E-Government: moving beyond services

A recent exchange between the members of theW3C group on e-government and the content of the last GSA’s newsletter on Transparency and Open Government, coordinated by Lisa Nelson, got me thinking about how narrowly we often conceive the scope of e-government, and in the process ignore important aspects of governance. 

To most people, e-government is all about better and improved services flowing from the government to the citizen (G2C).  Improvements in service provision usually imply more efficiency in the delivery and services of better quality.  However, the conversion of manual processes to automated processes -which is how most G2C implementation is done- discourages us from using new technologies able to change the paradigm of the relationship between citizens and their government.

Even though I agree that service provision is an important aspect of e-government, there are other aspects in this field that are particularly important for governance in general.  Some of these areas that we need to focus on a bit more are:

• Participation
• Openness/Transparency, and
• Collaboration and Accountability

Participation

Large sections of most developing countries -typically the lowest income populations- are disenfranchised, lacking political participation and voice.  In fact, studies have found that greater economic inequality yields greater political inequality, thus creating a vicious cycle where the poor cannot use the political system to improve their economic situation.  A higher level of income inequality thus translates into a detrimental effect, not only on political interest but also on the frequency of political discussion and participation in elections among all but the most affluent citizens.  This suggests that e-government can strengthen democracy by contributing to increase political participation among the poor.

Unfortunately this is where we get stuck.  Empirical data shows that participation is not typically an important part of e-government programs in poorer countries even though they are the ones who most needed it. 

Openness/Transparency

In spite of many good examples of open government/ transparency, the fundamental change in mind-set that is required for a truly open government has not really taken place anywhere.  In order for this to happen, each civil servant will need to relate in a very different way to data that he/she produces.  Just as journalists today need to be able to have a good handle on legal and copyright issues, social networking tools, and basic news editing and production skills, civil servants will need to be actively involved in the dissemination of data that they produce, in a user-friendly manner.  Infrastructure and interoperability will need to be taken for granted for data to be freely available and usable.  In this process, as much data as possible should be released, withholding only confidential and personal information.  To achieve this, more investment would be needed in building a better search engine and modifying social networking apps for government. 

Collaboration and Accountability

The future of the Web depends on our continued ability to collaborate and access information from different kinds of sources.  In order to collaborate effectively, we need to be able to find information that is relevant to us and we need to be able to share our data without complex conversion processes. Although closely linked, transparency/openness and collaboration alone will not bring about accountability.   Holding public servants and politicians accountable for their actions requires a robust civil society, strong judiciary and legal framework, a free and active press among other factors.  However citizen watchdogs, human rights organizations, non-profits and others that track governance related actions and data can certainly use technology to demand accountability.