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

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E-government and the digital divide: the Beijing experience
• Connection to wireless access points
• Connection to university networks
In summary, Mr. Yoshimura suggested the following were necessary
in order to design an e-training centre:
• Goals and leadership
• Learning project scope including funding, business model, measurement
and motivation
• Project plan including proposal, feasibility study, resource planning
and funding
• Project implementation including management of operations and
maintenance
In the plenary session that followed, a participant asked if IBM
planned to assist local governments. Mr. Yoshimura replied that IBM is
ready to support projects at any level including central and local governments,
or rural communities.
H. E-government and the digital divide: the Beijing experience
Mr. Zhu Yan, Director General, Director General,
Beijing Municipal Office of Information
Mr. Zhu said that the function of the Beijing Municipal Office of
Information is to promote e-government. Beijing is home to the leading
software industry in China. However, Beijing is severely challenged by a
digital divide and inadequate distribution of ICT among the poor. Currently
in Beijing, there are 147 television sets and 68 computers per 100
families; 8.5 million consumers of fixed network telephone, 13 million
consumers of mobile phones, 4 million Internet users, and 1,500 families
have access to Internet with broadband. Two thirds of the population lives
in rural areas with low digital capacity. People living in rural areas
especially housewives, the middle aged and elderly, and less educated lack
access to ICT.
Mr. Zhu presented the results of the China Internet Development
Statistics Report 2005. According to the report, less than 30 per cent of the
Chinese population uses the Internet. When asked why they don’t use the
Internet, 40 per cent of respondents to this survey replied that they do not
use the Internet because they do not know how to use it, 30 per cent said
they lack the equipment, and 16 per cent said they are not eager to use the
Internet because they believe it is useless for them. Only 11 per cent of the
respondents said they planned to connect to the Internet in the future. In
order to narrow this digital divide, the city of Beijing is taking the
following measures: