- 20/12/2016
- Category: Commentaries
Introduction
The raising prominence of digital issues has penetrated the realm of governance globally. Government and official authorities have begun to realize the imminent necessity of adopting digital technology to their day-to-day conduct, which may intersect with their roles in delivering services to society. E-government then emerged as a solution to better upgrade service delivery of government. The complex governmental process ranging from policy formulation, execution and evaluation can be shortened, and thus, more responsive and efficient governance may be resulted. More importantly, e-government may have a role in helping governments in integrating and coordinating policies across all cycles of policy making process, which include the agenda setting, policy formulation, decision making, implementation and evaluation (UNEP, 2009).
The discourse of e-government has also transcended borders, as best practices of the e-government utilization are available globally. The United Nations, specifically, has conducted surveys on advancement of e-government implementation in countries across the globe. The survey has become a prime source of e-government development study worldwide, with its E-Government Development Index and E-Participation Index. The survey captures the development of e-government features of countries across four main indicators, and the participation of society in the government process using e-government instruments. More importantly, the survey provides ranking of e-government development and e-participation; reflecting a measurable trend of global e-government development (UNDESA, 2016).
Global E-government Development: The Have and Have Nots
Looking at the survey, as the paramount citing source when we talk about the trend of e-government development in the world, we can take on several important lessons. Firstly, economic prowess is inclined to deliver better e-government performance. This can be seen from the fact that the countries sitting atop of the ranks are developed countries with supreme economic capacity. This is not a surprise, since development of e-government requires ample infrastructure and capacity investments. Thus countries with ‘abundant’ economic resources are notably leading the race. However, a dichotomy arises as e-government in the long run promises steady rise in economic performance as well. So which one shall we put as the first priority, capacitating economy, or investing in e-government? Apparently, the two thing cannot be separated, and shall be commenced in parallel with each other, and that the development of e-government pattern in developed countries with an already overwhelming economic capacities cannot be directly applied in developing countries. For developing countries, careful and step-by-step approach are needed to be taken into consideration, in accordance to the socio-cultural ecosystem in each of the countries. So, understanding the demand and characteristics of the countries may be helping a lot in determining priorities when countries intend to invest in e-government development.
Departing from this assumption, the survey captures a steady rise in the number of countries, particularly emerging and developing countries, who are slowly transitioning to become e-governments. This steady rise portray how states begin to understand a suitable strategy for their own development of e-government, especially the one with direct correlation with the demand and characteristics of their own. Moreover, the understanding that economic impacts may be resulted from the development of e-government seems to already be taking places in these countries. The trend shows continuous increase, and we hope in the future, more developing countries engage in the full utilization of e-government, for the sake of their own.
E-Government and Sustainable Development
Interestingly, the survey this year also highlights an indispensable correlation between e-government and sustainable development, particularly the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is the first time the survey, which has been conducted since 2001, incorporates development approach in regard to the development and implementation of e-government, and this can tell a lot about how far e-government has come. The move by the UNDESA to make aware of the intertwined relationship between e-government and sustainable development tells us about how much e-government matters in development, especially that development is about people, how they live, and how they acquire their basic necessities. E-government has been reintroduced as a discourse which has an earthy and humble correlation with humanity. This is unimaginably clever for the UN to make the issue relatable for everyone, and to reiterate how much e-government has evolved by finally involving sustainable development in it.
The position of e-government as an element in sustainable development is particularly underlined in the survey, by highlighting the importance of core instruments of e-government, namely the Whole-e-government (WOG) service delivery, open data and open government, as well as e-participation. All these three elements of e-government together build stronger foundation for the acceleration of sustainable development.
As mentioned before, whole-e-government service delivery system, which relies on integrated policy systems, helps deliver interlinked social, economic and environmental issues together. Countries who are successful in integrating interlinked policies effectively include Turkey, India and Austria. The manifestation of integrated policy system often comes in the form of smart cities across the globe, as the complexity of city problems are holistically managed through the utilization of e-government in cities. Cities become more efficient and responsive in delivering services for its citizen through the already integrated policy system.
Furthermore, open data and open government have also been noted to be supporting the drive of sustainable development. The experience from Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) project shows that government’s accountability and transparency are determinant in bringing the whole development project into success, and that fragile states, with high level of corruption and lack of transparency tend to achieve undesired and lagged results in their overall MDGs projects. Beyond that, the lack of transparency and accountability also puts distrusts of society in place, making public resentful towards government, including all developmental projects carried out. Even further than that, the extension of e-government installation, the e-participation, creates more benefits fort the pursuit of sustainable development. Participated society might benefit sustainable development project in five areas, which include deeper democracy and more responsive government, more oriented SDGs strategies and targets, more informed strategies in realizing SDGs projects, more partnerships initiated, as well as new initiatives and ideas generated for achieving SDGs targets.
Reference
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. 2016. United Nations E-Government Survey 2016: E-Government in Support of Sustainable Development. Downloaded from http://workspace.unpan.org/sites/Internet/Documents/UNPAN96407.pdf
United Nations Environment Programme. 2009. Integrated Policymaking for Sustainable Development: A Manual. Downloaded from <http://unep.ch/etb/publications/IPSD%20manual/UNEP%20IPSD%20final.pdf>
