documents, make the comparative case study a challenging activity
that requires good research experience – which was in short supply. Furthermore, as the comparison
is made between the countries which have more differences than similarities categorized in three
different economic blocks and Human Development (Japan – Very High Human Development,
Kenya - Low Human Development, Ethiopia – Low Human Development (Least Developed
Countries (LDCs)). The study relies much on the qualitative research. On the other hand, the
countries are categorized based on their network connectivity (Japan – Highly Connected, Kenya –
Medium Connected and Ethiopia – Least Connected Countries (LCC)). Therefore, the outcomes and
findings in this research might possibly result from some other contributing factors such as culture,
environment, politics and regime structures. Yet, there is a unifying commonality between the
countries under investigation: the use of ICT for public sector governance (e-government), education,
health and economic development. This utilization of ICT for socioeconomic benefits and
development is similar beyond borders, cultures, topography and demography of people in any
country. Eventually, advancement in the ICT sector is bridging the disparity between the developed
and developing countries through innovations such as mobile phones, the internet and computers.
Reports (e.g. ITU (2012), UN (2012) and World Bank (2012)) have indicated that the developing
countries are progressing much through the utilization of mobile phones in almost every sector of
people’s daily lives. The developed countries, on the other hand, are intensifying the advancement
they have achieved to be further tuned and become all-inclusive. Today, most of the developed world
is dealing with digital inclusion in an attempt to benefit every citizen through ICT based services and
technology. Ultimately, this aspiration is making the world where everyone can benefit from the
ubiquitous existence of ICT in every sector of education, health, economy, environment and public
administration. While the developed countries are better positioned to satisfy the needs of their
society with the help of new innovations and advanced technologies, the developing countries have
to take their lessons from the developed countries.
46
SECTION 3: DISCUSSION ON THE IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT AND ICT ON HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT IN ETHIOPIA, KENYA AND JAPAN
The e-government and ICT infrastructure development in these countries is at different stages.
While Japan has reached its advanced level of Infrastructure development, Kenya is progressing well
in a positive direction. However, the situation in Ethiopia is different as it remains monopolized by
the incumbent in the country. The sole operation and development of telecom and ICT infrastructure
are restricted to the capacity of the government. Being one of the poorest countries in the world, the
monopoly market system did not give an opportunity for the ICT sector to develop through foreign
investment options. This further slowed down the utilization of the limited infrastructure available
for public sector governance, social and economic proliferation. Japan, on the other hand, has a firm
infrastructure development and liberal market system accompanied by up-to-date government
policies and strategies intending to implement ICT in public sector service delivery.
The monopoly incumbent in Ethiopia recently recognized the importance of utilizing ICT and
attempted to develop its policy measures, identifying the main areas of application. In due course,
the e-government service delivery and education sector began to receive significant attention. The
government, through the implementation of its e-government plan, has increased public awareness,
participation and online service delivery (see Table 3.2). The so-called WoredaNet (network of
administrative entities) improved government services such as nationwide government
administration meetings and judicial hearings to be conducted through video conferencing. Besides,
the education sector also benefited from the SchoolNet (network of high schools) and ETHERNet
(network of higher education institutions) projects to deliver a uniform better quality education
throughout the schools and higher institutions in the country. The health and economic sector are the
ones which lack the desired level of attention the most. In the health sector of Ethiopia, apart from
some utilizations for HIV/AIDS information dissemination and logistic management for disaster
relief aid, there is no major achievement observed through the application of ICT. In addition, in the
country where the government is controlling almost every sector of agrarian population, the
utilization of ICT does not have a visible impact on its economy. Similarly, the private sector does
not have suitable investment ground to develop consumer applications; in order to exploit the
47
advantages of the technology. All things being considered, the impact of the e-government and ICT
utilization in Ethiopia is limited to only specific area satisfying the interest of the government.
In the case of Kenya, ICT infrastructure development and utilization have progressed better and
has a broader impact on several sectors of public and private. While the government initiates and
