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

International genome-wide meta-analysis identifies new primary biliary cirrhosis risk loci and targetable pathogenic pathways.

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is a classical autoimmune liver disease for which effective immunomodulatory therapy is lacking. Here we perform meta-analyses of discovery data sets from genome-wide association studies of European subjects (n=2,764 cases and 10,475 controls) followed by validation genotyping in an independent cohort (n=3,716 cases and 4,261 controls). We discover and validate six previously unknown risk loci for PBC (Pcombined<5 × 10(-8)) and used pathway analysis to identify JAK-STAT/IL12/IL27 signalling and cytokine-cytokine pathways, for which relevant therapies exist

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

Spatial Planning for Smart Sustainable Development?

Future urban development has been preoccupied with the concepts of smart cities and environmental sustainability. The question is whether planning, as a future-oriented activity, can step up to the challenge to develop an integrative spatial approach to deliver smart and sustainable development. While these concepts are interlinked, our understanding of the spatial relationships between environmental challenges, technological advances and urban planning remains fuzzy and general, which means that it is not easy to operationalise the concepts and even more difficult to translate them into planning policy and practic