Rhetoric vs. Realities in Implementation of E-Government Master Plan in Nepal

This study discusses different facets of implementation of e-government in Nepal. With the background theoretical information about e-government in general, the Nepalese case of e-government initiatives is discussed with a specific focus on the “e-government Master Plan.” Important pillars of any e-government initiatives, namely infrastructure, human resources, institutions, and policy and legal aspects are looked into from the perspective of feasibility of e-government implementation in Nepal. While doing so, Heeks’s e-government success/failure model has been taken into consideration accounting for different dimensions, namely information, technology, process, objectives and values, staffing and skills, management systems and structures, and other resources, which are responsible to create design reality gap thereby jeopardizing the success of e-government projects. This study is the first in the Nepalese perspective, which tries to analyze the constraints in e-government implementation resulted from shortcomings in infrastructure, human resources, institutions, and policy and legal aspects. The authors believe that failure of e-GMP to achieve targeted objectives by the end of 2011 can also be attributed to these factors. The insights inferred can be useful in facilitating a smoother implementation of the master plan related to e-government.

Managing E-Governance

This chapter presents and discusses the application of an analytical framework for managing digital innovation initiatives in the public sector. The chapter positions e-Government and digital innovation initiatives in the public sector within the broader framework of e-Governance (i.e. governance aided by ICT). It first introduces the conceptual framework on which the discussion is based, and then proposes a higher order conceptualization of the relationship between e-Governance and its underpinning value drivers of performance, openness and inclusion. In particular, the analysis focuses on the role that these value drivers plays in the enactment of digital governance initiatives such as the ones related to open government and smart cities. To this end, the chapter discusses its application to initiatives carried out in Barcelona and Tallinn. A typology of e-Governance ‘attitudes’ is then identified to provide evidence of further specific interventions required for an appropriate management of similar initiatives in other countries. The chapter concludes by highlighting the policy implications for administrative reform and offering practical recommendations for implementing digital governance initiatives.

Legal Framework for the E-Taxation in Turkey

This study analyzes the legal framework of e-taxation in the Turkish Republic. Tax service is commonly provided by using ICT in many countries. In e-government applications in Turkey, provision of e-tax service is one of the leading projects. Among the members of OECD, electronic tax return, payment systems and tax automation systems generated in this area have gained an increasing importance. Taxpayers fill the declarations electronically and also pay tax debts without going to the tax offices. E-taxation system is becoming widespread in Turkey. Implementation of the system in Turkey started in 1998 with VEDOP I and continued with 2004 VEDOP II and 2007 VEDOP III Projects. These applications are legislated by the Tax Procedure Law in Turkey. Thus, legal regulations on electronic recording are established on a legal basis. In this study, e-government tax applications in the Turkish Tax Law (e-tax return, e-books, e-signature, e-audit) and legal base of this application is examined. Information is given on how it is implemented by means of information technologies in Turkey. The main purpose of the study is to examine what legal regulations were enacted for registering and taxation in the use of information technologies and to determine the current situation in Turkey.

Evolving Local E-Government

Effective policy frameworks are essential when developing e-government projects. Participatory e-government practices that facilitate civic engagement depend upon a combination of direct and indirect information and communication technology (ICT) policies. Direct policies focus on infrastructure development and enhancing citizens’ ICT adoption and use. Indirectly, ICTs can be used to support policy processes through, for example, information dissemination and the provision of spaces for deliberation. This chapter examines Australian e-government initiatives, suggesting that local governments provide a useful context for online civic participation and engagement. However, local initiatives are often developed on an ad hoc basis and are largely limited to the provision of one-way information and service delivery features. Conversely, federal documentation addresses both direct and indirect ICT policy areas and stresses the value of online civic participation. Yet, there is a significant disconnection between federal ideals of engagement and the actual implementation of two-way participatory practices, with service delivery mechanisms again prioritised. This chapter suggests that greater online civic engagement may be achieved through a policy approach that combines national guidance and resources with local knowledge, while using policies to support ICTs and ICTs to support policy processes.

Leveraging the Service Paradigm for Producing Next Generation E-Governance Applications

The 21st century is aptly being termed as e-age. This is with the arrival of a suite of path-breaking and trend-setting computational and communication technologies and tools besides the grand and global installation of wired as well as wireless network infrastructures. As many of yesterday’s concepts, ideas, dreams, vision and desires are being translated into reality today through a host of resilient and robust software, hardware, networking, sensing, perception, and decision-enabling technologies and best practices, it is natural for the total human society to embrace IT and enjoy its direct as well as indirect fruits in a big way with a tinge of assurance. In this context, e-governance methods, platforms, processes and practices also became the cornerstone for effective, efficient, energetic, fast, timely, transparent, and people-centric governance. In this chapter, the author brings forth a new promising, matured, proven, dependable and easy-to-use service technology for designing, developing, deploying, and delivering applications for many of the tasks associated with digitally inspired e-governance. The author has zeroed down on service and cloud technologies as the major drivers for new-generation digital governance. This chapter throws more light on these technologies. Services are stimulating the process-centric approach for application development, modifiability and sustainability. Further on, all kinds of programming models, methods and mechanisms (agile, aspect, component, composite, and event model building blocks) are easily gelling with the supple service paradigm and principles in articulating and actuating dynamic, real-time, instant-on, smart and sophisticated systems.