enacts policies and strategies, the private sector develops, operates and distributes the ICT
infrastructure in the country. Having a liberalized telecom market, the role of the government
ensures the universality of service delivery to the underserved and unserved citizens through the USF.
Furthermore, the government guarantees the proper implementation of e-government and ICT
related policies and strategies in a way that provides social and economic benefits to its citizens. In
its bid to improve government transparency, Kenya attempted to conduct the first e-voting in its
2012 parliamentary election for the first time in the country. The country is leading in such moves as
a government Open Data program in the Africa region, bolstering its government transparency to its
citizen. ICT utilization in the social and economic sectors have also progressed well amid the
attention from the government and the private sector. The government has the objective and
developed the strategy to “modernize Kenya’s educational system using ICTs to improve and expand
access to education, training and research resources and facilities, as well as to improve the quality
of education and training and make the educational system responsive to the needs and requirements
of the economy and society with specific reference to the development of the information and
knowledge based economy and society” (MIC Kenya, 2006). As a result, the integration of ICT in all
levels of primary, secondary and higher institution curriculums was realized. This has further
resulted in improved communication abilities, efficient technical and examination outcomes of
students through ICT assisted educational service delivery. However, the outcomes in the health
sector remain inconclusive. There are some initiatives from government and private organizations to
leverage the situation in the health sector. Initiatives such as health information dissemination
through mobile phone applications (e.g. medAfrica – a mobile application which seeks to improve
the health situation of communities through information provision) and government effort to
improve the skills of health professionals through the utilization of ICT are definitely at better levels.
48
On the economic sector, the country has achieved its positive gain through mobile-assisted (m-
payments and m-finance) economic activities. To sum up, ICT has been utilized for governance,
education, health and finance sectors of Kenya through public and private initiatives. While there are
achievements in every attempts to bring Human Development through education, health and
economic benefits facilitated by ICT, there exists little evidence regarding the achievements in the
health sector, and the economic sector has been impacted to the greatest extent.
In 2001, the “Cabinet Secretary” at the “IT Headquarters” in the Prime Minister’s office of
Japan debuted its “e-Japan Strategy” in an effort to modernize government service delivery assisted
by ICT. Catching up with the global trends and responding to the increasing demand fueled by the
emergent ICT dynamism, sequence of strategies and policy priority programs followed every year
(See Table 4.1). Having a firm policy initiatives and high level government commitment on top of a
well developed infrastructure, facilitated the implementation of e-government for public sector
administration, and ICT utilization for social and economic benefits of its citizen. In a world class
competition of e-government and ICT utilization to improve government transparency, effectiveness,
Open Data (information), accessibility of services and ubiquity, Japan maintained its pinnacle global
ranking. Besides, through the utilization of ICT for social and economic benefits, although not up to
the maximum (as argued by Minami (2010), MIC (2012) and ITU (2013)), the country had received
tremendous advantages from the technology. Education in Japanese schools has been assisted by
utilizing ICT for e-learning (digital equipment, networked environment, information terminals),
online teaching materials (digital textbooks, audio/video materials) and special needs education.
Consequently, the quality of education at schools (primary, secondary, tertiary) and higher
institutions have improved to further enhance the competence of both students and teachers alike. In
the health sector, although it is the least exploited area, there is a tangible evidence that ICT is
assisting the service delivery for patients and improving administrative procedures and health
information management (see the case study of Japan (Chapter 3, Section 6)). Meanwhile in the
economy of Japan, the role of ICT to propel the country out of economic stagnation is substantial. It
is profound that the economy benefits both from the ICT production and consumption as presented
49
in the MIC (2012) report. All things being considered, the lesson learned from the case of Japan for
the developing countries is that: a well established infrastructure supported by proper policy and
strategic measures will have significant social and economic benefits. The following table (Table
4.1) presents the policies and strategies of the three countries developed and enacted.
Table 4.1 Policies and Strategies for E-government, ICT and Broadband
E-government, ICT and Broadband Policies and Strategies

