e-government

e-Government (from electronic government, also known as e-gov, digital government, online government or in a certain context transformational government) refers to government’s use of information and communication technology (ICT) to exchange information and services with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. e-Government may be applied by legislature, judiciary, or administration, in order to improve internal efficiency, the delivery of public services, or processes of democratic governance. The primary delivery models are Government-to-Citizen or Government-to-Customer (G2C), Government-to-Business (G2B) and Government-to-Government (G2G). The most important anticipated benefits of e-government include improved efficiency, convenience, and better accessibility of public services.

While e-government is often thought of as "online government" or "Internet-based government"—many non-Internet based "electronic government" technologies can be used in this context, including telephone, fax, PDA, SMS text messaging, MMS, and 3G, GPRS, WiFi, WiMAX and Bluetooth. Other technologies can include CCTV, tracking systems, RFID, biometric identification, road traffic management and regulatory enforcement, identity cards, smart cards and other NFC applications; polling station technology (where non-online e-voting is being considered), TV and radio-based delivery of government services, email, online community facilities, newsgroups and electronic mailing lists, online chat, and instant messaging technologies. There are also some technology-specific sub-categories of e-government, such as m-government (mobile government), u-government (ubiquitous government), and g-government (GIS/GPS applications for e-government).

There are many considerations and potential implications of implementing and designing e-government, including disintermediation of the government and its citizens, impacts on economic, social, and political factors, and disturbances to the status quo in these areas.

In countries such as the United Kingdom, there is interest in using electronic government to re-engage citizens with the political process. In particular, this has taken the form of experiments with electronic voting, aiming to increase voter turnout by making voting easy. The UK Electoral Commission has undertaken several pilots, though concern has been expressed about the potential for fraud with some electronic voting methods.

Development and implementation issues

The development and implementation of e-government involves consideration of its effects including environmental, social, cultural, educational, and consumer issues, among others.

Governments may need to consider the impact by gender, age, language skills, and cultural diversity, as well as the effect on literacy, numeracy, education standards and IT literacy. Economic concerns include the "Digital divide," or the effect of non-use, non-availability or inaccessibility of e-government, or of other digital resources, upon the structure of society, and the potential impact on income and economics.

Economic and revenue-related concerns include e-government's effect on taxation, debt, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), commerce and trade, corporate governance, and its effect on non-e-government business practices, industry and trade, especially Internet Service Providers and Internet infrastructure.

From a technological standpoint, the implementation of e-government has effects on e-enablement, interoperability (e.g., e-GIF) and semantic web issues, "legacy technology" (making "pre-eGovernment IT" work together with or be replaced by e-government systems), and implications for software choices (between open source and proprietary software, and between programming languages) as well as political blogging especially by legislators.

There are also management issues related to service integration, local e-government, and Internet governance including ICANN, IETF and W3C, and financial considerations, such as the cost of implementation / effect on existing budgets, effect on government procurement, and funding.

Legal implications include freedom of information and privacy (e.g. UK Data Protection Act) concerns.

See also

• E-democracy
• E-Government Unit
• Electronic services delivery
• Online consultation
• Transformational Government

References

• Encyclopedia of Digital Government. Edited by Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko and Matti Mälkiä. Idea Group Reference. (http://www.idea-group.com/reference/details.asp?ID=5066)
• I. Kushchu and M. H. Kuscu (2003). "From e-Government to m-Government: Facing the Inevitable". The 3rd European Conference on e-Government. pp. 253–260. {{cite conference}}: Unknown parameter |booktitle= ignored (|book-title= suggested) (help)

External links

eGovernment news websites

• eGov monitor — Daily news covering developments in UK and Europe, plus comprehensive weekly newsletter.
• UNPAN eGovernment News — news from UN Division for Public Administration on eGovernment worldwide.
• DigitalGovernance.org Initiative site about electronic governance models applicable for developing countries.
• eEurope 2005
• European Commission's IDABC website providing eGovernment news, summarised histories of eGovernment in member states, and further documents and information.
• United Nations E-Government Readiness Knowledge Base

General resources

• Misra, D.C. (2007): Defining e-government: a citizen-centric criteria-based approach
• The Failure of E-Government in Developing Countries: A Literature Review. — Danish Dada, London School of Economics and Political Science
• IPOL - a portal on Internet and politics — Edited by UK academics and hosted by the University of Salford, includes primary and secondary research resources related to e-democracy, e-government and the use of the Internet by parliaments and assemblies.
• Government Computerization in the Open Directory Project
• Governments and ICT Multidisciplinairy Research Program in the Netherlands on the field of e-Government
• The e-Government Imperative OECD e-Government Publications