Policy Dialogue on ICT and Governance            

Theme: New Technologies and Governance – Examining Africa’s Policy Readiness

“The Internet has the potential to strengthen our democracy and to make government more open efficient, and user-friendly,” President Bill Clinton

The global rapid diffusion of relatively low-cost technologies, like mobile phones, and other technologies has spurred a development agenda questioning how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can be harnessed more effectively for socio-economic development in developing economies and other resource-poor contexts. In Africa, Internet users increased by approximately 440 per cent from 2.2 per cent in 2005 to 9.6 per cent per 100 inhabitants in 2009 (ITU, 2010). Globally, mobile phone subscribers currently constitute 67 percent of the world population as compared to less than 10 per cent per 100 inhabitants in 1998. A majority of these mobile subscribers are reported to be in the developing regions of the world.

However, despite the promise the impact has been unequal and there is still room for developing countries to exploit espoused promise of new and emerging technologies. In response, development agencies, governments, and academics have been consistently exploring the applications of ICTs to the different sectors of the economies in developing countries. The primary and arguably the most important application of ICTs in developing countries is in governance, thus, electronic governance. It forms the fundamental building framework for all sectors of the economy and the sustainable growth of all other technology-led or supported initiatives electronic commerce, electronic government, electronic voting, and electronic medicine stems on good governance (Saxena, 2005).

In view of the promise of-governance to developing regions, particularly Africa, this online policy dialogue seeks to explore Africa’s readiness in harnessing ICT for governance. Electronic governance (e-governance) as a phenomenon is increasingly gaining attention in both research and practice. It has been associated with other related terminologies including open governance, digital governance, and internet-enabled governance. In this policy dialogue,

E-governance is viewed as use of technology in a manner which seeks to continuously transform internal and external relationships of governments, the public sector and other governance stakeholders to optimize and  advance democratic expression, human dignity and autonomy, support economic development and encourage the fair and efficient delivery of services, consistency participation and good governance (Riley, 2001; Saxena, 2005).

E-governance encompasses related concepts, electronic democracy (e-democracy) and electronic government (e-government).  The structures and processes which enable government to communicate electronically with citizens in order to foster democratic processes including participation in government’s policy making is conceptualized as e-democracy. This includes electronic voting, e-information, e-service, and e-participation (Funilkul and Chutimaskul, 2009). On the other hand, e-government refers to the electronic delivery of government services to the public. The objective of e-government is to transform the production and delivery of government services to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in achieving outcomes (Saxena, 2005; Riley, 2003; Heeks, 2006).

In effect, e-governance is about the use of ICTs as an enabler to continuously transform the internal and external relationships of governments, the public sector and other governance stakeholders and build citizen-centric, cooperative and polycentric modern governance (Leitner, 2003).

This conceptualization of e-governance underpins the discussion in the policy dialogue. The next section. the concept note,  will explore the premise of the discussions and outline sets of questions to be discussed.