United Nations E-Government Survey 2012

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 1Chapter One World e-government rankings1.5 Post-conflict countries Table 1.27 E-government development in post-conflict countriesPost-conflict situations are associated with weakand fragile states where legitimacy and governance E-gov. development index World e-gov.are ineffective and services non-existent. As a spe- development rankingcial case, in table 1.27 the 2012 Survey presents e-government development in a few select countries Country 2012 2010 2012 2010that have witnessed conflict in the past decades. Forthe definition of post-conflict countries, please refer Croatia 0.7328 0.5858 30 35to the United Nations Development Programme’s Georgia 0.5563 0.4248Crisis Prevention and Recovery Report 2008, avail- El Salvador 0.5513 0.4700 72 100able online.13 Bosnia and Herzegovina 0.5328 0.4698 Lebanon 0.5139 0.4388 74 731.6 Conclusion Azerbaijan 0.4984 0.4571 Indonesia 0.4949 0.4026 79 74In conclusion, the 2012 Survey finds that Member Guatemala 0.4390 0.3937States have begun to move from a decentralized Sri Lanka 0.4357 0.3995 87 93single-purpose organization model of e-govern- Tajikistan 0.4069 0.3477ment to an integrated unified whole-of-govern- Namibia 0.3937 0.3314 96 83ment model for the people. This approach supports Nicaragua 0.3621 0.3630the strengthening of institutional linkages with in- Rwanda 0.3291 0.2749 97 109terconnected departments and divisions; greater Angola 0.3203 0.3110efficiency and effectiveness of governance sys- Uganda 0.3185 0.2812 112 112tems; and better public service delivery. However, Cambodia 0.2902 0.2878the efforts of countries at all levels of development Congo 0.2809 0.3019 115 111are still affected by a lack of integration of admin- Mozambique 0.2786 0.2288istrative simplification with e-government devel- Nepal 0.2664 0.2568 122 122opment plans, lack of infrastructure and human Côte d’Ivoire 0.2580 0.2805resource capacity and a gap between e-services Solomon Islands 0.2416 0.2445 123 125supply and demand. Low-income countries, in Liberia 0.2407 0.2133particular, continue to contend with traditional Timor-Leste 0.2365 0.2273 130 118barriers to ICT investment such as lack of techni- Ethiopia 0.2306 0.2033cal skills, high costs of technology, and ineffective Burundi 0.2288 0.2014 140 148government regulation. – Democratic Republic 0.2280 0.2357 of the Congo 0.2147 0.2043 142 132 Papua New Guinea 0.2043 0.1859 Eritrea 0.1945 0.1561 143 142 Guinea-Bissau 0.1701 0.2098 Afghanistan 0.1557 0.1697 155 140 Sierra Leone 0.1512 0.2074 Haiti 0.1092 0.1235 157 135 Chad 158 161 164 153 166 144 168 156 169 166 170 162 172 172 173 174 174 158 177 171 180 175 182 179 184 168 186 177 187 169 189 182 35



United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 2Chapter Two Progress in online service deliveryUN Photo/Albert Gonzales Farran Chapter 2Chapter 2 38 Progress inProgress in online service delivery 39 online service 39 delivery2.1 Online service rankings 432.2 Trends in e-service provision Information and communication technologies support 48 development. When that development is effective, efficient 2.2.1 Review of online services 53 and enduring it is called sustainable. E-government impacts 2.2.2 Citizen inclusion and e-participation directly on sustainable development through the use of ICT in 2.2.3 Online environmental public sector social and economic development programmes. In this context, the emerging imperative today is to rethink information services e-government development in order to understand how the2.3 Conclusion opportunities offered by new technologies promote development for the people and with their integral participation. There is a need to assess how and to what extent governments of the world are employing e-government, which furthers greater efficacy and effectiveness for sustainability in this specific and people- focused sense. The 2012 Survey assesses four different types of indicators encompassing: information such as documents on laws, policies etc., across sectors of education, health, finance, social welfare and labour; public services such as taxes, fines, licenses; e-participation information and services; and technical features (audio, video, RSS, etc.), which provide a conduit for these kinds of information and services to flow from the government to the citizen. 37

2 Chapter Two United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Progress in online service delivery Box 2.1 Bahrain, a leader in Western Asia http://www.bahrain.bh Bahrain’s e-government strategy is based mobile portal, national contact centre (a upon “delivering customer value through 24-7 call centre) and e-services centres and collaborative government.” The government kiosks. Bahrain has introduced the “Listen” sees citizens as customers who have differ- feature, which enables people with visual ent needs and demand different services and disabilities to hear any text available on the at the same time demand value for money. website with the click of a button. Another Thus the aim of e-government is to provide very innovative feature is the e-government all services, integrated, to all citizens and toolbar, which can be downloaded perma- upon their choice of channel. The Kingdom nently to your browser. This allows direct provides delivery of services through the access to e-services and RSS feeds without following channels: e-government portal, having to go to the main portal. uTable 2.1 Top 20 Within the framework of sustainable develop- at the same level as some high-income economies,countries in online ment, the 2012 Survey has attempted to take into such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates,service delivery account Member States’ efforts with regard to the which are at the level of Australia and Japan, and rising importance of a whole-of-government ap- Colombia, which is at the level of Sweden.Country Online proach and integrated online service delivery, asRepublic of Korea service index well as the effectiveness of multichannel services This is highlighted by the example of SaudiSingapore and how these approaches will help advance eco- Arabia and Bahrain – two countries that devotedUnited States 1.0000 nomic efficiency and effectiveness in government especial attention to expanding and consolidatingUnited Kingdom 1.0000 service delivery with people’s participation. At the online services in the last few years and now offerNetherlands 1.0000 same time, the 2012 Survey has paid attention to online services close to those of global leaders suchCanada 0.9739 an assessment of the increasing emphasis on ser- as Norway and Denmark.Finland 0.9608 vice usage and citizen satisfaction, including on-France 0.8889 line services that are effectively responding to the Figure 2.1 Progress in onlineAustralia 0.8824 demands of the people, and particularly those of service provision 2003-2012Bahrain 0.8758 vulnerable groups, to ascertain whether e-infra- in selected countriesJapan 0.8627 structure is playing the prescribed role in bridgingUnited Arab Emirates 0.8627 the digital divide. 1.0Denmark 0.8627 BahrainNorway 0.8627 2.1 Online service rankingsIsrael 0.8562 0.9 SaudiColombia 0.8562 Three countries – the Republic of Korea, Singapore ArabiaSweden 0.8497 and the United States – are tied as world leaders inEstonia 0.8431 online services this year. Devoid of the level of in- 0.8Saudi Arabia 0.8431 frastructure and human capital in the country, the RussianMalaysia 0.8235 online service index is a measure of ‘how much’ the 0.7974 governments are putting online. Of all the online 0.7 Federation 0.7908 services assessed of the United Nations Member 0.6 States, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and the 0.5 United States provide the most. Among the top 20 0.4 Barbados in 2012 are several developing countries, which are 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 2003 2004 2005 2008 2010 2012 Recognizing the potential of e-government for development is key to the provision of online services. Notwithstanding issues of the marginal utility of ICT38

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 2Chapter Two Progress in online service deliveryBox 2.2 Russian Federation: Investments for service delivery improvements http://www.gosuslugi.ru In 2006 the Government of the Russian rich technical features. The portal of public Federation adopted a new version of the services is one of the key elements of the Federal Target Programme eRussia (2002- project to create “electronic government” 2010) to improve efficiency of government in the country. The portal provides a single operations and enhance citizen services. point of access to all references on state and Standards were crafted and put in place, municipal services through the Internet and departments were interlinked and informa- provides citizens and organizations the op- tion management systems were integrated. portunity to receive these services electron- ically. Monthly visits by users of the public The national government portal of the services portal range between 200,000 and Russian Federation (http://government. 700,000. For example, citizens are now able ru) has been modified and redesigned and to get or exchange a driver license through now looks very solid and representative, this portal. u with links to all ministries/agencies andinvestment, cognizance of the fact that new technolo- 2.2 Trends in Member States havegies along with access to services can support efficiency e-service provision steadily madeand efficacy of development solutions is necessary for a progress inmeaningful expansion of citizen services. An increasing focus on improving efficiency and ef- establishing an ficacy has led to an increasing trend towards innova- online presence. Take the case of Latvia and Belarus: at around tive and transformational use of ICT in online service In 2003, when thethe same levels of GDP per capita, telecommuni- delivery. The section below provides an assessment of United Nationscation infrastructure and human capital, Latvia the type – and extent – of service offerings. started tracking,provides around 51 per cent of online services 18 countriesassessed, compared to 36 per cent in the case of 2.2.1 Review of online services were not online.Belarus, pulling up its EGDI ranking to 42 com- In 2012, only threepared to 61 for Belarus. The review of online government service provision countries did not during the last decade indicates two notable trends. have a web presence.Figure 2.2 E-services in Latvia First, United Nations Member States have steadilyand Belarus made progress in establishing an online presence. 39 In 2003, when the United Nations started tracking, Online Service Index 1.0 Latvia 18 countries were not online. Since then many have 0.8 Belarus begun online offerings, including Chad, Dominica 0.6 0.5882 and Eritrea. In 2012, only three countries (Central 0.4 0.4118 African Republic, Guinea and Libya) did not have a 0.2 web presence. These countries are excluded from the 0 2012 Survey. Second, it was noticeable that whereas 0.2 0.2 the collective world progress improved over the 0.4 years, a few countries were sporadic in their offer- 0.4 ings by being online in one year and offline the next. Zambia, which had a presence in 2003, went offline 0.6 0.6 in 2004-05 and again had no web presence in 2008. 0.8 Similarly, Turkmenistan, which was online until 0.0.55005324 0.81.0 1.0 0.08.8971214Human TelecommunicationsCapital Index Index

