Creative Governance through eGovernment

Introduction

One of the most effective ways for Creative Public Governance with the widest reach and possibly with the greatest impact is through eGovernment.

It is a priority in the European Union which defines it as the use of information and communication technology in public administrations combined with organisational change and new skills in order to improve public services and democratic processes and strengthen support to public policies. The potential of eGovernment goes far beyond the early achievements of online public services.

The European Union Approach

The EU has even established a website on Breaking Barriers to eGovernment (Ref:www.egovbarriers.org/). The Barriers to eGovernment project team has identified seven key categories of barriers that can block or constrain progress on eGovernment: leadership failures; financial inhibitors; digital divides; poor coordination; workplace and organizational inflexibility; lack of trust; and poor technical design. The project aims to collect further information about barriers relating to eGovernment from stakeholders.

The approaches for overcoming these barriers seek tto stimulate innovation at least four key categories:

1. Legislative solutions, where legislation at member state or EU level has been or can be developed to overcome barriers to eGovernment, such as, harmonisation or co-ordination problems, identified as a key obstacle to eGovernment progression.

2. Technological solutions that build on innovative designs and uses of new communication and information technologies and applications in Europe or around the world. Potential solutions include the use of social networking and community sites, for example, broadly defined as Web 2.0. Can such applications be harnessed by government in creative and useful ways?

3. Citizen-centric solutions are those focused on empowering the users of eGovernment, creating real incentives for the public to use eGovernment applications, for example by more effective segmentation of the public that enables strategies to be tailored for specific groups, or by innovative ways of interacting with intermediaries standing between citizens and governments.

4. Organizational solutions are changes that can be made within the culture or structure of organizations to facilitate eGovernment, for example, understanding and addressing resistance of those who have considerable organizational learning invested in off-line channels.


The Korean Government Approach

The Korean eGovernment initiatives have won a number of awards. They include:

• United Nations Public Service Award (UNPSA) for 2007 to Korea's Ministry of Justice for its immigration clearance service KISS (Korea Immigration Smart Service)

• e-Asia Award for its online Korea's Public Procurement Service (PPS) system at the 25th Asia Pacific Council for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (AFACT) held in Aug. 2007. PPS is the nation's largest online shopping mall for public organizations.

The success of the Korean model has attracted the interest of the China Government. China's State Council Information Office and the Korea's Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs signed a memorandum of understanding in the e-government sector in Feb. 2007 to explore the possibility of adopting the Korean model.

e-Government National Awards

The UK Government through its Cabinet Office created the world-wide e-Government National Awards 2007 (Ref: www.e-governmentawards.co.uk/ )with sponsorships from the private sector. The Awards recognise and praise the best in public sector ICT & e-Government - across local & central government, non-departmental public bodies, non-governmental organisations and other deliverers of e-government services.

Comment

The internet is playing an increasingly important role for the Government in the delivery of its services , interacting with the public and getting valuable feedback. It’s time that all Governments take and active interest in this and share their successful models to bring about a better world for their citizens.

The author, Kam Yew (Dr.YKK) is an international speaker, trainer and best-selling author on creativity. He is available for keynote speeches, in-house training and problem-solving & idea generation facilitation. He can be contacted at DrYKK@mindbloom.net