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Designing e-Government for the Poor - Tanzania Development ...

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Pakistan<br />

Title: Baseline e-government applications within <strong>the</strong> Federal<br />

<strong>Government</strong><br />

Proposer: Mr. Asad Sibtain, Joint Secretary, Ministry of In<strong>for</strong>mation<br />

Technology<br />

Country: Pakistan<br />

Date: March 2005<br />

I. INTRODUCTION<br />

The E-government Programme in Pakistan is an initiative under <strong>the</strong><br />

National IT Policy that was approved by <strong>the</strong> Federal Cabinet in August<br />

2000. The vision was to launch an aggressive programme to improve<br />

efficiency and provide quality services to <strong>the</strong> citizens of Pakistan by<br />

introducing in<strong>for</strong>mation technology at all levels of government.<br />

The implementation of <strong>the</strong> E-government Programme is an extremely<br />

demanding task. It is expected to take 5 to 7 years to establish <strong>the</strong> basic<br />

infrastructure of e-government. This is due to financial constraints as well<br />

as inadequate skills within <strong>the</strong> government to undertake system re-engineering<br />

of different government departments to minimize <strong>the</strong> use of paper-based<br />

systems. There are numerous examples of mega projects ending in failures<br />

and wastage of public funds. A practical approach is to design modular<br />

projects that can fit in a larger framework.<br />

The programme envisages services delivery to citizens as <strong>the</strong> ultimate<br />

aim of <strong>the</strong> government. However, in order to achieve this, a number<br />

of areas internal to <strong>the</strong> government have to be addressed. The internal<br />

efficiency of government relies upon <strong>the</strong> following components: implementation<br />

of basic networking infrastructure, intra-departmental communications,<br />

inter-departmental communication, IT skills development of government<br />

functionaries, re-engineering of government operation, and implementation<br />

of IT-based workflow systems and specialized applications.<br />

II. ISSUES<br />

E-government requires a clear strategy and specific objectives. Egovernment<br />

objectives should be established along two dimensions. They<br />

are:<br />

1. Adding benefits to <strong>the</strong> communities<br />

2. Adding benefits to <strong>the</strong> organization itself<br />

E-government should not be considered as a goal itself. Ra<strong>the</strong>r, it is<br />

a means to achieve goals. E-government positions communities to be<br />

service deliverers and beneficiaries at <strong>the</strong> same time. Usually, governmental<br />

organizations have <strong>the</strong> following four key segments:<br />

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