2 Chapter Two United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Progress in online service delivery Figure 2.3 United Nations Member current and updated within the last three months. States’ online presence, 2003 – 2012 Two thirds offered a site map or index to guide the user through the services. However, advanced fea- 20 tures had an inverse relation to the number of coun- 18 18 tries represented. 16Number of countries with no online presence Figure 2.4 Online features availability 14 13 Help/FAQ feature 96 12 Access in more than 105 12 one language 124 10 Availability of 170 map/index 181 8 Site updated within 6 past three months 4 Find website using search tools 2 333 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 0 Number of countries 2003 2004 2005 2008 2010 2012 The fact that only 96 countries provided an ad- 2004, discontinued its offerings in 2005 but came vanced search feature on the website, fewer (79) had back online again in 2008. Guinea, which had been a privacy statement and only 39 countries offered a online since 2003, was not available to its citizens at secure website is indicative of the large number of the time of the 2012 Survey. countries that still have a long way to go in terms of exploiting the full potential of e-government. Consistency of online service can be a key fac- tor in building trust in the institutions of the govern- Table 2.2 Advanced features available ment. It is important to recognize that an important on websites precursor for an effective utilization of ICT for sus- tainable development is the maintenance of services Number of countries Advanced Privacy Tag cloud or Secure even at a basic level. search options statement ‘hot topics’ website Notwithstanding domestic conf lict and/or 96 79 56 39 natural disasters, which may affect the ability of a country to provide online services to its citizens, Percentage of countries 50% 41% 29% 20% intermittent provision of service does not build trust in government. It may be that during times of Services and features targeted to a thematic area natural disaster and/or conflict the citizen could be were also on the rise. One hundred and seventy-nine more in need of vital information, especially in far countries provide some form of documentation re- flung cut off areas, and such information can be pro- lated to finance. The most common among them vided to the outermost reaches via the use of ICT. were tax forms. Laws, policies and other documenta- In this context, the role of e-government in treating tion of interest to the citizen on education, health, so- information as a key service to the citizen becomes cial welfare and other sectors were increasingly being increasingly important and lends credence and sig- integrated within the overall national portal and/or on nificance to the need for maintenance and sustain- the agency portals. More than two thirds of the coun- ability of online service delivery. tries provided options for directly sending updates via email, RSS or a mobile device to the citizen. Whereas A cursory glance at the characteristics of online the more advanced countries may have provided mul- presence of countries in 2012 indicates a greater tiple choices, the fact that countries in early stages of number of features than in previous years and a growing recognition of the importance of providing relevant and up-to-date information. The majority of countries (88 per cent) were involved in ensur- ing that their online e-government offerings were40

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 2Chapter Two Progress in online service deliverye-government development such as Afghanistan, Table 2.3 Transactional services onlineBurundi, Iraq, Mali, and Senegal also provided someform of citizen alert mechanism testifies to a wider rec- Birth Car ID Driverognition of the importance of citizen inclusion. cards licenses Income taxes Utilities Fines certificates registration 34 34 Number of countries 77 55 46 43 41 Percentage of countries 40 28 18 18 24 22 21Figure 2.5 Sectoral user services onlineEducation 164 increasingly placed online. In 34 to 55 countries,Health 125 citizens could obtain driver licenses, ID cards andFinance 84 birth certificates online.Social welfareLabour 156 Despite considerable progress in online service,Environment 124 only 22 countries offer 66 per cent or more of the 71 online services assessed. E-services in around 171 0 countries are below 66 per cent with around half – 179 or 95 countries – providing less than 33 per cent, 136 including three that are not online at all. 86 Trends in e-government development around 148 the world in 2012 indicate that e-services in a 113 Archived country are a function of the level of development, 69 information resource availability, and human and technologi- cal infrastructure. The complex pattern of develop- 152 Downloadable ments across a myriad of these factors has a bearing 122 forms on how many e-government services are available – and how much they are utilized. 68 Updates via email, 147 RSS or mobile 102 services 68 50 100 150 200 Number of countries Online transactional1 capability, such as making Figure 2.6 Extent of e-service deliverypayments online, is substantially more complicatedthan simply providing information. Increasing online 0%-33% 67%-100%provision of transactional services such as payments 94 countries 22 countriesindicates maturity as well as greater integration be-cause payments made through a single site may need 193to be routed to any number of accounts held by vari- countriesous branches of the government. Conversely, in somecountries, even payments collected from various points 34%-66%of sale must make their way to a single governmental 77 countriesentity, such as a treasury department. Countries musthave a well-developed electronic banking infrastruc- Despite progress, service availability levels areture, including electronic clearing systems and ad- generally low around the world. Except for the topequate security safeguards. Society must also trust that performers most countries have a long way to go inthe electronic banking system is reliable. providing online services, which remain between low and non-existent. A selected few are shown in However once these pre-requisites exist it is arelatively easier task to add transactional capabili-ties to multiple sectors. In 2012, a greater number ofcountries were providing transactional services on-line than before. With governments keenly aware ofthe role technology can play in revenue generationonline, tax payments became available in 40 per centof the countries in 2012. With greater back-office in-tegration, other forms of transactions such as pay-ment for utilities and birth and car registrations were 41

2 Chapter Two United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Progress in online service delivery Table 2.4 Extent of service delivery Table 2.5 E-services in selected in top performers, selected countries developing countries Stage 1: Stage II: Stage III: Stage IV: Stage 1: Stage II: Stage III: Stage IV: Emerging Interactive Transactional Networked Emerging Interactive Transactional Networked presence presence presence presence Total presence presence presence presence Total 67%-100% utilization 87 0%-33% utilization 33 87 31 Republic of Korea 100 79 92 87 87 Honduras 92 52 15 25 31 85 30 Singapore 100 79 94 86 78 Grenada 83 50 8 28 30 77 United Rep. 92 55 2 28 26 United States 100 90 88 83 77 of Tanzania 83 50 8 26 26 75 Saint Lucia 26 United Kingdom 100 95 79 81 75 26 74 21 Canada 100 83 81 68 74 Senegal 75 31 12 36 17 72 13 Finland 100 90 75 67 70 Cameroon 83 48 4 20 13 69 13 France 100 79 85 65 69 Ghana 83 38 2 28 12 69 12 Bahrain 100 76 81 67 Lesotho 92 38 4 25 11 10 United Arab Emirates 100 74 83 67 Zimbabwe 67 45 4 25 10 9 Colombia 100 76 65 74 Tonga 100 33 2 14 9 9 Sweden 92 90 71 62 Turkmenistan 67 19 4 16 9 9 Estonia 100 69 65 74 Burundi 42 5 8 17 8 7 Saudi Arabia 92 60 77 67 South Sudan 58 19 2 9 7 7 Malaysia 100 64 79 59 Swaziland 50 24 2 7 6 5 New Zealand 100 79 69 57 Marshall Islands 25 26 29 Kazakhstan 92 64 52 80 Togo 42 14 6 10 34%-66% utilization Solomon Islands 42 24 4 4 Chile 100 62 67 61 66 Dem. People’s Rep. 58 12 4 6 Qatar 83 64 62 64 65 of Korea Mexico 100 69 62 57 64 Lithuania 83 67 54 59 61 Sao Tome and 58 7 4 9 El Salvador 100 71 38 59 59 Principe Portugal 100 74 42 51 57 Serbia 100 64 38 42 50 Guinea-Bissau 33 12 2 9 Cyprus 100 62 46 35 49 Uruguay 100 60 38 39 48 Myanmar 50 17 0 4 India 100 64 33 38 47 China 92 55 40 38 46 Chad 25 14 2 7 Peru 83 45 31 49 45 Costa Rica 92 45 31 43 43 Equatorial Guinea 25 10 4 9 Trinidad and Tobago 92 64 23 35 42 South Africa 100 60 17 35 40 Nauru 33 14 2 6 Bangladesh 100 60 21 29 39 Cape Verde 92 48 23 35 38 Haiti 33 19 0 3 Viet Nam 100 52 17 32 37 Belarus 100 55 25 22 36 Comoros 42 7 2 4 Jordan 83 48 31 20 34 Congo 33 14 2 1 Mauritania 33 7 2 6 Kiribati 33 5 2 4 Tuvalu 17 2 2 6 table 2.4, which also indicates that there is no appar- stage II and a third in stage IV but only 17 per cent ent linear correlation between the level of develop- in the transactional stage. As expected, transactional ment and stages of e-services. A country such as Viet stage utilization depends, among other factors, on Nam may offer all services in stage I, around half in the level of development of the financial system in the country. Putting up stage III services would also require a regulatory framework and governing rules of security and privacy, which are still to be fully de- veloped in many of the developing countries. Some of the least developed countries had the lowest availability of e-services, which were barely a third of those in the forefront of e-government.42

