A framework for selection of processes to virtualize in e-government: a case study of Liberia

E-government has become an important strategic area of focus in many Sub-Saharan African countries. It has prompted many governments to consider digital transformation of services to residents. Countries in America, Europe and Australia have reported improvement of governance through the effective and efficient use of technology in the public sector. Despite the numerous success stories about egovernment bringing great benefits in developed countries, many e-government implementations in Africa do not achieve the expected outcomes. The reason for the failure of e-government projects in Africa is still not well understood. This study is focused on Liberia, a developing country in Sub-Saharan Africa, where e-government has been adopted as a key government strategy for making services accessible to its citizens. However, the implementation of e-government in Liberia has not been successful. The IT practitioners in the government of Liberia ministries and agencies have no guidelines to select viable e-government initiatives to implement. The problem lies in the aspect that there is no formally implemented framework for the selection of most suitable government processes or services to virtualize. There is little academic nor practitioner work that has been conducted in this area. The objective of the research is to develop a framework that can be used to select suitable government physical processes to virtualize, and, hence, contribute to the success of an e-government program in Liberia and other developing countries. To achieve this objective, this reflective-practitioner research applies Process Virtualization (PVT), Extended PVT (EPVT) Theories and design science research methodology to develop a framework in the form of a decision support tool that enables practitioners to select suitable government physical processes to virtualize. The three phases in the research include definition of the problem; design and development of the framework; and evaluation of the framework. The results of the literature review, survey and focus group discussion form the basis for the design of the framework. The study combines qualitative and quantitative data collection from IT professionals of the government of Liberia ministries, agencies and commissions (MACs). In this regard, the perspective of IT practitioners in Liberia is found to be key contribution to this research. This study makes an important theoretical contribution to PVT and EPVT theories by applying it in the context of e-government. The proposed framework will help manage and mitigate potential negative outcomes to e-government implementation in developing countries

Ghana’s Presidential Transition Act and the 2013 Transition

For the first time in the political history of Ghana since independence, a transfer of political power was regulated by a legal blueprint. The first test for implementing major aspects of Ghana’s Presidential Transition Act, 2012 (Act 845) was the post-2012 election period. This paper undertakes an assessment of how the law was implemented. The approach taken involves an evaluation of what worked well, a review of what could not work to perfection and a consideration of policy alternatives. The findings drawn from the assessment provide encouraging evidence of the law being put into practice. However, several challenges emerged. To address them, reform proposals are outlined to fine-tune Ghana’s future political transition process and enhance the effective implementation of the law which remains integral to good governance and possess the potential of closing a chapter in the country’s dismal history of democratic transitions. Keywords: Presidents; Transition; Power; Transfer; Law; Implementatio

Towards a Shared Services Model to support e-Government implementation in Developing Countries: Findings from Liberia

The e-Government program in many developing countries is an emerging concept and at the formative stage. This paper focuses on Liberia, a developing country in sub-Saharan Africa faced with many challenges impeding government efforts to harness ICT to deliver quality services. Key among the challenges is the fragmentation of government information systems causing inoperability among government ministries and agencies. This paper describes a project in which we develop a shared services model to transform e-government implementation in Liberia by determining key services that will allow the government to share and leverage finite ICT resources. Few academic studies have been carried out to investigate approaches and ways of combining e-government services in order to implement shared services in a developing country. Through a case study approach, we propose electronic government services that have the potential to promote Shared Services Model implementation in sub-Saharan African countries

Digitalizing water bill payments: introduction of change management at Ghana Water Company Limited

(a) Situation faced: Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) is a public utility company undergoing a digital transformation. The company began transforming its billing processes in 2016. A vital component of the transformation agenda is the digitalization of customer payments, where customers can make water bill payments through mobile money and other digital payment platforms. Management of the company has realized that some of its commercial department employees (customer-facing staff) are consciously or unconsciously resisting the change. Therefore, to increase adoption, and usage of the payment channels, management has decided to implement a change management program. (b) Action taken: A mixed-method approach was used to obtain staff views on the ongoing digital transformation process at GWCL. This was achieved through a survey and focus group discussions. The study targeted to collect data from 200 staff. There were 160 staff who returned completed questionnaires. The analysed data from the survey and five focus group discussions were used to develop a digital payment change management framework incorporating implementable action points that will enhance organizational appreciation of digitizing bill collection. (c) Results achieved: The survey and focus group discussions showed that the ongoing digitization projects at GWCL have resulted in apprehension, anxiety and fear among many of the staff. Overall, the company staff understanding of change is characterized by operational practices rather than behavioural practices. The research resulted in a digital payment change management framework which has been accepted by the company senior management. The framework establishes how changes will be proposed, analysed, accepted/rejected, implemented, monitored, controlled and documented. Currently, the company has successfully implemented a series of pragmatic change initiatives using the framework to facilitate the usage of digital payments for bill collections. (d) Lessons learned: The most important lesson is that it is not possible to manage change in this public sector organization using a checklist of change management steps. The lessons learned are as follows: (1) A transparent and systematic approach to change management enhances digitalization (increases usage and adoption). (2) An iterative approach allows failure and lessons to be learned. (3) Use a context-specific change management framework to establish sustainable change. (4) Use change champions to drive change

