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drawbacks, limitations and challenges associated with m-Government, and the measures
that can be put in place to improve the level of m-Readiness of the Vanuatu government.
The mobile applications currently being introduced in Vanuatu are pilot projects or are
still to be implemented. Implementing new mobile applications for public services may
depend on the type of services delivered by e-Government. E-Government offers for
example financial transaction services on line such as paying taxes, license fees, fines
and others. These may be complemented in the future with adding mobile banking as a
second payment channel, as the banks have already introduced mobile banking.
While there are a number of m-Government applications that VGO may consider
another purpose that MWTs can be used for is education. It will enable students in
remote locations, especially in rural areas and outer islands, to have access to the same
resources that are only accessible currently to students in the urban area.
In general the advancement in the technology means that in the future there will be
greater improvement in the speed of connection for cellular and wireless networks and it
is expected for the cost to come down allowing more people to access the Internet.
Consequently, the government will be able to communicate directly with people in
remote locations. Apparently, mobile applications such as SMS, IM and VoIP will allow
more interaction among citizens and the government.
However public service will be greatly challenged by the lack of a coordination of m-
Government development if there is no attempt to change the way ICT is handled by
each government organisation. The current ICTs service structures within VGO need to
change into a more standardised system and to have only one department that controls
the government ICT functions. This government will be able to achieve better deals,
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