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 2Chapter Two Progress in online service deliveryBox 2.3 Kazakhstan: A leader in e-participationhttp://www.blogs.e.gov.kz Kazakhstan has improved from 2010 in terms of providing online features that allows citizens to engage with government. An interesting online participation feature is the government’s Blogs site, where citizens can communicate with the govern- ment agencies’ executives by posting comments and questions. The executives may then respond and post their answers on the blog. The site also contains statistical information on the questions and com- ments an agency executive has received as well as how many times he/she has responded. uMany of these countries are in Africa which, as toward promoting user uptake, addressing the needs Table 2.6 Top e-partici-already noted, also is the least e-ready region in and concerns of the citizenry, especially the vulner- pation leadersthe world. Senegal, Cameroon, Ghana, Lesotho able. It also requires viewing the citizens not onlyand Zimbabwe all had utilization levels ranging as passive receivers of information through web- Rank Country Indexfrom 26-30 per cent. Others included Democratic based services, but also as active partners who arePeople’s Republic of Korea, which came online engaged and supported to interact with the govern- Netherlands 1.0000in 2012, at 10 per cent; Myanmar, Chad, and ment through ICT-based dissemination of relevant 1 1.0000Equatorial Guinea at 9 per cent; while Tuvalu had government information. 0.9474a bare minimum offering at 5 per cent. Republic of Korea 0.9474 The best performing countries in e-participa- Kazakhstan 0.9211 Though there is considerable progress in the tion appear in table 2.6. Once again the Republic of 2 0.9211expansion of online services, the digital divide has Korea tops the list, but this year it is joined by the Singapore 0.8947remained more or less the same for the majority of Netherlands. Kazakhstan (0.9474), a developing United Kingdom 0.7632countries in the world. As previous surveys have country, which was noted in the 2010 Survey for 3 0.7632maintained, there are wide disparities between and its commitment to e-participation, moved up 16 United States 0.7632among regions and countries in their online service places to be ranked second and tied with Singapore. 4 Israel 0.7368offerings. Governments in the high income coun- Among this group several other countries were Australia 0.7368tries are far advanced in their provision of public tied for the same spot, such as Australia, Estonia, 5 Estonia 0.7368information, online services, communications and and Germany, which were all at the 5th position. Germany 0.7368outreach to citizens, as well as overall electronic ac- With the use of consultation tools, including social Colombia 0.6842cess to government. Their distance from the bottom media, other developing countries have also caught Finland 0.684240 countries remains substantial. up to the developed countries as e-leaders. Notable 6 0.6842 among these are Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Japan 0.68422.2.2 Citizen inclusion and Emirates, Colombia, and Chile. United Arab Emirates 0.6579e-participation Egypt 0.6579 The pie in figure 2.7 shows the geographic dis- Canada 0.6579For e-participation to contribute to sustainable tribution of the top 20 countries. Europe’s share of 7development and the socio-economic uplift of the the top ten fell from 51 per cent in 2010 to 38 per Norwaypeople, the role of government requires a shift from cent this year. This change was primarily the result Swedenthat of a controller of information and services to of the Americas increasing from 14 per cent to 19 Chilethat of a proactive facilitator. In this context, it is per cent with Chile and Colombia joining the lead- 8 Russian Federationimperative that information and services are geared ers, along with the appearance of Egypt from Africa, Bahrain and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates from Western Asia. 43

2 Chapter Two United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Progress in online service delivery Figure 2.7 Geographic distribution Table 2.7 Extent of e-participation of top performers in e-participation E-infor- E-consul- E-decision Oceania: Africa: Country mation tation making Total 1 country, 5% 1 country, 5% Netherlands 75 84 67 81 Europe: Americas: Over Republic of Korea 75 78 100 81 8 countries 4 countries 67% Kazakhstan 100 76 67 77 38% 19% Singapore 75 76 83 77 34%- United Kingdom 100 70 83 74 21 66% United States 75 78 50 74 countries Israel 75 73 67 72 1%- Estonia 75 65 33 62One of the main Asia: 33% Colombia 75 59 50 60goals of European 7 countries 50 54 100 60e-government 33% United Arab Emirates 25 54 83 55development is to 50 49 83 53empower citizens There are several countries among the top from Egypt 25 59 33 53and businesses by the European region, including the Netherlands, the Bahrain 50 59 17 53providing greater United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, and the Russian Chile 75 51 33 51access to public Federation. There is strong political emphasis on 50 49 67 51service information e-participation in Europe. One of the main aims Russian Federation 75 43 67 49and greater of European e-government development, laid out 50 43 67 47transparency of through the European Commission’s Action Plan Qatar 25 51 33 47governments. 2011-2015, is to empower citizens and businesses Saudi Arabia 25 51 17 45 by providing greater access to public service infor- Mongolia 0 54 17 4544 mation and greater transparency of governments as France 100 38 33 43 well as effective measures to enable public participa- Mexico 0 43 50 40 tion in policy-making processes. The national portal Denmark 50 38 33 38 of the United Kingdom (http://www.direct.gov. El Salvador 50 30 67 36 uk) provides a fine example through its e-petition Lithuania 50 32 50 36 page, where citizens have the ability to lodge online Brazil 50 35 0 32 petitions on issues for governments to propose to 25 32 33 32 parliament if enough signatures are acquired. The Brunei Darussalam 50 27 33 30 government also provides great transparency by pro- 50 32 0 30 viding the outcomes of previous petitions, showing Hungary 0 32 17 28 how many signatures were obtained. Oman 0 30 33 28 Peru 0 30 17 26 Despite broad regional representation, e-partici- Rep. of Moldova 50 22 17 23 pation for social equity remains largely unexplored for Austria 25 19 50 23 many other countries as a norm. The concept, which de- Portugal 0 30 0 23 rives from an acceptance of online inclusion of citizens Ethiopia 0 27 0 21 for effective sustainable development, envisions provi- Greece 0 27 0 21 sion of information followed by consultation, feedback Thailand 50 19 0 19 and inclusion of citizen views in active decision-making. Argentina 25 22 0 19 The pre-requisites for this life cycle of e-participation are Croatia 0 24 0 19 Kyrgyzstan 0 19 17 17 Czech Republic 25 14 33 17 Italy 25 14 17 15 Guatemala 0 16 0 13 Liechtenstein 0 14 17 13 Uzbekistan 50 80 11 Bolivia (Plurinational 0 11 0 9 State of) China 0 11 0 9 India South Africa 0 8 17 9 Ukraine 0 5 17 6 Pakistan 25 50 6 Saint Lucia 0 50 4 St. Vincent and 0 50 4 the Grenadines Viet Nam Bahamas United Rep. of Tanzania Algeria Vanuatu

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 2Chapter Two Progress in online service deliverytechnology access andalsoaconducivepoliticalregime countries that score 100 per cent on whether the gov-with leadership and vision in support of collective soci- ernment takes citizen’s views into decision-making.etal approaches to public policy challenges. As in the case of overall online services, e-partici- Figure 2.8 shows how deep the e-participation pation also does not follow any linear model: the levelservices are. The majority of countries offer less than of each category is a function of political regimes,two thirds of all e-participation services assessed. leadership, commitment and openness. For exam-Advanced features of e-participation and citizen ple, Guatemala, Liechtenstein and Pakistan provideincluson assessed in the 2012 Survey are not yet ad- 25-50 per cent of e-information but zero in consider-opted by most Member States. More than one third of ing citizens’ views. Overall, fewer countries provideall countries do not offer any e-participation services. evidence of active citizen views in decision-making.Figure 2.8 Depth of e-participation Promotion of opportunitiesDepth of e-participation Despite the gap among countries, e-participation has been on the rise as countries become more open 0% 33 123 to the idea of collective solutions to societal issues. 0%-33% 30 The 2012 Survey found that 61 countries – nearly 34%-66% one third–provide an e-participation policy online.67%-100% 7 Whereas most of these are developed economies where e-participation is well rooted, others such as 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Senegal, Pakistan, India, Nicaragua and China are Number of countries also in the group. A smaller number (26 per cent), follows up on this with a public statement that citizen Table 2.7 shows the extent and type of e-par- feedback will be taken into account but only about 14ticipation for selected countries. Of all the services per cent actually have calendar listings of participa-assessed in the survey, the Netherlands and the tory events, though this is a useful feature. In JanuaryRepublic of Korea tied for the number one spot, 2011 the Government of Ukraine accepted a resolu-providing 75 per cent in e-information, 84 and 78 tion to promote e-participation in the country andper cent respectively in e-consultation, and 67 and allow its citizens to take part in shaping the country’s100 per cent respectively in e-decision making. It is policies. This resulted in the creation of the new e-noteworthy that Kazakhstan, the United Kingdom participation portal “Civil Society and Government”and Lithuania offer all e-information assessed. A (http://e-gov.net.ua), with features such as a calendarcursory glance at the results indicates that though showing upcoming events to promote dialog be-e-participation has found adoption among many tween the citizens and the government.countries, only the top seven countries provide morethan 70 per cent of the services assessed. Table 2.8 Extent of government’s commitment to e-participation Governments have started consulting more withcitizens in a bid to boost transparency and allow for a E-participation policy available online Number of Percen-partnership approach to public policy making. They E-decision making commitment publicized online countries tageprovide policies and information on when participa- E-participation calendar available onlinetory events are available on which citizen can give 61 32feedback. More recently, information has begun tobe provided if the government commits itself pub- 50 26licly to considering the results of e-participation inits decision making process as well. Even though e- 27 14consultation is more widespread across countries, itis not so deep. It is noteworthy that the Republic of Consultation toolsKorea and the United Arab Emirates are the only two A majority of countries, 123, have some means – even if only a simple feedback form – of collecting citizen opinions online. Less than half that number, 57, administer surveys specifically with the aim 45

2 Chapter Two United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Progress in online service delivery Box 2.4 Colombia: E-participation Colombia’s government portal contains numerous participation features for citizens to use to engage http://www.gobiernoenlinea.gov.co with government. Citizens can employ tools such as online forums, blogs and online polls. The por- tal also allows users to participate through social networking features such as Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress, YouTube and Flickr, where they can post comments and express their views. u of improving their online service offerings. From Thanks to the provision of government information the developing countries these include, among through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, others, Angola, Cameroon and Burkina Faso in citizens are able to make comments and suggestions to Africa; Albania and Croatia in Europe; Sri Lanka, governments while these sites also offer governments a Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan in Asia; and Uruguay useful tool for reading into public opinion. and Venezuela in the Americas. Table 2.9 Collecting citizen feedback Figure 2.9 E-consultation tools used by governments Facility for citizen feedback Number of Percen- Online polls 14 54 Surveys regarding improving online services countries tage Online surveys or feedback forms 14 87 Listservs or newsgroups 123 64 Weblogs (blogs) 48 Chat rooms or an IM feature 57 30 Other interactive tools 58 More countries now provide online surveys 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 or feedback forms – 87 compared to 55 in 2010. Number of countries Notable among these are Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Benin, Cuba, El Salvador, and India. Some countries in the vanguard have gone even Online polls are also available in many more coun- further to implement multichannel methods of online tries (54 compared to 30 in 2010) including Ghana, consultation. A common method of online public con- Montenegro, Mozambique, Nigeria and Uganda. sultation in Australia and New Zealand is through the A much smaller number of countries provide chat government providing draft regulations in a download- room features, which edged up only slightly from able format for users to read. Citizens can then submit 11 to 14 countries, while listservs and newsgroups their comments and suggestions via email to the re- edged down slightly from 16 to 14. spective ministry that is responsible for the consulta- tion. In Latin America, Panama’s citizen participation The use of other interactive tools jumped 73 per cent, (http://www.participa.gob.pa) portal contains a blog from 33 to 58 countries in 2012. The fact that assess- section where users can comment on government ment in this category included social networking tools programmes while Brazil’s Electronic Government such as Facebook helps to account for this increase. For site (http://www.governoeletronico.gov.br) contains a example, a key pillar of the strategy the Latin American forum section that allows users to send comments and region has followed is to take advantage of social net- working media features to promote online participation of citizens, especially among the younger demographic whose members are the main users of these networks.46

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 2Chapter Two Progress in online service deliveryBox 2.5 Australia: E-participation Australia’s national portal provides numer- respective ministry, mainly by email. The ous features enabling citizens to engage government also provides the outcomes http://www.australia.gov.au with government in the policy-making of previous consultations online. Also lo- process. The government provides a ‘Have cated in this section is a ‘blogs’ page that Your Say’ section that is located on the provides links to various government blogs homepage of the portal. This section links as well as a Twitter page that shows a table to a public consultations section where of all government Twitter pages that users citizens can send their comments and can access and respond to with their com- suggestions on draft regulations to the ments and suggestions. usuggestions regarding e-government, such as acces- 8 in 2010 to 17 in 2012. Similar or greater increasessibility and integration of services, while also contain- ocurred in the use of online discussion forums (32 toing a public consultation section on draft regulations. 78) and online petitions (17 to 42). For example, in theIn Mexico, online public consultation features allow Russian Federation officials provide feedback to citi-users to participate in the policy-making process with zens’ views. Lithuania’s national portal (http://www.government. Citizen input is then moderated by a gov- lrv.lt) contains a public consultation page that displaysernment official and subsequently published, promot- current consultations as well as previous consultationsing greater government transparency. that the government has undertaken with the public. It contains a number of ways that citizens may par- The 2012 Survey found that Twitter and Facebook ticipate with government such as being able to sendare increasingly being deployed by governments as ve- in their opinions via e-mail to the named governmenthicles for consultation. The 24-7 reach of these tools authority or by submitting an online form containingprovides a cost effective mechanism for citizen alerts their comments and suggestions. In Africa, a case inas well as for views on how the government is doing. point in improvement in this area is in Mozambique,In Hungary for example, on the e-democracy site where both the Ministry of Education’s (http://www.(https://edemokracia.magyarorszag.hu) government mec.gov.mz)and the Ministry of Health’s (http://officials and agencies respond to citizens’ comments www.misau.gov.mz) websites, provide online discus-and suggestions as well as moderating the forums. sion forums where users can comment and make sug- gestions on education and health policy issues. The number of countries encouraging govern-ment officials to respond to citizen input more than ICT-enabled participationdoubled, from 16 to 38. in decision-making The number of countries where officials moder- One quarter of all countries publicly commit toated e-consultations also more than doubled, from considering the results of e-participation in the policy-making process, including, among others,Table 2.10 Web 2.0 tools used Plurinational State of Bolivia, Brazil, India, Hungaryin e-decision making and Panama. Governments are increasingly mind- ful of how ‘well’ they are doing. In an effort to-Government officials respond to citizen input Number of Percen- wards greater inclusion, 25 countries are providingGovernment officials moderate e-consultations countries tage feedback from citizens on their services, includingOnline bulletin boards Mongolia, Morocco, the Islamic Republic of Iran,Online discussion forums 38 20 Saudi Arabia, and Malta, among others.Online petitions 17 9Online voting 76 39 As a final note, online service delivery remains 78 40 skewed in favour of developed countries with the digital 42 22 18 9 47

2 Chapter Two United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Progress in online service deliveryBox 2.6 Providing outcome on feedback received from citizens may not be. Global warming, for example, is onlyconcerning the improvement of their service indirectly perceptible. The greenhouse gases themselves can only be measured with scientificBahrain, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Islamic Republic of instruments, while personal observations of theIran, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Malta, Mongolia, Morocco, Oman, Republic effects are not conclusive evidence for their exis-of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Singapore, Slovenia, Switzerland, Thailand, United Arab tence. Similarly, groundwater pollution may takeEmirates and United Kingdom. u years or even decades before its effects are apparent via birth defects or other health outcomes. Table 2.11 E-decision making features There is widespread acceptance that current in- Number of Percen- stitutions are inadequate to address the challenges of countries tage sustainable development and that new arrangements are needed to achieve economic, environmental and Government commitment to considering the 50 26 social objectives in a balanced and integrated manner results of e-participation in decision making at national and local levels.2 Much of the success in this field depends on broad public awareness and on access Government provides confirmation receipt 45 23 to reliable information for decision-making. Yet infor- on citizen sent communication 25 13 mation gaps occur in a range of disciplines with the net Government provide outcome on feedback result that public appreciation of the challenges of sus- received from citizens concerning the tainable development and scope for action are highly improvement of their services circumscribed in many countries.Table 2.12 Top countries divide a continued challenge. Assessment in 2012 rein- The purpose of the survey depicted here was to de-on environment survey forces the need to continue to focus on expansion and termine the extent to which national governments have consolidation of relevant services for the user, supported been using online media to promote public awareness, by increasing efficiency and integration of the different promulgate environmental information and encourage government departmental processes and institutional stakeholders, chief among them the average citizen, to arrangements relevant for sustainable development. express their views on the issues of the day.Country Index The top-scoring countries on use of online media vis-à-vis the environment are listed in tableGermany 1.0000 2.2.3 Online environmental 2.12. Four countries – Germany, the Republic ofRepublic of Korea 1.0000 information services Korea, Singapore, and the United States –earned aSingapore perfect score. As in the case of e-government devel-United States 1.0000 opment rankings, developed countries dominate inAustria e-environment service delivery.Israel 1.0000 Withtheworldwidefocusonsustainabledevelopment,Japan 0.9412 the 2012 Survey devoted a special section to examin- In terms of overall provision of information andMalta 0.9412 ing the effort made by Member States in provision of services, the countries are evenly distributed, withMexico 0.9412 environment-related online information and services. 69 countries (36 per cent) providing less than oneNew Zealand 0.9412 The data collection effort was global in scope and cov-Russian Federation 0.9412 ered 193 countries. Though not comprehensive, the Figure 2.10 Overall environmentalUnited Kingdom 0.9412 prototype survey is indicative of the general trends in e-service provisionAustralia 0.9412 national‘e-environment’performanceandtheamountCanada 0.9412 of effort invested by Member States in addressing envi- Environment e-servicesFinland 0.8824 ronment as a national development priority.France 0.8824 Effective information dissemination regarding 0%-33% 69Mongolia 0.8824 how resources are managed represents a funda- 34%-66% 68Norway 0.8824 mental requirement if economic development is to 67%-100% 56Portugal 0.8824 benefit all rather than selected groups only. While 0.8824 some environmental degradation is apparent to 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 7048 0.8824 all, many forms of pollution or resource depletion Number of countries

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 2Chapter Two Progress in online service deliverythird of the information and services assessed, an- Figure 2.13 Asia sub-regional averageother one third providing 34-66 per cent, and 56 scores as percentage of regionalcountries providing 67-100 per cent. average scoreFigure 2.11 Africa sub-regional -12 Western Asiaaverage scores as percentageof regional average score -4 South-Eastern Asia -4 Southern Asia Central Asia 12-22 Middle Africa Eastern Asia 46 -20 Northern Africa 40 -18 Western Africa -10 0 10 20 30 Eastern Africa Percentage of total score for the region Southern Africa 26 per cent of the difference in cumulative scoring on 36 the selected indicators could be explained by dif- ferences in gross national income (GNI) per capita.-20 -10 0 10 20 30 Every time GNI per capita is doubled, the predicted Percentage of total score for the region e-environment score increases by approximately 5 per cent under this informal assessment. The result tracks Performance within regions varied widely, with closely with e-government development scores in gen-Middle, Northern, and Western Africa scoring about eral, suggesting that wealth is a powerful determinant20 per cent less than the regional average, while of e-government success across sectors as evidenced byEastern and Southern Africa scored 26 and 36 per Germany, the Republic of Korea and Singapore, highcent more than the regional average, respectively. income economies that fared best in this assessment.Figure 2.12 Americas sub-regional Though the connection between aff luenceaverage scores as percentage of and online environmental information services isregional average score strong, having to contend with a low income econ- omy does not of necessity mean that progress can- -16 Caribbean 87 not be made as the case of Bangladesh suggests. Nor -9 Central America 80 is size automatically a strictly limiting factor as the case of Kyrgyzstan shows. The bubbles in figure 2.15 South America 9 represent the number of Internet users in a country.Northern America Countries with large numbers of Internet users, such as the United States and China, score comparatively -20 0 20 40 60 well in this area. National e-environment initiatives Percentage of total score for the region may thus be reaching a considerable proportion of In the Americas, North America greatly ex- Figure 2.14 Europe sub-regionalceeded the regional average, while South America average scores as percentagescored slightly above nine per cent. of regional average score Similarly in Asia, Eastern Asia was 46 per cent -11 Southern Europe 11above the regional average score, followed by Central -10 -3 Eastern Europe 10Asia, which was 12 per cent above the regional average. Western Europe 8 Northern Europe Although in Europe Southern and Eastern Europetrailed the rest of the region, the overall sub-regional -5 0 5variation in Europe was considerably smaller than in Percentage of total score for the regionthe other regions, ranging from 11 per cent less thanthe regional average score to greater than 11 per cent. E-environment performance is closely correlatedwith wealth as figure 2.15 suggests. In fact, some 90 49

