UN E-Government Survey 2008
From E-Government to connected Governance
 
Executive Summary
A trend towards reforming the public sector has emerged in many countries in recent years spurred, primarily by the aspirations of citizens around the world, who are placing new demands on governments. The success of government leaders is increasingly being measured by the benefits they are creating for their constituents, namely, the private sector, citizens and communities. These ‘clients’ of government demand top performance and efficiency, proper accountability and public trust, and a renewed focus on delivering better service and results.
Several countries around the world are attempting to revitalize their public administration and make it more proactive, efficient, transparent and especially more service oriented.
To accomplish this transformation, governments are introducing innovations in their organizational structure, practices, capacities, and in the ways they mobilize, deploy and utilize the human capital and information, technological and financial resources for service delivery to citizens. In this context, the appropriate use of ICT plays a crucial role in advancing the goals of the public sector and in contributing towards an enabling environment for social and economic growth.
E-government can contribute significantly to the process of transformation of the government towards a leaner, more cost-effective government. It can facilitate communication and improve the coordination of authorities at different tiers of government, within organizations and even at the departmental level. Further, e-government can enhance the speed and efficiency of operations by streamlining processes, lowering costs, improving research capabilities and improving documentation and record-keeping.
However, the real benefit of e-government lies not in the use of technology per se, but in its application to processes of transformation. This year’s e-Government Survey 2008: From e-Government to Connected Governance presents an assessment of the new role of the government in enhancing public service delivery, while improving the efficiency and productivity of government processes and systems. It comprises two parts: Part I presents the findings of the United Nations e-Government Survey 2008 while the ‘how to’ approach connected governance is the focus of Part II of this year’s Survey.
The United Nations e-Government Survey 2008
The results of the Survey indicate that governments are moving forward in e-government development around the world. However, given the high demands placed by e-government on a multitude of foundational pillars which include prerequisites of infrastructure, appropriate policies, capacity development, ICT applications and relevant content that need to be in place to fully implement e-government services, progress is slow. Only a few governments have made the necessary investment to move from e-government applications per se to a more integrated connected governance stage.
In terms of connectivity, a robust broadband network is critical to the roll out of e government applications and services. In this year’s Survey, the governments that invested in broadband infrastructure scored relatively high. A closer look at the infrastructure index reveals that investment in cellular phones has been dramatic over the past three years in both the developed and developing countries. Another issue that came to the forefront is that back office operations need to be seamlessly integrated into one system for effective governance. This was reflected in the Survey from the experience of a number of countries from Northern Europe that revamped their national and ministries’ websites towards an integrated program delivery.
There were large differences between the five regions in terms of e-government readiness, with Europe (0.6490) having a clear advantage over the other regions, followed by the Americas (0.4936), Asia (0.4470), Oceania (0.4338) and Africa (0.2739). Asia and Oceania were slightly below the world average (0.4514), while Africa lagged far behind.
This year Sweden (0.9157) surpassed the United States as the leader. Three Scandinavian countries took the top three spots in the 2008 Survey, with Denmark (0.9134) and Norway (0.8921) in second and third place respectively. The United States (0.8644) came in fourth.
In this year’s e-government readiness rankings, the European countries made up 70 per cent of the top 35 countries while the Asian countries made up 20 per cent of the top 35. A large part of the success of the European countries has been their investment in infrastructure and connectivity, most notably in broadband infrastructure. It is worth noting that in this year’s Survey, there were no countries in the top 35 from the African, Caribbean, Central American, Central Asian, South American and Southern Asian regions.
In terms of citizen engagement, the e-participation index indicated a modest upward movement with 189 countries online in 2008 as compared with 179 in 2005. A greater number of countries were in the middle to top one third in e-participation utilization. However, 82 per cent of the countries surveyed still remained in the lower one third bracket. The United States scored the highest on the e-participation index. This was primarily due to its strength in e-information and e-consultation, which enabled its citizens to be more interactive with their government. It was closely followed by the Republic of Korea (0.9773), which performed extremely well in the e-consultation assessment. Denmark (0.9318) and France (0.9318) were tied for third place.
From e-Government to Connected Governance
The management of knowledge is of increasing importance to governments in their effort to deal with the growing challenges created by the knowledge economy. The essence of knowledge management (KM) is to provide strategies to get the right knowledge to the right people at the right time and in the right format.1 KM is based on the idea that an organization’s most valuable resource is the knowledge of its people. The three aspects of public sector KM that need to be considered when effecting KM strategies are: people, processes and technology. Identifying the right processes to capture, store and share knowledge is an essential aspect of KM, as is the identification and build up of the appropriate hardware and software which fits the organization’s people and processes. But perhaps the most important aspect of KM is the people aspect. Public organizations have traditionally been compartmentalized. One of the most basic notions in KM is therefore that of connecting the ‘silos’. Silo in KM refers to the self-contained organizational unit, which has little or no communication with the other units of the organization. With respect to human resources, the Survey stresses the importance of: building an environment that instils trust among employees. This in turn implies the selection and development of leaders who promote information sharing. Effective knowledge sharing requires rewarding those who input information into the system by establishing a formal structure of incentives and rewards. Information sharing results in reduced information costs. As a result of reduced information costs, the new public sector organization is in an advantageous position vis-à-vis its predecessor organization.
Employees also have embedded knowledge of the organization’s values and objectives, so they must be encouraged to use their own creativity and innovation to turn their ideas into valuable products and services. Innovation is an ongoing process in an organization which guides the organization in defining problems and then developing new knowledge for their solution. The leaders therefore must put in place strategies that encourage creativity and innovation among employees. They must also ensure better use of the knowledge that exists within the organization by sharing best practices and developing communities of practice.
Another dimension of KM is that of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), which revolves around the issue of enhancing customer focus and building relationships with private sector partners. Yet, another dimension of KM revolves around the issues of confidentiality, data integrity and availability of information. While confidentiality deals with the unintentional disclosure of information outside the authorized parameters and data integrity assures the trustworthiness of the information, availability ensures that the information is made available to requesting authenticated clients.
The benefits of KM for an organization come in the form of increased productivity, efficiency, innovation and quality of public service delivery. The successful application of KM practices raises the awareness of leaders and managers, and also of frontline personnel of the advantages that KM can bring to an organization. At the individual level, KM practices provide opportunities to employees for career enhancement and development.
As a way of summing up the preceding discussion, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has reported that e-government initiatives have in recent years been refocused on a number of issues, such as how to collaborate more effectively across agencies to address complex intra-government and shared problems within and among the agencies, and how to enhance customer focus and build relationships with private sector partners.
Drawing on OECD’S observations, governments around the world are realizing that continued expansion in e-services is not possible without some kind of integration of back-end government systems. Whereas earlier the emphasis of e-government was mostly on developing e-services, the increasing importance of cross-organizational coherence today has clearly shifted the focus towards building and managing, integrated and coordinated government services. This is critical, since a lack of coordination in policy decisions and announcements can play a considerable role in undermining policy objectives and also weakening the credibility of institutions and policies.
In an attempt to keep current in examining emerging issues, Part II of the Survey therefore assesses the challenges in moving from e-government to connected governance. The Survey postulates that governments are increasingly looking towards e-government-as-a-whole concept which focuses on the provision of services at the front-end supported by integration, consolidation and innovation in back-end processes and systems to achieve maximum cost savings and improved service delivery. The distinguishing characteristic of the whole-of-government approach is that government agencies and organizations share objectives across organizational boundaries, as opposed to working solely within an organization.
The concept of connected government is derived from the whole-of-government approach which is increasingly looking towards technology as a strategic tool and as an enabler for public service innovation and productivity growth.
Connected or networked governance3 revolves around governmental collective action to advance the public good by engaging the creative efforts of all segments of society. It is about influencing the strategic actions of other stakeholders. ICT-based connected governance efforts are aimed at improved cooperation between government agencies, allowing for an enhanced, active and effective consultation and engagement with citizens, and a greater involvement with multi-stakeholders regionally and internationally.
This emerging approach to public sector service delivery stipulates the need to move from the model of government dispensing services via traditional modes to an emphasis on an integrated approach focusing on enhancing the value of services to the citizen.
A by-product of this focus on the value for citizen is the recognition that an increase in the value of services is not possible without consolidating the way the back-end systems and processes work to bring about the front-end service delivery. The new approach maintains that genuine cost savings and quality improvements will occur only if there is a re-engineering of the internal structures and processes of the administration towards a connected form of governance. Connected governance is aimed at improving cooperation between government agencies, deepening consultation and engagement with citizens, and allowing for a greater involvement with multi- stakeholders regionally and internationally. Underlying the concept of connected governance is a systematic approach to collection, reuse and sharing of data and information. However, it is essential to understand how ICT can contribute to realizing these goals of public sector reform.
Within the connected governance framework, intergovernmental processes can be integrated vertically between various government agencies and/or horizontally between agencies at the same level and/or with the inclusion of private sector and other stakeholders.
What is important is to think about connected governance with a view towards the reengineering of technology, processes, skills and mindsets of public officials in the government within a holistic framework.
In practice, in the area of connected governance and back office integration, there is a continuing gap between what is promised and what is delivered – both to governments and to citizens. Comparative examinations of country performances begin from the premise that no two countries are alike and that national trajectories will be shaped by variables both within the public sector (including multiple levels of government) and across society at large.
As a result, there is some invariable tension between mapping out global e-government trends and specific national trajectories and how they relate to such trends. In order to help frame this broad assessment, three main phases of e-government strategy and activity are put forth as ways of encapsulating the main focus of e-government on the one hand, and the major challenges facing public sector leaders and all stakeholders in pursuing e-government on the other hand. The three (interrelated and often overlapping) phases are as follows:
Infrastructure: Creating an information infrastructure both within the public sector and across society at large, one based upon reliable and affordable Internet connectivity for citizens, businesses and all stakeholders in a given jurisdiction;
Integration: Leveraging this new infrastructure within the public sector in order to better share information (internally and externally) and bundle, integrate, and deliver services through more efficient and citizen-centric governance models encompassing multiple delivery channels; and
Transformation: Pursuing service innovation and e-government across a broader prism of community and democratic development through more networked governance patterns within government, across various government levels and amongst all sectors in a particular jurisdiction.
In shifting from infrastructure to integration and then to transformation, a more holistic framework of connected governance is required. Such a framework recognizes the networking presence of e-government as both an internal driver of transformation within the public sector and an external driver of societal learning and collective adaptation for the jurisdiction as a whole. Accordingly, both developed and developing countries are increasingly seeking to articulate a vision of e-government that encompasses these multiple layers in a cumulative manner. In other words, a basic and continually upgraded infrastructure is required to facilitate integrative opportunities for delivering services and engaging citizens, whereas the exploitation of such opportunities demands engagement and participation among all stakeholders in order to foster more systemic transformation individually, organizationally and institutionally.
Drivers for integration arise at the operational and strategic levels. Typically these encompass achieving cost savings, improving service delivery and efficiency, creating service innovation, improving central control and decision-making/resource allocation and the desire either political or operational, to modernize public service delivery. Where there are clear drivers for change, clearly articulated benefits and a clearly defined scope, the successful integration of back office functions is more likely to be achieved.
The primary delivery modes for back office integration include in-house delivery, a strategic partnership model and through outsourcing. Each of these modes has differing strengths and weaknesses in terms of the acquisition and utilization of resources (technological, financial and people) and the likely impact on benefits realization. Models of back office integration, irrespective of the delivery mode, fall into three broad categories: single function integration, cross functional integration and back office to front office integration.
The level of complexity, expressed in terms of the number of functions within the scope and the number of organizations involved, is the primary factor influencing a successful outcome – with a tendency amongst the more ambitious projects to fail to deliver the full anticipated benefits. The key variables involved in the delivery of back office integration are the people, process and technology required. Whilst the technology is increasingly resilient and ‘fit for purposes’, evidence indicates that success or failure is less a technological issue and more a people issue – in particular the ability to change public service cultures and motivate public sector workers to new ways of working, address trade union concerns and provide adequately skilled and competent management and leadership.
Connected governance provides better organized, aligned and often integrated information flows, new transactional capacities, as well as new mechanisms for feedback, consultation and more participative forms of democracy. For those engaged in the management and delivery of public administration, it is about driving down costs and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of ‘back office’ functions and the basic machinery of government. For those working at the transnational level, it is about removing the barriers to international cooperation and development and creating an agenda of connected governance globally. For the various stakeholders, different facets will provide the driver for change and the motivation to engage with e-government and the modernisation agenda.
Although much of the developing world continues to struggle with deeper challenges rooted in infrastructure, there are growing examples of integration and transformation as well. A critical mission for the world as a whole is therefore to leverage the positive experiences of those jurisdictions that have embraced transformative change into endogenous capacities for connected governance that can be embraced and nurtured by the widest possible number of communities and countries around the world. Rising levels of commerce and human mobility also reinforce the notion of interdependence, as immigration, security, environmental and global health systems become more closely intertwined. E-government from a global perspective can accordingly be seen as a central dimension of the world’s capacity to respond collectively – in terms of information sharing and learning and shared capacities for action. In an era of environmental, economic and technological interdependence, a much greater degree of political interdependence is also required, rendering e-government as much a global as a national imperative.