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

Citizen-centric e-government: empowering the poor
through innovative technology
Mr. Kushner outlined the challenges faced in implementing e-government,
which were:
• Blending new and existing technology
• Establishing the value of e-government
• Localization
• Limited resources
• Adoption and sustainability
• Citizen access and participation
• Internal technical expertise
In order to address these challenges the following lessons have been
learned (at Microsoft):
• Interoperability frameworks and mechanisms to bridge legacy
systems
• Integrating e-government into core government missions
• Innovation of indigenous language
• Improving internal efficiencies
• Public-private partnerships
• Outreach and resource models
• Digital inclusion
Mr. Kushner explained that governments are in the process of
moving from an organization centric approach to a more task oriented
approach. Traditionally, the citizen must have many interactions with multiple
agencies and access to multiple web sites to complete one task.
Presently, many governments are beginning to make it easier for the
citizen by creating one government portal in which all departments and
ministries are linked. As the process of evolution continues, information
is seamlessly exchanged through XML (extensible markup language). As
the usage of web services increases, government organization becomes
more transparent, and the citizen has a much easier time navigating
government portals because they need to input data in only one location
to get services. For example, if a citizen in New Delhi wants to change
his address, through a traditional approach, he would need to give notice
to the tax revenue department, the postal service, social services, and
education ministry. It would be significantly easier if the citizen could
notify the government of his address change only once, and automatically
all the ministries, departments, and governmental organizations were notified
and updated.
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