2 Chapter Two United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Progress in online service deliveryFigure 2.15 Relationship between e-environment performance the extraction of marine resources from oceans andand gross national income per capita seas. All appeared in the top quintile of countries in this basic assessment of national websites. 1,000,000 United States 100,000 Germany A majority of countries have a section within the Singapore officially designated national government website dedicated to environmental issues (49 per cent), aGross national income per capita 10,000 separate national website dedicated to environmen- tal issues (78 per cent) or some combination of the Republic two (83 per cent). However, results vary by income of Korea group. Whereas 96 per cent of high-income coun- tries maintain an environment website, only 60 1,000 China per cent of low-income countries do the same. The higher the income group, the more likely a country Bangladesh is to promote awareness of environmental issues online, as noted earlier. Differences in performance Kyrgyzstan based on income also translate into geographic vari- ations as shown in figure 2.16. The concentration of 100 low income countries in sub-Saharan Africa and among small island developing states of the Pacific -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 results in less extensive use of online tools to pro- mote public awareness in those regions. E-environment performance Low income countries = Just over half of national governments publish an $1,005 GNI per capital or less easily accessible policy document or similar statement setting out environmental management strategies (57 Bubble size represents per cent). National environmental policies support number of Internet users sustainable development by articulating objectives, identifying relevant actors and guiding managementThe higher the the world population although there are no global of information for decision-making. While not allincome group, the statistics available to substantiate this hypothesis. countries have comprehensive strategies so clearlymore likely a country spelled out, all have laws and regulations that, together,is to promote The Russian Federation, Canada, the United embody national environmental policy and are mostawareness of States, China, Brazil and Australia together account likely to be implemented when openly supported.environmental issues for almost half of the world’s total land area, in ad-online. dition to having substantial industries devoted to Shortcomings in communication may be due, in part, to questions of leadership and accountability as Figure 2.16 Use of e-government in other areas of public affairs. More often than not, to raise awareness of sustainable national sustainable development focal points are lo- development cated withinthese ministries. Asfigure 2.17illustrates, Africa 9 National Americas 11 environmental Asia 67 Website Europe 30 46 News service Oceania Alerts World 21 25 94 74 87 81 98 Table 2.13 Selected environmental 93 online features and content 51 ‘What you can do’ section Number of Percen- News section focused on environment countries tage 64 Alerts pertaining to environment 50 Searches can be filtered for environment 38 20 Environment strategy available online 136 70 83 48 25 70 62 32 110 57 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Percentage of countries50

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 2Chapter Two Progress in online service deliveryBox 2.7 Trinidad and Tobago: Wealth of information on environmenthttp://www.ema.co.tt Trinidad and Tobago’s Environmental Manage- ment Authority’s website offers a wealth of in- formation on environmental policy, laws and regulations, as well as technical reports detail- ing how the government manages natural re- sources. In addition, the site includes links to the Authority’s Facebook page and YouTube channel. The latter features nearly 30 videos on a variety of environmental topics. uthree out of every four national websites identify the dedicated to environmental issues, with sub-Saha-person responsible for leading the development of ran Africa and Pacific Island countries, as usual, lag-environmental policy at national level, for example, ging behind other regions.as head of an environment ministry or similar na-tional regulatory agency (74 per cent). The number News alerts and messages such as those usedrises slightly, to 85 per cent, among those countries in disaster management require somewhat greaterwith dedicated environmental portals, as might be e-government capacity. Only one quarter (25 perexpected. These omissions notwithstanding, contact cent) of countries have been able to overcome theinformation for environment ministries is readily hurdles presented by the technology. Among these,available for all countries from other sources.3 the European States (51 per cent) have had some- what more success than others, while Africa and theFigure 2.18 Countries offering Americas trail far behind (9 per cent and 11 per cent,education or information on public respectively). Given the near universality of mobilepolicy concerns cellular access in developing regions, the inherent value of public messaging services to vulnerable areas appears to be considerably underexploited.Clean water 111 Figure 2.17 Online leadership promotion and accountabilityClean air 105 in environmental sustainabilityResource conservation 104Energy 86 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Proportion of websites Proportion of countries Proportion of web- Proportion of Number of countries identifying person publishing an environ- sites referring to websites with links responsible for mental conservation international coope- to local authorities environmental policy strategy or natural ration in the field at national level resources policy online of environment Current news plays a pivotal role not only in rais- Africa Yes 27 17 22 4 50ing awareness and support for sustainable develop- No 27 37 32ment, but also in giving a stronger voice to citizensand in monitoring commitments made by political Americas Yes 28 23 25 14leaders.4 Recognizing the potential of news media No 7 12 10to influence attitudes and behaviours, a majority of 21countries (70 per cent) maintain an online environ- Asia Yes 38 25 33 19 28mental news service. However, countries that do not No 9 22 14 10produce an online environmental news service alsotend to be among those without a national website Yes 39 38 39 33 Europe 4 5 4 No World Yes 142 110 125 72 average No 51 83 68 121 51

2 Chapter Two United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Progress in online service delivery Box 2.8 Brazil: Special section on Rio +20 http://www.mma.gov.br The website of Brazil’s Environment Ministry in- cludes a tag cloud of most frequent searches and a calendar of public consultations on the environ- ment. There is also a special section of the site dedicated to Rio +20, including an electronic ques- tionnaire soliciting citizen feedback in formulating Brazil’s position. u With respect to selected other questions per- per cent) and resource conservation (54 per cent), taining to information dissemination, relatively few as depicted in figure 2.19. Not all countries make countries provide features designed to proactively it easy for users to discover content for themselves, notify citizens of environmental issues or permit however, with only one-third of sites (32 per cent) citizens to focus online searches specifically on the offering advanced search options for locating envi- environment. However, more than half of Member ronmental information. Most rely on the logic of the States do provide information focused on the envi- site to guide interested individuals to the informa- ronment and how citizens can help to preserve and tion they seek. manage natural resources, and a substantial major- ity of countries (57 per cent) make their strategy on Figure 2.19 Reflection of public resource use and conservation available online. concerns on national environmental websites Clean air and water represent basic requirements for life. As such, they can reasonably be expected to Africa 26 Websites: be the first subjects of information to be disseminated Americas 20 Water quality online. Energy, a clear necessity for economic devel- Asia Air quality opment, represents another key area about which Europe 31 Resource conservation citizens need information. Finally, resource conserva- Oceania 17 Energy efficiency tion in general, including biodiversity maintenance, is World 17 Advanced search option critical, given that many people in poor communities rely on agriculture for their sustenance. 66 60 A majority of countries provide online informa- 57 tion or education to citizens regarding clean water 54 (111 countries), clean air (105 countries), and resource 29 conservation (104 countries). Nearly half of countries (86) provide information pertaining to energy. 60 64 On specific public policy concerns, 58 per cent of environmental websites provide information on 51 water quality while 54 per cent supply air quality information. The connection between public con- 38 cerns and public information is more tenuous when 26 it comes to resource efficiency. Whereas natural resource depletion is generally considered a seri- 93 ous problem, only about half of the national web- 91 sites promote awareness of energy efficiency (45 86 84 63 29 43 43 29 21 58 54 54 45 32 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Percentage of countries52

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 2Chapter Two Progress in online service delivery Likewise, some two-thirds of countries (65 per Figure 2.20 Citizen participationcent) use online tools to publicize their commitments in environmental affairs by regionto international environmental cooperation. Thereare more than 200 multilateral environmental agree- Africa 17%ments in effect5 and all countries without exception Americas 43%are party to at least 7 key global and regional treaties.6 Asia 42%Online disclosure of international commitments Europe 50%is a sign of leadership and reinforces accountability. OceaniaHowever, ratification of a treaty is not the same as World average 27%compliance and there may be reasons why this infor- 36%mation is not readily apparent, such as government 0incapacity that can make the obligations of multilat- 10 20 30 40 50eral environmental agreements (MEAs) seem less Average regional utilizationrelevant in the day-to-day lives of ordinary people.Table 2.14 Environment-related online 56 countries in the environmental survey. Only e- Online disclosurecitizen feedback consultations in the environmental domain exceeded of international the general one – 9 per cent versus 8 per cent of coun- commitmentsPolls, surveys, discussion forums or chats Number of Percen- tries. A possible reason for this inconsistency is that is a sign of leadershipSocial networking tools countries tage the question pertaining to e-consultation in the main and reinforcesE-consultations survey focused on whether government officials mod- accountability. 45 23 erate e-consultations. This restriction was not applied to the environmental survey, where unmoderated e- 53 56 29 consultations could be counted as well. 34 18 On a regional basis, citizen engagement utiliza- tion on environmental issues is strongest in Europe, One key aspect of engaging the public on envi- followed by the Americas and Oceania. However,ronmental issues is putting a face on environmental given that average utilization for Europe is only 50policy. Three out of every four countries identify the per cent, it appears that more can be done world-person responsible for leading the development of wide to employ e-government in support of citizenenvironmental policy at the national level, for ex- engagement on sustainable development.ample as head of an environment ministry or similarnational regulatory agency (74 per cent). As many as 2.3 Conclusion88 per cent of the countries with a national websiteidentify the person responsible for environmental In conclusion, the 2012 assessment indicates thatpolicy; the number is 85 per cent for the countries websites aim at centralizing the entry point of servicewith a dedicated environmental portal. delivery to a single portal where citizens can access all government-supplied services, regardless of which The environment survey also assessed government government authority provides that service. But de-online tools for feedback from the citizen. As might be spite attention to e-government, there are substantialexpected, the use of e-participation tools specifically gaps in most countries and regions that continue tofor environment is slightly less common than that inhibit development and delivery of online services.found across portfolios in the main E-Government To ensure benefits, Member States need to have aSurvey. The use of polls, surveys, discussion forums or clear strategic vision of development planning andchat rooms in the general survey ranges from only 14 establish a regulatory environment for promotion ofcountries for chats to up to 87 countries for online sur- access and use of newer technologies by the govern-veys or feedback forms. On an environment-specific ment, the private sector and the citizen. –basis only 45 countries use any one of these features. The use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or otherthird party tools with social networking aspects wasfound in 78 countries in the main survey, but only in