Genre Analysis Of Mission Statements Of Colleges Of Education In Ghana

ANALYSE DE GENRE DE L’ENONCE DE MISSION DES ECOLES NORMALES AU GHANA Résumé : Ce travail étudie le modèle générique des énoncés de mission des écoles normales au Ghana. Les données utilisées pour la recherche comprennent 20 énoncés de mission d'établissements d’enseignement supérieur qui ont été recueillis sur les sites des établissements. Les données sont analysées à l’aide de méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives. L’analyse révèle que trois thématiques fondamentaux ont été utilisés, à savoir la déclaration d’aspiration, la déclaration d’objectif et la déclaration de méthodes. Les espaces textuels des données, mesurés en mots, révèlent un total de 500 mots, dont le premier thématique constitue 27 % de l’espace textuel total, le deuxième thématique occupe 63,4 % du nombre total de mots, tandis que le troisième thématique représente 9 % du nombre total de mots. Les données révèlent également l’utilisation des éléments lexico-grammaticales dans les thématiques. Le thématique 11 utilise des phrases simples (sujet-prédicat), ayant principalement des phrases nominales comme sujets. Le thématique 2 utilise des locutions et des phrases complexes, tandis que le thématique 3 utilise des groupes prépositionnels. Mots-clés : Ecoles normales; Genre ; Ghana; Visio

In the Process of Being Left Behind: Rural-Urban Migration, Precarious Work Conditions, and the Health of Neglected Populations in Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana

Unlike international labour migration, there is a lack of substantive evidence of precarious work conditions and their associated poor health outcomes among rural-urban migrant labour workers. A lacuna that this paper attempts to fill in one of Ghana’s urban slums, Agbogbloshie. We employed a sequential explanatory mixed methods design. In the absence of any sampling frame, simple random sampling was used to select 113 migrant household heads, while purposive sampling was used to select 12 in-depth interviews (IDI) and (8) key informant interviews (KII). The paper leans on the Harris-Todaro (1970) model and the ecological model. We found various precarious work activities, mostly dirty, demeaning, dangerous, and unrewarding. Logistic regression was performed on whether or not the type of work undertaken by the migrants resulted in ill-health. Using motor riders as reference, it indicates that electronic waste dealers’ odds of ill-health (OR=1.0 [95%CI: 0.09–10.17]; P=1.0). Scraps dealers (OR=0.69[95%CI: 0.10–4.72]; P=0.71). Head porters (OR=0.25[95%CI: 0.22–6.97]; P=0.80. Street hawkers (OR= 0.5[95%CI: 0.03–7.45]; P=0.62). Truck pushers (0.83[95%CI: 0.05–13.63]; P=0.90). However, the association between precarious work and ill-health was insignificant across all work activities (P > 0.05). We found a slow pace in the government’s response to addressing precarious work activities. We recommend work acceleration

A Framework for Selection of Processes to Virtualize in e-Government: A Case Study of Liberia

E-government has become an important strategic area of focus in many Sub-Saharan African countries. Despite the numerous success stories about e-government bringing great benefits in developed countries, many e-government implementations in Africa do not achieve the expected outcomes. This study focuses on Liberia, a developing country in Sub-Saharan Africa, where e-government has been adopted as a key government strategy. However, the implementation of e-government in Liberia has not been fully successful. The purpose of this research is to develop a framework to guide IT practitioners in Liberia to select viable e-government initiatives to virtualize. To accomplish this goal, this paper adopts the Extended Process Virtualization Theory (EPVT) and Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) frameworks to develop a novel framework for the selection of suitable government physical processes to virtualize. The framework is validated by means of an experiment using e-government initiatives in Liberia. Results show the utility of the framework

Comediation of Erythrocyte Haemolysis by Erythrocyte-Derived Microparticles and Complement during Malaria Infection

Background. Due to the sustained morbidity and mortality that malaria-associated anaemia imposes on patients, malaria is still a global threat, most especially, to residents in sub-Saharan Africa. Merozoite invasion and destruction of erythrocytes, a target for this study, have been necessary due to its unique nature and also since the erythrocytes suffer the most brunt of malarial infection leading to anaemia. The issue of malaria anaemia has to do with why uninfected RBCs get destroyed and even more so than infected ones. Studies have proposed that cytophilic anti-RSP2 (ring surface protein 2—merozoite rhoptry protein 2) antibodies present in sera enhance phagocytosis of RSP2-tagged RBCs by macrophages either directly or via complement, while others have proposed transfer of RSP2 to both infected and uninfected RBCs which may render them susceptible to phagocytosis. What is missing is the agent involved in the transfer of these parasite-induced surface proteins onto the uninfected RBCs, i.e., the mediator molecules. Considering the intracellular location of the parasite in the parasitophorous vacuolar membrane and the absence of a transport mechanism such as the Golgi apparatus within the mature RBC, since the latter has no nucleus, we propose that erythrocyte-derived microparticles (EMPs) may be the possible mediators. Aim. This study aimed at examining the immunological interactions between EMPs released during malarial infections and host erythrocytes that may lead to their lysis possibly through complement mediation. Methods. This was an experimental study during which malarial EMPs were isolated by differential centrifugation of malaria-positive plasma. This was followed by cell-based in vitro assays where malaria-positive EMPs were added to uninfected blood group “O” negative erythrocytes in the presence of complement and haemolysis checked for. Results and Conclusion. At a fixed volume of 50 μL complement, there were statistically significant (p<0.01) increases in mean percentage haemolysis as the volume of EMPs increased. Similarly, at a fixed volume of 50 μL EMPs, there were statistically significant (p<0.01) increases in mean percentage haemolysis with increasing volumes of complement. This was an indication that both complement and EMPs contribute significantly to uninfected erythrocyte haemolysis during malaria infection