Role of E-Governance in Citizen Centric E-Government

Recent World Bank study shows that a 10% increase in mobile phone subscribers is associated with a 0.8% increase in economic growth while 10% increase in high speed Internet connections is related to a 1.3% increase in economic growth. Development of ICT infrastructure attracts foreign direct investment, generates fiscal revenues and creates employment opportunities especially for youth and women. Political, Cultural, Socio-economic developmental and behavioral decisions today rests on the ability to access, gather, analyze and utilize information. These remarkable advancements in technology and understanding of how it affects growth highlight a strategic shift in the way ICT can influence development. The distribution of this tool of wealth creation and knowledge are highly unequal amongst countries of the Globe. At the current rate of technological advancement, such disparities in access to ICT related developments are large and likely to become larger in adoption amongst the countries around the Globe. As more of the services in an economy come online, those without access to this technological advancement will be marginalized. The ubiquitous presence of Internet has penetrated every aspect of daily life. This chapter discusses the role of e-Governance in citizen centric e-Government as well as the various issues and challenges of implementation of e-Governance in general. The last part of the chapter is about the e-Governance in Indian context. This chapter is likely to give the reader an overview of e-Governance and the related issues.

E-Government for Social and Economic Development

This chapter posits that e-Government constitutes a critical context for social and economic development in both developed and developing countries. In addition to leveraging economic development, e-Government also helps to stream line government services to more social based values of inclusion and citizens’ participation, accessibility and power relationship ratios. It is clear from literature that e-Government is not a new phenomenon in most developed countries and some developing countries in Asia and Africa. These countries have already announced their Open Government Initiatives and data portals. However, e-Government leads to greater information asymmetry among citizens and government. There is also institutionalization and diffusion asymmetry of the practice of the current Openness in e-Government models within developing countries in particular. The study presented in this chapter draws on organizational decision-making research and adopts an explorative research approach that is informed by grounded theory. The findings of the research are that the information asymmetry between citizens and government; asymmetry in institutionalization, and diffusion within developed and developing countries are widely attributed to socio-economic and political variations in developed and developing countries. Unless these differences are skillfully identified and accommodated as such into the development and use models, openness in e-Government efforts would not help achieve the social and economic development goals by developing countries in particular.

Evaluation and Metrics of E-Government

This chapter discusses EU methodologies used for the evaluation of a number of e-government related strategies including: Action Plan e-Europe 2002, Action Plan e-Europe 2005, the Strategic Framework i2010 as well as the Digital Agenda 2020. It highlights differences and similarities between these plans. It is suggested that Europe should not focus mainly on the supply side (track availability and sophistication), but should also investigate indicators that might directly affect the eGovernment adoption. To this end, we have searched Eurostat Database in order to demonstrate some of the eGovernment evaluation metrics that affect the use and availability of eGovernment (eGov) in European Union concerning individuals and enterprises. We processed the row data and estimated the annual average and the annual average change of eighteen eGovernment indicators for the years 2005-2010. Furthermore, the chapter determines whether or not some of the targets of Digital Agenda 2020 will be accomplished by stated 2015. The author’s estimates are based according to existing trends to determine how these indicators will affect, if nothing changes, in or by 2015.

Towards Inclusive E-Government

In this chapter, five case studies of the implementation of contact centers in Swedish municipalities are described and discussed with a focus on inclusive e-government. The research methods used are mainly qualitative interviews with different categories of municipal personnel and also with some citizens. The main conclusions are that the implementation of contact centers seems to contribute to increased accessibility of municipal services, even for those citizens who might have problems using Internet services. The study indicates that development towards increased equal treatment of citizens and a contribution to reducing problems is mainly related to the “digital divide.” Municipal services became more adapted to citizens’ needs by using citizen-centric methods and dialogue during the development process and in the daily work of the contact centers. The implementation of municipal contact centers can thus be seen as a step towards inclusive e-government, but there is still a need to go further in this direction.

Enterprise Architectures for E-Government Development

There are two common strategies for the development of e-government projects. One approach is demand based e-government initiatives having no national level centralized Enterprise Architecture. The other is the development of projects under the shadow of a predefined set of guidelines following a given Enterprise Architecture at the national level. It is similar to developing a demand based unplanned city development verses a master plan based development. Complex electronic service deliveries need allied and synchronized output of all the projects. Architectural approach provides guidelines from project planning to technical development and operations. It aligns all the e-government projects with some standard principles. A National Enterprise Architecture based approach provides a number of benefits, including institutionalization of top level strategic planning, standardized development across all levels of e-government, sustainability of e-government projects when governments change, cost reduction by sharing resources and better return on investment. There are many enterprise architectures for e-government development. Different countries are experimenting with different enterprise architectures. In this chapter, e-government projects and their devolution is discussed using Zachman Framework, Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP), A Reference Model for Collaboration Networks (ARCON), The Open Group Architectural Framework (TOGAF), and Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF). It is recommended that architectural implementation should be aligned with governing structure of a country such as centralized, devolved and decentralized. However, governments may use a decentralized architecture and devolve it to its sub-nationals such as state/provincial level and city level as per their political, fiscal and administrative needs and capacity.