United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 3Chapter Three Taking a whole-of-government approach Bioraven/Shutterstock.com Chapter 3Chapter 3 Taking a whole-Taking a whole-of-government approach of-government approach3.1 E-government harmonization in practice 56 In recent years, there has been a change in emphasis away3.1.1 National coordinating authorities 56 from structural devolution, disaggregation, and single-purpose organizations towards a more integrated approach to public3.1.2 Public sector interoperability 57 service delivery.1 Variously termed “one-stop government,” “joined-up government” and “whole-of-government,” the3.1.3 Online service integration 58 movement from isolated silos in public administration to formal and informal networks is a global trend driven by various societal3.1.4 Overall commitment 61 forces such as the growing complexity of problems that call for collaborative responses, the increased demand on the part of3.2 Challenges and opportunities of integrated 63 citizens for more personalized and accessible public services, e-service delivery which are to be planned, implemented and evaluated with their participation, and the opportunities presented by the Internet to3.2.1 Revisiting institutional arrangements 63 transform the way the government works for the people.3.2.2 Promoting citizen-centric design 643.2.3 Standards setting and 65 systems integration3.2.4 Privacy and security matters 673.2.5 Issues in infrastructure development 683.3 Conclusions 69 55

3 Chapter Three United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Taking a whole-of-government approach The ability of agencies to work together and 3.1 E-government citizens to engage in wide-ranging dialogue with harmonization in practice government become especially important in the context of putting e-government to the service of The entry point for an integrated approach to inclusive and people-centred sustainable develop- whole-of -government is to determine the baseline ment. Integrated policy approaches, enabled by conditions which allow for collaboration, across cohesive institutional mechanisms and modern and between departments, through inst tutional technology, contribute to the overall objectives arrangements so that the ensuing system is holis- of long-term development while lending greater tic, synergistic and coordinated in the delivery of legitimacy to government activities. The absence public services. of a whole-of-government approach, by contrast, can inhibit progress in many areas, notably in low- 3.1.1 National coordinating income countries where limited coordination can authorities undermine delivery of social services, provision of physical security, sound economic management and To realize a national strategy, strong leadership is inclusive political processes.2 required. Among other things, top e-government officials can bring together key stakeholders across What needs to be clear, however, is that whole- ministries and agencies, define shared needs, identify of-government is not the same as e-government potential gaps and redundancies in implementing even if the use of ICT can be useful to the prac- strategic goals, and guide e-government innova- tice of whole-of-government. Three questions tion in service delivery. They can also steer process need to be answered separately. One concerns redesign efforts, facilitating communication among how the application of ICT can help the practice departments, highlight best practices, and leverage of whole-of-government. The second is about the shared solutions. Given the mandate to do so, they institutional reorganization governments need to can identify and remove common barriers to one- carry out in order to make whole-of-government stop service provision as well. It is therefore vital to effective. A third question concerns what whole- e-government transformation that governments of- government has to do with sustainable devel- appoint an official with real authority across depart- opment and how whole-of-government can help mental and ministerial boundaries to facilitate strat- in implementing it. egy and decision-making regarding the country’s ICT architecture, and assist agencies in their efforts Taking the United Nations E-Government to run more effective and efficient programmes. Survey 2012 data, this chapter attempts to shed light on these questions. It assesses trends in whole- One measure to be taken is the establishment of of-government for all 193 United Nations Member a coordinating authority in the form of a chief infor- States and analyzes whether governments around mation officer (CIO) or equivalent at the national the world are employing online tools to enhance level. Since 2008, United Nations E-Government institutional coordination and strengthen public Surveys have assessed governments’ organizational services that respond effectively to people’s needs commitment to a whole-of-government approach by and does so with their effective participation. asking whether they have identified a government- wide CIO or similar official responsible for oversee- Figure 3.1 Countries with CIO or ing e-government strategy. As seen in figure 3.1, the equivalent overseeing e-government number of countries publicizing such a post has steadily increased. In the current Survey, 60 coun- 2008 29 tries – 31 per cent of Member States – were found to have an e-government CIO or equivalent. This is up 2010 32 from 32 countries in 2010 and 29 countries in 2008. 2012 60 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Number of countries56

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 3Chapter Three Taking a whole-of-government approachTable 3.1 Chief information officer responsible for the design and management of pub-or equivalent by region lic services. Second, it imparts to the CIO function a significant convening power that facilitates nationalAfrica Countries with Number of % of countries with strategy development and ongoing collaboration. TheAmericas CIO or equivalent countries in region a CIO or equivalent authority to bring different constituencies togetherAsia to address common problems may be especiallyEurope 9 54 17% important in large countries having a substantialOceania 12 35 34% number of administrative divisions. The institutional 19 47 40% realignment needed for effective e-government 18 43 42% echoes responses to questions of coordination and 2 14 14% participation that arise in other areas. In particular, the e-government experience can be taken as an im- As shown in table 3.1, Africa and Oceania lag portant lesson learned in the design of institutionalbehind the other regions with only 17 per cent and frameworks for sustainable development.14 per cent, respectively, of countries identifying aCIO or equivalent. The percentages of countries in- However, despite its evident value, the CIO or of-stalling a CIO or equivalent in the Americas (34 per ficial with an equivalent function is not always easycent), Asia (40 per cent), and Europe (42 per cent), to identify. Fewer than 10 per cent of leading e-gov-however, are roughly comparable. ernment officials use “Chief Information Officer” as their functional title, preferring instead appellations In developed countries, the CIO or equivalent is such as “Director-General” or “Head” of the organi-typically responsible for providing policy leadership, zational unit mandated to undertake e-governmentsupporting and monitoring open government initia- coordination activities. The variety of arrangementstives, coordinating ICT projects across government and difficulty establishing exactly who is responsibleto ensure they are aligned with overall strategy, and for overseeing administrative reform processes at themonitoring and reporting on spending. In develop- national level is indicative of the evolving nature of theing countries, the role is often described in similar institutional frameworks for e-government develop-terms, but with the addition of building technol- ment and the absence of global norms in this area.ogy competence among government officials andimproving and expanding ICT infrastructure and 3.1.2 Public sector interoperabilityinternational cooperation with donors and NGOson e-government initiatives. A whole-of-government strategy necessarily implies that the systems deployed throughout government are The CIO function may be situated at any level able to communicate with one another. However, dif-within a national administration, from a technical sup- ferent government entities have different technologyport group to a ministerial office. Given the emphasis needs. A treasury department has little need for a data-on ICT inherent in CIO functions, responsibility for base of geo-spatial and seismic data; while conversely,e-government coordination at the national level is as- a mining ministry likely has little use for a system thatsigned to a technology unit more often than not, fre- detects suspicious financial transactions.quently within a communications department. Onlysome 10 per cent of countries have a CIO or equivalent Many governments may bear sunk costs fromofficial placed in a senior position in the cabinet office, significant historical technology investments that,finance ministry or public administration department, along with new purchase and implementation costs,among them many top-performing high-income prohibit migration to entirely new systems. The chal-countries such as the United States, the Republic of lenges above are only exacerbated when multipleKorea, the Netherlands, Canada and France. levels, such as regional and/or local governments, are involved. Thus, interoperability and integration Association of the national coordinating author- are at a premium with respect to both new tech-ity with the executive or reform elements of public nology purchases and upgrading existing systems.administration serves a dual purpose. First, businessownership of e-government at a high-level assigns re-sponsibility for government modernization to those 57

3 Chapter Three United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Taking a whole-of-government approach Interoperability in the public sector is defined as the electronic identity management, while slightly more ability of government organizations to share and inte- than a third have an online tracking system. Examples grate information by using common standards. of countries with an online tracking system include Argentina, Bangladesh, Cape Verde, China, Colombia, The 2012 Survey includes several indicators Croatia, Denmark, Greece, India, Japan, New Zealand, focused on the degree to which countries have the Russian Federation, and South Africa. implemented systems that can seamlessly exchange information. One such indicator looks for identity 3.1.3 Online service integration management features. To be counted, the feature must enable the government to positively identify an Some countries have set up portals that aggregate individual citizen in the course of an online transac- large amounts of information and services into a tion. At a minimum, the availability of such a feature single website. A key objective of such portals is to implies that the government has dynamically con- facilitate citizen navigation and use of the content. nected its repositories of uniquely identifying infor- Although during the Survey assessment period no mation – such as birth certificates, passports, and/ country’s portal completely integrated all informa- or citizen ID numbers – with the system or systems tion, services, and features assessed, several came offering a particular service. close. Some of these vanguard countries include: the Republic of Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Specific countries with an identifying man- and the United Kingdom. agement feature include Albania, the Bahamas, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Finland, Georgia, A common approach in this model includes Japan, Kazakhstan, Maldives, New Zealand, Qatar, organizing content around life themes and/or spe- Serbia, Singapore, and Ukraine. In some cases, par- cific audiences, such as the young, elderly, women, ticularly among European countries, the system is job seekers, students, etc. These portals also typi- also integrated with an electronic ID card database cally include an advanced search feature that may and/or tied to the citizen’s mobile phone. One such index content from dozens of government web- example is Austria, where citizens can get personal- sites; usa.gov includes all of these features. ized information and services by signing on to the services portal (https://www.help.gv.at) using their The 2012 Survey includes a specific indica- ID card or mobile phone, and can even electroni- tor that assesses whether a country has integrated cally sign documents using their mobile phones. portals under the rubric “one-stop-shops.” The Australian Government has been one of the early Another interoperability indicator is an online tracking system that permits citizens to check on Figure 3.2 Countries offering the status of online transactions. As with an identity a one-stop-shop management feature, such a system implies that the citizen-facing system – the national website or portal Number of countries 135 – is able to communicate with the system that gov- 123 ernment officials are using to process the transaction. 140 118 130 Given the expense and difficulty of achieving in- 120 2008 2010 2012 teroperability that is required for these features, it is 110 unsurprising that a relatively low proportion of coun- 100 tries offer them. Only about a quarter of countries offer 90 Table 3.2 Interoperability and 84 back-office integration 80 70 Electronic identity management Countries Percentage 2005 Online tracking system 63 52 27% 60 66 34% 50 200458