Year Ethiopia Kenya Japan
2001 Telecommunications and e-Japan Strategy
Postal Sector Policy
2002 e-Japan Priority Policy
Program
2003 e-Japan strategy II
2004 e-Japan Strategy II
Acceleration Package
2005 IT Policy Package - 2005
2006 ICT4D 2006-2010 Plan - 2006 Kenya ICT Strategy Priority Policy Program 2006
- National ICT Policy
- National ICT strategy for
Education and Training
2007 Priority Policy Program 2007
2008 Strategic Plan 2008 - 2013 Priority Policy Program 2008
2009 The National ICT Policy i-Japan strategy 2015
and Strategy
2010 New Strategy in Information
and Communication
Technology (IT) Roadmaps
2011 E-government Strategy ICT Standards and Guidelines The vision for ICT in
and Implementation Education, Ministry of ECSST
Plan
2012 National ICT Master Plan 2017 Open Government Data
Strategy
2013 The National Broadband
Strategy
Source:Author
Looking at the table (Table 4.1) above, one area, which these countries do not have strategy, is
the mobile (m) such as m-government, m-health, m-finance etc. Despite emergent development in
mobile phone utilization for personal use and some initiatives from organizations, it has not been
strategized well in the countries to exploit the potential for public administration and socioeconomic
benefits. There are similarities among the patterns of infrastructure development, the policies,
strategies and ICT utilization for public sector administration, social and economic benefits in the
three countries studied in this research. There exist also supporting evidences that ICT has its
50
profound impact on education, health and welfare in the developed and developing countries alike. It
is, however, inconclusive to what extent and to which sector ICT makes the greatest contributions.
This will lead to the amendment of the proposition made earlier in the research framework (Chapter
3, Section 3), considering the following:
 A country e-government and ICT policies and strategies accompanied by a well developed
infrastructure have a positive impact on Human Development.
 A well developed ICT infrastructure followed by citizen acceptance to an established
online service delivery, contributes to the successful implementation of the country’s e-
government policies and strategies to play a greater role on Human Development.
51
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
SECTION 1: CONCLUSION
ICT infrastructure development and e-government are not the only factors affecting the impact
on Human Development. A well developed ICT infrastructure has to be accompanied by proper
policies and strategies to make a sound and effective utilization for public sector administration,
social and economic benefits. This research found that there exists complex, varying and conditional
impact on Human Development resulting from ICT infrastructure development and its utilization for
public sector governance (e-government) and social (education and health) and economy (welfare)
benefits. Similarly, a liberal telecom sector encouraging private investment has a positive
relationship with ICT infrastructure development. There is also a relationship between the human
development trends and the enactment of policies and strategies to utilize ICT for public
administration, social and economic benefits. E-government and ICT infrastructure development
might not have the desired Human Development outcomes unless deeply rooted in the society,
reaching marginalized and underserved rural community especially in the developing countries.
Although infrastructure development reaches the highest level, appropriate utilization is also an
evenly important factor to accomplish development objectives through ICT. Therefore, governments
must have the proper strategic thinking towards Human Development through the utilization of ICT
for e-government and e-governance. Each country studied had unique achievements in terms of ICT
infrastructure development, e-government strategies, ICT policies and implementation outcomes.
There are more lessons to learn from the successes of each country than the comparison and
competition. The developed countries have significant experiences and technology that can be shared
to the developing countries. The developing countries also have untold success stories that should
encourage the developed countries to further support their aspiration for development. For instance,
the developed countries could assist the developing countries through institutional setup, designing
policies and strategies. There is also a wide gap in infrastructure development in developing
countries which necessitates the assistance from companies and governments in the developed
countries.
52
SECTION 2: POLICY IMPLICATIONS
There are several factors contributing to the effectiveness of utilizing e-government and ICT to
deliver genuine development in every sector. Infrastructure, policies and strategies, and well
prepared implementation plans, might be considered as important aspects to bring changes in
different sectors of Human Development. A new trend of mobile technology is emerging in the
developed and developing countries. This emergence brings tremendous advantages to the
government and the private sector for social and economic benefits. To obtain the proper benefits
from the recent development of the mobile technology, governments need to have the proper strategy
and policy framework. The untapped potential in the mobile phone infrastructure and broadband
technology gives advantages for application development, educational material access, health
information dissemination, financial transactions, and multiple other benefits. The table below gives
possible recommendations of policy matrix corresponding to ICT infrastructures in a acountry.
Table 4.1. ICT Infrastructure and corresponding policy matrix
Infrastructure Policies and Implementation Affected sector Impacted Human

