Information and communication Technology and Poverty: An Asian Perspective

The emergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), in particular the Internet, has generated new enthusiasms about the development prospects for poor economies. Many now think that new technologies can provide a faster route to better livelihoods and improved quality of life than the one afforded by the standard process of industrialization. The opposing view holds that the focus on ICTs will detract attention from the more fundamental task of addressing the basic problems of economic developmentICT; poverty; growth

Role of Process Alignment and End User Participation in Successful Implementation of E-Government Programs: Perspective of Different Stakeholders

In recent years, a number of developing countries have launched e-government programs, and several development agencies and governments have identified e-government implementation as a key policy priority. Driven by the success of a few projects in improving delivery of services to citizens and businesses, an increasing number of governments are making ICT investments in the public sector. Alignment of departmental processes in government and active participation of employee of government departments as well of participation and cooperation of government department’s users play vital role of success in such programs. Therefore, the major objective of the paper is to understand the role of process alignment and end user participation in success of e-government programs from the important stakeholders perspective; leaders, government departments as users, nodal IT agencies, and IT vendor organization. The research findings are based on survey carried out with 152 stakeholders in all categories through a questionnaire targeted in northern states in India

Smartphone Applications in Government: Characterizing and Evaluating Municipal Smartphone Applications for Service Requests

Using advanced information and communication technologies to deliver information and services, which is referred to as e-government, is trending at different levels of governments. Through the evolution of web technologies from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 along with the emergence of wireless Internet, e-government has also developed with growing benefits for both governments and citizens. Although a number of previous studies explored promises and challenges of e-government, a majority of them are rhetoric and focus on non-mobile e-government, and there is a gap in understanding actual uses of smartphone applications in the public sector. This research aims to fill the gap by studying 311 mobile applications adopted by some municipalities in Canada. 311 service, which is originally a direct call line that allows citizens to report issues and access non-emergency municipal services, is now offered via multiple platforms such as smartphone applications. These smartphone applications can be seen as a new practice of mobile e-government or m-government. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six municipalities that provide multiple channels for citizens to make non-emergency service requests. Although smartphone applications have not been adopted for a long time in governments, participating governments are satisfied with the current use and have observed a number of advantages by comparing with other communication channels. The identified advantages imply potentials to promote a more open government by increasing efficiency, transparency and citizen engagement. A detailed characterization of multiple channel was obtained by looking into 311 records in one of the interviewed municipalities – the City of Edmonton. Three years of request data were analyzed by comparing relative share of service request for each channel and by extracting the spatial patterns of the requests. A regression model was also built to explore the relationships between channel use and sociodemographic variables. The analysis results show a shift in channel usage from traditional to Internet-enabled channels, and that specific digital inequalities exist reinforcing distinctions between traditional and Internet-enabled channels. Based on the results obtained, recommendations are provided to governments to further exploit advantages of smartphone applications in delivering government-related services

E-Government Applications And Methodologies: Turkey on the E-Government Way

The recent changes in the technology, especially the use of Internet and the World Wide Web resulted in a new way of doing business for the governments. Governments worldwide face with the challenge of transformation and the need to reinvent government systems, which are based to deliver more efficient and cost effective services for the citizens. The developments and the studies in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) resulted in E-Government projects and applications. This paper tries to analyze E-Government projects by analyzing their methodologies and strategies; and it is mainly based on the underlying key points in success stories. Also within this paper the reader will get information on E-Government projects in Turkey, successes and failures, IT vision of the administrations and the future plans.

E-Government in the United Arab Emirates: A Study of the Abu Dhabi Government Contact Centre

In this current age of information technology (IT), electronic government (e-government) has transformed the interaction between the government and the citizens. To make this transformation contextually and locally relevant, this research examines the efficiency of e-government in Abu Dhabi by undertaking a case study of the efficiency of the electronic contact channels at the Abu Dhabi Government Contact Center (ADGCC). It, also, identifies the challenges faced by the ADGCC and provides recommendations to overcome the challenges accordingly. The study model for this research is developed by reviewing the key concepts related to the implementation of the e-government. The primary research is conducted by surveying the opinions of fifty-eight ADGCC agents. Through survey results, the efficiency and effectiveness of the e-channels are assessed. Study findings demonstrate that all e channels are performing efficiently, indicating contact time efficiency, response time efficiency, and comparative response time efficiency, especially in comparison to the phone efficiency. Email is found to have the highest outcome efficiency as compared to other channels observed in the analysis. In terms of effectiveness, it was observed that the two mediums, ‘City Guard’ and email, are those that achieve the highest customer satisfaction. The gaps identified by this study through applying its model are ‘employee training’ (under the organizational theme), ‘system integration’ (under technological theme), and ‘citizen awareness’ and ‘citizen training’ (both under the social theme). Finally, recommendations are added in relation to these gaps, as well as for achieving higher efficiency and effectiveness in the e-channels that may improve ‘smart e-government’ in Abu Dhabi

Data analytics on key indicators for the city's urban services and dashboards for leadership and decision-making

Cities are continuously evolving human settlements. Our cities are under strain in an increasingly urbanized world, and planners, decision-makers, and communities must be ready to adapt. Data is an important resource for municipal administration. Some technologies aid in the collection, processing, and visualization of urban data, assisting in the interpretation and comprehension of how urban systems operate. The relationship between data analytics and smart cities has come to light in recent years as interest in both has grown. A sophisticated network of interconnected systems, including planners and inhabitants, is what is known as a smart city. Data analysis has the potential to support data-driven decision-making in the context of smart cities. Both urban managers and residents are becoming more interested in city dashboards. Dashboards may collect, display, analyze, and provide information on regional performance to help smart cities development having sustainability. In order to assist decision-making processes and enhance the performance of cities, we examine how dashboards might be used to acquire accurate and representative information regarding urban challenges. This chapter culminates Data Analytics on key indicators for the city's urban services and dashboards for leadership and decision-making. A single web page with consolidated information, real-time data streams pertinent to planners and decision-makers as well as residents' everyday lives, and site analytics as a method to assess user interactions and preferences are among the proposals for urban dashboards. Keywords: -Dashboard, data analytics, smart city, sustainability

A Study of the Digital Divide Evaluation Model for Government Agencies - A Taiwanese Local Government\u27s Perspective

This paper examines the Taiwanese government’s ways of constructing a measurement model and an empirical study of digital divide among government agencies. On the basis of Gowin\u27s Vee structure, this paper first refers to the Grounded Theory in the establishment of the draft list for the measurement of the digital divide in local governments. Furthermore, it constructs five dimensions and 42 measurement factors with an expert questionnaire and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for the digital divide evaluation model of government agencies. Finally, this paper measures the actual levels of digital divide in local governments, with the digital divide evaluation model in examining the degrees of digitalization, pros, and cons in association with digital divide. It is hoped that the results would serve as a reference for government agencies of all levels in formulating their digitalization strategies

ANTECEDENTS OF THE DIGITAL DIVIDE IN LEBANON

This paper reports the results of a study to investigate the digital divide in Lebanon based on data collected in August 2008 from 330 potential users of Lebanese public e-services. The study investigated factors that make a difference for e-access and e-skills and how socio-economic, demographic, and cultural factors explain the digital divide. Overall, results show that gender, age, religion, and geographic disparities related to income, to educational attainment, and to occupation influence the e-skills and e-access divides. Income and education have effects on e-skills but no effect on the e-access divide. When educational attainment increases, the e-skills divide decreases. Gender and religion have an impact on the e-skills divide but no significant impact on the e-access divide: men and Christians have more e-skills than women and Muslims. The impact of urban-rural disparities is unambiguous. Age is the only factor that impacts both the e-access and e-skills divide. Young urban males with high income and high educational attainment levels have more advanced eskills than their less advantaged counterparts; thus, these elite members of the Lebanese society are expected to benefit from the advantages of public online services. That will, however, not be the case of those in the less advantaged segments of the population. Inequalities in Lebanese society will continue