Digital Opportunity Initiative for Pakistan

“People lack many things: jobs, shelter, food, health care and drinkable water. Today, being cut off from basic telecommunications services is a hardship almost as acute as these other deprivations, and may indeed reduce the chances of finding remedies to them”. By these remarks at Telecom 99 in Geneva, Switzerland, UN Secretary General Kofi Anan warned of the danger of excluding the world’s poor from the information revolution. Although the world has seen exponential progress in terms of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, genetic engineering, neural networks, neurolinguistic programming, information technology management, telematics and infonomics, trade liberalisation, space exploration—but on ground the very pace and velocity of knowledge-driven growth has left a giant crevice between the information haves and the information have-nots, giving birth to a nomenclature called—the Digital Divide. Today information has become the most vibrant force and factor of production in the new economy contrary to the four traditional factors of production. Information has become the most important source of economic activity and the link which drives the info-hungry entrepreneurs to utilise the four factors of production in the optimal manner. Not land, not labour, not capital has done for an entrepreneur which the information alone has done. The world has seen a paradigm shift from scarce economic resources to the Age of Abundance—where plenty of information is available!

Modernisation and the dynamics of welfare governance

The modernisation of welfare states is high on the agenda of many European nations. The so-called "anglo-saxon" model plays an important, but contradictory, symbolic role, as both a template for reform and as a symbol of the problems of neo-liberal governance. Rather than viewing the UK as an exemplar of neo liberalism, this paper highlights the unstable mix of governance styles at stake in welfare reform. It highlights current trends in the attempt to remake relationships between government and people around new conceptions of citizenship and community and the fostering of new aspirations and opportunities. It then explores the implications for issues of governance around the themes of welfare, work and citizenship. Finally the paper identifies some problems inherent in new discourses of the social - including social inclusion and social investment - that are at the core of welfare state modernisation strategies in the UK and beyond

Digital Opportunity Initiative for Pakistan

“People lack many things: jobs, shelter, food, health care and drinkable water. Today, being cut off from basic telecommunications services is a hardship almost as acute as these other deprivations, and may indeed reduce the chances of finding remedies to them”

The creation of public value through e-government in the Sultanate of Oman

Public value (PV) is a debatable topic with different definitions across the public administration literature and e-government literature. Public value is seen as the last paradigm of both public administration and e-government studies, redefining the definition of e-government, its aims, success indicators and evaluation frameworks. Existing implementations are typically biased towards the realisation of efficiency and service effectiveness, with far less attention being paid to the delivery of PV. In addition, PV-related e-government studies have not presented a comprehensive and holistic framework to investigate e-government PV. This study seeks to address this gap by investigating how e-government facilitates the creation of PV. [Continues.

Living Labs and user engagement for innovation and sustainability

This exploratory study, investigating the role of Living Labs (LLs) in promoting innovation and sustainability, has two main goals. Firstly, it seeks to understand how stakeholders and users, in a Quadruple Helix Model, can participate in LL activities and support the process of achieving a more sustainable society. Secondly, it guides the setting up of LLs with the aim of directly contributing to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Research, based on a multiple case study, has shown that LLs are able to actively engage users, including firms and business systems, in promoting co-creation of value so as to benefit the economy, society and the environment. We have selected some good practices and derived some policy implications that could inspire LLs to promote innovation and encourage transition towards sustainable development at the local level, within the context of a QHM model

Marketing e-solution services and cultural readiness in the KRG

This research examines Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq’s factors influence the Research methodology consisted of quantitative and qualitative analyses. The sampled population consisted of government employees working at the Ministry of Transportation and Communication and common citizens as users of government services. Research findings are as following; the implementation of e-government services should be treated as a long-term process of reform and restructuring, and not simply the computerization of government operations. It is also the finding of this study that interactions among technological, organizational, and cultural factors must be determined prior to any e-government system implementation. Employees at the Ministry of Transportation and Communications were found dissatisfied towards each other because of the varying degrees in knowledge, information sharing, attitude towards work, knowledge decimation, willingness to use new e-government system and willingness in general to help the public (citizens) during work hours. Such findings are highly related to educational level, training, but also representative of government employees’ general attitude towards the workplace. Such outlook towards one’s job highly impacts the quality of services provided and the level of e-government initiatives success. This study also concludes that the intent to deploy e- government systems in developing countries has increased the adoption and use of technology, as well as cultural challenges being faced. It is the finding of this research that the interaction between organizational and technological challenges is intertwined and is sociocultural in nature. This is to say that social and cultural factors impact the level of readiness, utilization, and acceptance of e-governmental systems implementation, and technology acceptances can be highly influenced by socio- factors influenced the adoption e-government by Ministries of Transportation and Communication, on how technological, organizational, and cultural ministry’s e-system implementation and services efficiency. cultural, inter-organizational and technological challenges

Broadening Civic Space Through Voluntary Action Lessons from 2011

This publication explores how non-formal voluntary action outside of formal organizations can lead to greater citizen participation in governance; serves as a resource to help civil society organizations (CSOs) explore the opportunities for engagement this presents; highlights recent examples of how socially-oriented volunteerism has connected to more change-oriented activism; and suggests how both non-formal voluntary citizen action and social activism within CSOs can be strengthened