strategies plans Development
dimension
Mobile phone m-government , m-health Public, Private Education, Health,
strategy Welfare
Broadband Broadband e-government, e- Public, Private, Education, Health,

Internet Strategy learning, e-health, Welfare
e-commerce
Personal ICT Policy, e- e-government, e- Public, Private, Education, Health,
Computers government commerce non-government Welfare
Strategy entities
Fixed/Wireless ICT Policy, e- e-government Public, Private, Education, Health,
Telephone government non-government Welfare
Strategy entities
Digital Television Broadcast e-learning, e- Public, Private Education, Health,
and Radio health, Welfare
Other ICT-related ICT Policy, e- e-government, e- Public, Private Education, Health,
Technology (cyber government learning, e-health, Welfare
security) Strategy, m- e-commerce, m-
government government, m-
strategy money, m-finance
Source: Author
53
SECTION 3: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE WORKS
There are wider and emerging ICT trends contributing to public sector administration and
Human Development. One such recent trend is the advancement of mobile technologies and its role
in the daily life of individuals. Mobile technologies are spreading so fast to an extent that the whole
world has a mobile signal coverage resulting in an ubiquitous world. The future of communication is
at a turning point that people are becoming increasingly attached to mobile phones for social,
economic and political purposes. Nonetheless, with the persistent digital divide between the elites
and the marginalized groups, the future of sustainable development through technology is still not
that bright. There is also growing apprehension regarding cyber security leading to high skepticism
of ICT and mobile technologies. The major concern remains to be a lack of a framework and strategy
towards the application of mobile phones in a safe and secure manner. This research was limited to
comparing only three countries with varying economic, social and political differences stressing on
the positive impacts of e-government and ICT in education, health and welfare. It is also bound to a
case study research method useful for comparing a few number of cases. It is highly desirable that
future research tries to find out which specific ICT infrastructure contributed the greatest towards a
specific Human Development component. Doing so will help to understand which sector has been
impacted to what extent and in which area of the world. Therefore, it is recommended to have a
detailed further study with a broader and deeper research applying other methods (such as
Econometrics for instance), sophisticated research models and data. Such research may include more
geographic coverage of the positive and negative impacts of e-government and ICT for
socioeconomic benefits and public administration with wider contexts including cyber security and
mobile technologies. Future studies might develop and deliver framework to tackle the issue of cyber
security and provide the guidance on strategizing the utilization of mobile technology for public
administration, education, health and economic benefits.
54
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ِ‫الر ِح ِيم‬

ِ ‫ن‬ ِِ ‫الر حْ َم ٰـ‬

THE IMPACT OF E-GOVERNMENT AND

SEID, BURHAN YASIN

Major in International Relations 4012R028

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ASIA-PACIFIC STUDIES

PROF. KAWAMURA, YUKIO

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .............................................................. 2

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ........... 52

developed countries such as Japan?

technology in their organizations to improve operational efficiency, flexible inter-agency

communication (e-governance), education (e-learning) and health (e-health, telehealth, telemedicine

International Conference on Africa’s Development (TICAD) gave special attention to Africa.

situation in the developing countries is far from changing in a sustainable way.

Index (HDI) trends.

E-government programs can be a facilitator in increasing productivity, thereby increasing the

economy. E-government programs can be a facilitator to improve efficiency and access to

development promoting e-learning, e-health, e-agriculture, e-tax, e-commerce and e-governance.

administration or lack of strategic focus on advancements in technology. Most of the developing

for public service improvement.

measures backed by sufficient scientific justification and research.

obtaining information, downloading forms, submitting e-filings, or making online payments,

some of the widely referred definitions:

a tool to achieve better government.”

research and consideration in implementing e-government services in a country.

organizations to improve their service deliver to citizens. E-government is widely utilized in

Table 1. E-Government Development Index Trend of Ethiopia, Kenya and Japan.

Global E-Government Development Index

recovery efforts in the country.

Human Development Index

positions notwithstanding the improvements in ICT sector especially in mobile (cellular)

The general objective of this study is:

 To examine the impact of e-government and ICT on Human Development.

The specific objectives of this study are:

 Examine the impact of ICT and e-government on Human Development through

comparative case study of Ethiopia Kenya and Japan.

economic and social benefits.

The rapid proliferation of Information and Communication Technology has significantly

sustainable development. An important aspect of this approach is to broaden the scope of e-

cost of the scarce capital resource investment.

government, ICT or Human Development, investigated the impact in greater details.

impact in these countries.

variety of evidence – documents, literatures, reports, artifacts, interviews and observations.

SECTION 5: STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS

This section explains how the overall thesis is organized.

government for service delivery.

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and electronic government (e-government)

implementation of e-government and utilization of ICT in government services. However, Schuppan

prime objectives of economic governance. Political governance, besides improving accountability

Department for Economic and Social Affairs, 2007).

name changed to Global E-Government Readiness Index (“Global E-Government Readiness

opportunities (Adam 2010).

government; and if governments pursue administrative modernization, the development and

implementation of e-government strategies serve as an additional factor to accelerate changes in

Therefore, governments must progressively continue to think about Human Development

takes place and is realized.

government organizations have a simple website to provide one-way information to citizens.

SECTION 2: CURRENT STATE OF E-GOVERNMENT AND ICT UTILIZATION IN ETHIOPIA

implementing ICT and e-government for socioeconomic service delivery.

transactional services over a five year period of time.

was 0.475) in the UNDP Human Development Index (HDI).

among the lowest in the world.

economy and e-government as facilitator of the governance process. Meanwhile, “The e-