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

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Summary of Country Reports
L. Sri Lanka
The Council for Information Technology (CINTEC) in Sri Lanka
introduced the basic concepts of e-government through the National Computer
Policy. Although CINTEC worked with many government organizations
to introduce e-government, it could not achieve its goals due to
limited mandate, and the lack of an e-government vision. In November
2002, the Government of Sri Lanka launched the e-Sri Lanka initiative with
the objective of using ICT in all its aspects for the benefit of the people of
Sri Lanka and to further the socio-economic development of the nation.
One of the main strategies of achieving the e-Sri Lanka initiative is the Re-
Engineering Government (Re-Gov) Programme. The Re-engineering Government
Programme aims at improving the delivery and access of Government
information and services to citizens, business, government employees
and to Government agencies. Re-Gov Programme adopts six strategies to
achieve its vision. These include: (i) collaborate with the administrative
reform bodies and bring about a new governance framework that is enabled
by ICT; (ii) ensure public service personnel are imparted with appropriate
ICT skills; (iii) ensure that the stock of ICT equipment required for an
efficient and effective e-government programme is available; (iv) interconnect
government agencies to achieve a higher level of productivity through
improved interaction; (v) create a “single window” for the citizens to
access e-services making public services “truly citizen-centric”; and (vi)
ensuring geographically non-discriminate delivery. Before the Re-Gov
Programme was established, a few e-government services were actively
supporting the citizen, business, employees and government organizations to
obtain their information and services through ICT based channels. For
example, the Department of Immigration and Emigration provides information
and forms online, and all government publications are available
through Intranet and/or Internet.
The low ICT awareness in the government sector is the biggest
obstacle for implementing e-government in Sri Lanka, therefore within the
next two years, intensive training will be provided to the public servants
and major information hubs will be developed.
M. Thailand
In March of 2004, an e-government summit chaired by H.E. Prime
Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and comprised of Ministers, Permanent Secretaries
and senior officials was held with the purpose of establishing a list
of priorities for the development of e-government. Achievements have been
made, most notably: a government portal, has been set up
to provide services to citizens, every government agency has its own web
site including e-procurement for citizens, introduction of smartcard identiry