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 3Chapter Three Taking a whole-of-government approachadopters of a one-stop portal. Its portal offers citi- The Survey also measures how many countrieszens numerous interactive services ranging from provide a gateway to regional and/or local govern-birth certificates to registering on the electoral roll. ments by linking to them from their national page orIt offers three ways to access services: by service type portal. Roughly half of all countries – 96 – provide such(paying a bill, applying for a grant); by life event (giv- links. Some specific countries providing this featureing birth); or by location (of government agency or include Armenia, Australia, Belgium, Plurinationaldepartment). Now, one-stop-shops are the norm in State of Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada,most developed countries such as Austria, Belgium, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Kenya,Japan, and Singapore. Further, the trend has been in- Latvia, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, the Philippines, thecreasing. As seen in figure 3.2, the number of coun- Russian Federation, Uganda, the United Kingdom,tries deploying one-stop-shops increased in the past the United States, and Venezuela.eight years from 63 in 2004 to 135 in 2012. Amongdeveloping countries, Angola, Costa Rica and Egypt Figure 3.4 Percentage of nationalall have developed one-stop-shop portals. sites or portals linking to government ministries While not all countries may yet be able to achievesubstantial interoperability, the Survey includes a Education 80 85proxy for intent to move in that direction: the num- Health 80 85ber of government websites linking to the national Financepage or portal. By providing such links governments Social Welfare 76not only aid citizens in finding the information and Labour 76services they seek, but demonstrate that their differ- Environment 74ent branches are in fact collaborating in the online Othersphere. By this measurement, the majority of coun-Figure 3.3 Countries with 60 65 70 75 80 85government websites linking to Percentagea national website or portal Another way in which the 2012 Survey mea- No links More than 10 links sures whole-of-government strategy execution is 20 countries 123 countries by assessing how many government websites pro- 10% 64% vide information and services in key government portfolios covering citizens’ basic needs. As can be1-5 links seen from figure 3.4, the vast majority of countries34 countries provide links from their national portal to their18% 193 Figure 3.5 Policy information online countries6-10 links Education 85 9316 countries Health 81 938% Finance Social Welfare 77tries are making a strong effort in this area, with 123 Labour 79countries having at least 10 government sites linking Environmentto their national site or portal and only 20 countries Other 76having no government sites with such a link. 70 75 80 85 90 95 Percentage 59

3 Chapter Three United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Taking a whole-of-government approach Box 3.1 Usa.gov leads in integrated portals http://www.usa.gov Usa.gov is perhaps the best example of a that is likely to be relevant. In the event that highly integrated portal. It is carefully orga- the citizen cannot find what he/she needs nized, starting from a sufficient level of ab- by browsing, a comprehensive, detailed straction for the citizen who does not need and searchable FAQ is available. Failing to know, say, exactly for which form he/she that, the citizen can use the general ad- is looking. Yet by drilling down through vanced search feature, which indexes doz- increasing levels of specificity, the citizen ens of federal and even state and municipal ultimately – and with remarkably little ef- websites. Finally, the site provides myriad fort – arrives at a very specific item or ser- ways for the citizen to communicate with vice. This process is aided on virtually every the government on any topic, ranging from page by “Popular Topics,” “In Focus,” and technical support for the site to substantive other helpful boxes that bubble up content policy issues. u ministries having education, health, finance, social needs sectors, the highest proportion provide in- welfare, labour, and environmental portfolios. The formation on finance (93 per cent), while one of differences in percentages are largely reflective of the lowest proportions provide information on the fact that some countries do not have websites social welfare (77 per cent). for all of their ministries: where the national site provides any links to ministry websites it usually Overall, 78 per cent of countries have a links to all of them. Among the basic needs sectors, separate website for the environment, and in all the highest proportion of countries link to a finance regions a majority of countries scored this ques- ministry (85 per cent), while the lowest proportion tion. Far fewer countries – only 49 – have taken link to a social welfare (76 per cent) or labour (76 the additional step of integrating environmental per cent) ministry. information into their national and sub-national governance structures. Only in Europe have a Similarly, a large majority of countries provide clear majority of countries progressed to this point. information on policies and laws for each of the Roughly half of the countries in the Americas and key portfolios on their websites. Among the basic Asia include environmental information in their portals, while Africa trails substantially.Figure 3.6 Institutional integration efforts in environment E-government can support environmental insti-Percentage 100 Europe tutional integration not only by including environ- ment ministries/departments but also by linking 90 Americas vertically and horizontally institutional structures Asia responsible for environmental governance so that 80 World information and service flows are consistent, effi- cient and effective. While the e-government Survey 70 Oceania does not focus on G2G interaction per se, certain Africa aspects of governments’ online G2C offerings may 60 be taken as proxies for this type of information flow. National portal Links to regional/ Information on While G2C offerings necessarily will overlook dedi- 50 with environment local environment international cated, login-protected websites containing sensitive cooperation information for government officials only, it seems 40 section authorities likely that government officials from various institu- tions will make at least as much use as citizens of the 30 publicly available information. 20 10 0 Separate website for environment60

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 3Chapter Three Taking a whole-of-government approach The Survey asked specifically whether Member Table 3.3 Whole-of-government top performersStates help support vertical institutional integra-tion by providing a gateway to regional and/or Country Country Countrylocal environmental authorities as well as providinginformation on international cooperation on envi- Republic of Korea Malaysia Serbiaronmental issues. Once again Europe is a leader Singapore New Zealand Cyprusin this area, with 77 per cent of countries provid- United States Spain Uruguaying the former and 91 per cent the latter. Very few Netherlands Germany Argentinacountries in Oceania and Africa provide a gateway Canada Austria Peruto local authorities. This may be explained in part by France Mexico Slovakiaa lack of multilevel governance in general in these Bahrain Lithuania Indonesiaareas, particularly among the small island nations United Arab Emirates Luxembourg Philippinesof Oceania. After the question on a separate website Japan Oman Costa Ricafor the environment, information on international Norway Slovenia Iran (Islamic Republic of)cooperation is the most commonly scored ques- Israel Russian Federation Mauritiustion, with 65 per cent of countries providing this Colombia Malta Viet Naminformation overall. Sweden Egypt Sri Lanka Saudi Arabia Latvia3.1.4 Overall commitment As seen in figure 3.6, the majority of countries provide links from their government websites to theAs measured by factors that focus on commitment cabinet level as well as sub-national websites. A ma-to a whole-of-government approach, several coun- jority of countries also link other government web-tries stand out. The top performers can be seen in sites to the portal. In addition, there is a trend towardtable 3.3. Specific factors in the 2012 Survey en- installing more e-government CIOs and deployingcompassing the whole of government approach in- more one-stop-shops. Finally, the specific countriesclude: 1) identification of an e-government CIO or that display the greatest commitment to the whole-equivalent; 2) the number of links to and from the of-government approach include many with rela-cabinet level and other government and regional/ tively low levels of e-government development.local websites; and 3) whether a one-stop-shop isoffered. The commitment to a whole of government Taken together, these indicators suggest thatapproach among these countries is evident by their countries are generally motivated to pursue ahigher scores even though some of them remain at a whole-of-government approach by integratinglower level of overall online service delivery. services and information as much as possible. The particular form of integration is affected byBox 3.2 Mauritius, an A to Z thematic approachhttp://www.gov.mu The “Citizen” portion of Mauritius’ integrated portal is organized primarily around key services, but also groups information by audience and includes an A – Z thematic index. Additional features that aid the citizen in quickly finding content include a “Quick Links” box, a “Related Subject Areas” box, and a gov- ernment directory. The directory can be displayed according to hierarchy or in alphabetical order by ministry or department name. u 61

3 Chapter Three United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Taking a whole-of-government approach Box 3.3 Germany chooses integrated services on multiple portlets http://www.bundesregierung.de http://www.bund.de One portlet, Die Bundesregierung, focuses primarily on information. It includes news from across the government, links to laws, policy documents, thematic websites in par- ticular policy areas, and links to all govern- ment ministries. A second portlet, Bund De, focuses primarily on services. It includes a searchable directory of government offices, services and links, as well as links that direct citizens to the specific services or offices they are seeking. u considerations of: the technical challenges involved Following closely behind such portals are in linking dramatically different systems of varying those of countries that may not have a single inte- provenance and vintage; the technical complexity grated portal but integrated ‘portlets’ each with of setting up authentication and security systems multi-sector, multifunctional integrated services that can be scaled up to adequately protect an in- or information from across multiple departments creasingly integrated infrastructure; the costs in- and agencies. Many European countries appear to volved; and political and organizational tensions follow this model, with separate information and that may inhibit different organs within govern- services portlets, each integrated across thematic ments from cooperating effectively. and functionally relevant sectors. One example is Germany, described in box 3.3. Other countries A common variation on portal organization is pursuing variations of the portlets model include to segregate information into categories for citizens, the Netherlands, France, Spain, and Portugal. businesses, government, and sometimes foreigners. Bahrain’s portal and Mauritius’ portal (box 3.2) are both organized according to this principle. Box 3.4 Malaysia “no wrong door” policy http://www.malaysia.gov.my A whole-of-government strategy, intro- government agencies are well-coordinated, duced in the 10th Malaysia Plan for devel- well-informed and customer-friendly. opment covering 2011-2015, urges public Using various service delivery channels, it is sector agencies to work across portfolio expected that citizens and businesses will be boundaries to provide high quality public able to deal with government agencies in a services to citizens across all areas of eco- fast, simple and transparent manner, result- nomic activity, and ultimately to improve ing in increased customer satisfaction. One the capacity of public sector agencies to work of the most visible manifestations of the together to address the economic, social policy is the country’s myGovernment web- and environmental challenges of globaliza- site providing one-stop access to a variety of tion. A “one service, one delivery, no wrong services from a multiplicity of agencies. u door” policy is intended to enable easy ac- cess to public services by ensuring that Source: The Malaysian Public Sector ICT Strategic Plan: Powering Public Sector Digital Transformation 2011-2015, 7 July 201162

