E-Governance:
Success Stories from around the World
Owino Magana
E-governance Consultant, E-Kazi Africa
23 March 2004
Impact of E-Governance for key stakeholders
Diversification of economy,
Reduced cost of doing business
Companies
G2B
Citizens
Reduced Govt.
Spending
Improved
Efficiency
G2G
Intragovt
Govt.
G2C
Greater
Citizen
Satisfaction
Improved
economic
opportunities
G2X
Foreign Users
Increased Tourism and Export
Insanity is doing the same things the
same way and expecting different
results
Stephen Haines
G2C: California state government portal
G2B: Chile’s government e-procurement system
Before
No coherent inter-governmental procurement policy.
Businesses had to deal with differing rules for each department and agency.
After
www.comprachile.cl
e-system allowing storage, distribution and analyses of procurement
information as well as generation of bidding
Single registration as supplier for any government agency
Transparency of outcomes of bidding process
Benefits
Greater transparency, efficiency, and fairness
Estimated efficiency gains of $200m a year, 1.4% of total government
expenditures!
G2B: Philippine government electronic
customs clearance system
Online system to process clearance of imports, payment of duty, and delivery
of release orders for shipments to leave the docks.
Before:
•Diversion of duty through banking system problematic.
•Customs collecting officers ran away with their collections.
•Process involved nearly 10 separate documents in multiple copies, over 90
•steps and more than 40 signatures and initials were involved.
•Customs Bureau rated one of the most bureaucratic and corrupt
After
•Payment of duties and taxes are made to Authorized Agent Bank
.
•No cash is handled by any Customs Officer.
•Nearly paperless system
•. No paper Order of Payment, no Customs Invoice.
Single electronic clearance document.
Benefits
Cargo is released within 4 hours to 2 days, down from 8 days
Payment reconciliation time down from 4 months to same day
G2G: Intra-government activities
•Common architectural framework and common standards for Governmentwide IT infrastructure
•Common metadata format for sharing and exchange of data among
government departments and with the private sector.
•Aggregating data about citizens and businesses into common Repositories
•Establishing regional alliances with other governments for purchasing,
•Facilitating learning and collaboration among government employees
G2X: International Constituents
Government-to-government interactions
•Co-operation on IT infrastructure projects with other states and Central
government
•Co-investment with other governments
Trade, Investment & Tourism development
Portals promoting the above
•Online hotel booking, car rentals, etc.
•82% of Air Tickets in US bought online
•Total annual value of Air Travel industry is US$ 3.5Trillion
Expatriates
Repatriation of earnings
•Immigration and work permit filing
The evolution of e-Governance
How to pay for e-Governance initiatives
Charging fees to citizens (There are hidden costs in poorly delivered
free services)
Optimization of Resource allocation
Increased tax revenues due to better compliance.
Revenues from add-on services.
Sharing development and operating costs with private sector partners
Problems with e-governance implementations
Most governments have not changed their processes in any way, and
instead have automated flawed processes
There is a big gulf between a “pretty web site” and integrated service
delivery
Government budgets and administration tends to be in departmental
silos, but e-government cuts across departments
Too much attention to “citizen portals” has taken attention away from
internal government functioning and govt. to business
Even best in class state and local e-government solutions have not
gained widespread adoption
Governments often underestimate the security, infrastructure, and
scalability requirements of their applications
Lessons:
Clear justification for projects

Clarity about costs and benefits
Balancing cost, payoff, and risk in implementation
Use appropriate technology

Citizens are willing to pay, if they see real value
Private sector involvement can defray costs


Appropriate Sustainability Model

Institutional Framework


Use government experts with IT training, not IT experts
Insource strategy; Outsource design and development
Project management

Think big, start small, scale fast

Celebrate early wins, celebrate reasoned failures

Focus on training and change management
The only way to accurately predict
the future…is to create it!!
Peter Drucker, Management Guru