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 3Chapter Three Taking a whole-of-government approach3.2 Challenges and change management mechanisms in the whole-of- Vertical and horizontalopportunities of integrated government programme. fragmentation, whiche-service delivery is typical of public One important step towards this end is the de- administration, In the section below, we examine how e-gov- velopment of a national strategic framework that constitutes one of theernment harmonization requires strong leadership articulates the government’s vision, objectives and key challenges ofand commitment in order to achieve interopera- milestones, as well as basic roles, technical stan- one-stop governmentbility and integration of the various public sector dards and constraints for realizing a one-stop e-gov- implementation.organizations, which is a crucial pillar of whole-of- ernment system. Such a framework also addressesgovernment practice. issues of privacy and security, maintenance, and in- 63 terface standards. The strategy should help depart-3.2.1 Revisiting institutional ments and agencies in both central and sub-nationalarrangements government to cooperate in new partnerships that will enable them to offer their services in ways thatAs the 2012 Survey findings show, the vertical and make sense to the customer. Such a strategy canhorizontal fragmentation, which is typical of public usefully point to partnerships with innovators inadministration, constitutes one of the key chal- the private sector who can find new ways of meetinglenges of one-stop government implementation. changing patterns of demand.Public sector initiatives where services cross depart-mental boundaries present a formidable challenge. To realize the national strategy, a high level of ini-The fragmented and ‘siloed’ government structure tial investment may be needed, which must be em-complicates easy communication among persons bodied in long-term vision and strategic planning inin each silo, which might result in customer dis- order for an integrated and sustainable e-governmentsatisfaction. Service delivery channels might not be solution to be successfully implemented. Service de-developed based on a shared vision and could have livery platforms often require the integration of tele-different objectives.3 com and IT capabilities and the creation of services that cross technology and network boundaries. In For example, whereas one channel might focus this process, established, hierarchical and bureau-on personal interaction, another channel of the cratic structures must be supplanted with horizon-same organization could emphasize efficiency. tal one-stop government network structures thatFurthermore, there might be a gap between strat- facilitate customer orientation and increase levels ofegy and operational processes. Strategies are high transparency and accountability. The end result mustlevel and can be interpreted and implemented in be seamless, knowledge-enhanced e-government so-many, sometimes even conf licting, ways. Also, lutions that are sustainable.strategies are often formulated by politicians. Theymay ref lect their political ambitions but fail to con- At the same time, governments need to guardsider limiting factors like scarce resources, path against creating parallel structures or institutionsdependencies, legacy systems and public agencies’ because these further complicate the difficult jobtime constraints. of coordination and go contrary to the require- ments of the whole-of-government approach. The issue here is to overcome existing power Creating parallel institutions would also be morestructures and build a culture of cooperation. of a throw-back to traditional hierarchical gov-Department/agency heads may fear losing power ernmental organization. The practice of whole-over human and financial resources and thus fail of-government mainly requires the establishmentto make them available for advancing one-stop of networks and partnerships within governmentgovernment. Building trust among departments agencies, as well as with other key players, such asand agencies is therefore key to successful one-stop those in the non-government sector. Beyond thee-government implementation, as is incorporating engagement of leading e-government officials and institutions, one-stop government may require the acquisition of new skills by public employees and customers alike.

3 Chapter Three United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Taking a whole-of-government approach Alongside analysis and interpretation skills, Third, project implementation, in almost all the which are necessary at every stage of an e-govern- cases analyzed, is based on extensive training ses- ment project, skills in information management sions. Training in the implementation process is can ensure that information is treated as a valu- essential. Training contributes to cultural change, able organizational resource with due regard for to knowledge transfer, and to enabling civil ser- content, quality, format, storage, transmission, vants to use the technology.5 accessibility, usability, security and preservation. Depending on the type of e-government challenge Notwithstanding common issues that arise in an organization is facing, higher order technical the design of effective institutional frameworks for skills may be required to implement the chosen e-government development, there is no one insti- solution. Communication skills are important be- tutional arrangement that can be recommended cause of the need throughout the project to convey for all governments. Much depends on the national goals, progress, issues and results. Finally, project context and the interplay of organizational changes management skills are essential to plan, organize, that may be advised in the pursuit of a whole-of- allocate resources, negotiate, track progress and government approach as table 3.4 suggests. measure results.4 3.2.2 Promoting citizen- An analysis of 40 case studies on interoperable centric design government collected in Europe points to three further conclusions regarding human resources. The distinguishing characteristic of the whole-of- First, strengthening of existing collaborations in government approach is that government agen- order to create new ones; interoperability (vertical cies and organizations share objectives across or horizontal cooperation) is easier to implement organizational boundaries, as opposed to working when the actors are used to collaborating. Even solely within an organization. It encompasses the then, it takes time. Second, collaboration yields design and delivery of a wide variety of policies, better results than imposition: “things change programmes and services that cross organiza- naturally and it is not necessary to inflict them. tional boundaries.6 From the citizens’ perspective, Changes impact the heart of organizations, prac- a whole-of-government approach to e-government tices and culture. This can only be done gradually.” permits them to access information and services without needing to know anything about theTable 3.4 Selected organizational changes needed in the pursuit structure of government. It ‘flattens’ governmentof a whole-of-government approach structure so that even if a particular administrative process involves two or three government depart-Objective Strategy ments, the citizen need have only a single point ofAdopt a new and different culture and philosophy Incorporate whole-of-government values into all contact with the government. One way to imple-Adopt new and different ways of developing policies, departments and agencies ment a whole-of-government approach is to ag-designing programmes and delivering services Promote information sharing and cooperative gregate government services and information intoAdopt different working methods knowledge management a limited number of websites. Another is to deployEmploy new incentives and accountability mechanisms Effectively align top-down policies with bottom-up issues advanced search technology that indexes websites Pursue a collegiate approach throughout government. Focus on whole-of-government outcomes Consult and engage with clients and users One-stop government refers to the integration Exercise shared leadership of public online services from a customer’s view- Emphasize expertise point via a single entry point, irrespective of whether Apply flexibility and promote teamwork these services are actually provided by different de- Focus on outcomes partments or authorities. The customer may be a Recognize and reward shared outcomes citizen or a business. One-stop online service pro- Promote horizontal management vision requires the interconnectedness of all public Be flexible around service outcomes authorities, with the effect that customers are able to64

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 3Chapter Three Taking a whole-of-government approachaccess all available public services through a single delivery and payment phase, the processes to com-entry point. Since from a customer’s perspective plete the service are performed, the results are con-knowledge of the functional fragmentation of the veyed to the customer and the customer pays for thepublic sector is irrelevant in terms of accessing infor- service. The last phase addresses aftercare, wheremation, customers should be able to access one-stop aspects of citizen (or customer of public adminis-online services in terms of life events and business tration) relationship management and complaintssituations directly from the responsible unit. management are addressed.8 The one-stop-shop should offer a point of entry While general principles such as the foregoingfor citizens and businesses to all relevant services together constitute a helpful guide to e-governmentfrom the central and sub-national governments. development, the quest for citizen-centric design im-It should be capable of personalization, matching plies an understanding of the specific needs of differ-citizens’ and businesses’ circumstances and needs. ent segments of society and their capacity to benefitIt should also facilitate push technology, so that from online and mobile services. How these needsat citizens’ and businesses’ choices, it can send re- are matched with available channels, taking into ac-minders about services or information by email. count characteristics of the various phases of serviceGovernment online resources should also be well delivery, is explored in Chapter 4. Differentiation inindexed and easy to find. e-service design can, moreover, reinforce efforts to bridge the digital divide by reaching out to vulner- Some additional characteristics include a well able populations, as discussed in Chapter 5. Morethought out structure, a comprehensive navigation generally, citizen-centric design with a strong usersystem, and a consistent look for the web pages – all focus has a direct bearing on increasing usage of e-cornerstones of an effective government website. It services to realize their full potential benefits, a sub-is also necessary to present the content in a way that ject explored in detail in Chapter 6.is understandable for a normal user according tolife/business events. Personalization is likewise very 3.2.3 Standards setting andimportant to improve the acceptance of a national systems integrationwebsite. Since authentication of a citizen is neces-sary for transactions anyway, the same mechanism Citizen-centric design is dependent on a fully-can also be used for personalization purposes. The integrated operational model usually requiringdemand of businesses for personalization is even significant systems integration and accompanyinghigher than that of citizens, since a business is likely transformation of business processes. Two types ofto use the portal more often. The user needs to be integration can be discerned: vertical integrationinformed as to what happens with his/her data, for involving cooperation among different tiers of gov-whom it is accessible and how it is protected. This ernment, for example between national and localcreates confidence in the site.7 authorities engaged in environmental management; and horizontal integration within a single jurisdic- Another requirement for a one-stop-shop is that tion, such as connecting the finance ministry withit be intuitive. For example, if a user wants to use a government departments involved in provision ofspecific public service, she/he should be automati- social services. In both cases, citizens and businessescally connected to the right agency (e.g., marriage are best served when responsibility for the requisite– registry office) in the right jurisdiction. Use of communication among different agencies is as-more advanced e-services can be described as a set sumed by government, subject to applicable legalof phased transactions corresponding to the citi- and regulatory constraints, rather than transferredzen’s view of the exchange. In the information and to individual actors.intention building phase, users search for informa-tion regarding possible intended public services. In Building a common architecture for a one-stopthe contracting phase, the user already knows what government portal requires secure and trustedshe/he needs to do and either fills in the online ap- interoperable systems that adopt existing Internetplication form or downloads the correspondingform from the server and completes it. In the service 65

3 Chapter Three United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Taking a whole-of-government approach standards for government agencies at all levels. on interoperability standards. Other measures can Establishing an interoperable system within one include getting political support from top manage- government means that agencies can easily “talk to ment and developing policy and regulation in sup- one another” whether by sending email or exchang- port of interoperability within the government. ing information, without any technical problems that hinder the smooth operation of government. As far as online services are concerned, there is In practice, various approaches to interoperability what is known as the ‘portal’ approach, which is de- are possible with tighter and looser forms of integra- signed for information provision and sharing. It aggre- tion. Three principle types of interoperability can gates content coming from various sources and allows the easy localization of information delivery by use of •be identified:9 co-branding solutions. This solution, however, needs Organizational interoperability is the ability of significant investment supported by a single main systems and interfaces to overcome different actor and an efficient networking of all other actors business processes in different regions, in order involved, which influences the quality and updating to process a certain transaction or request. of information. A basic requirement for a one-stop All three types of interoperability are of great government portal is that there should be a govern- importance if one wants to achieve the goal of a ment information infrastructure (GII).10 This is a net- work that connects all government agencies. Building • one-stop e-government portal. a GII however is a costly undertaking that requires Semantic interoperability is about the ability of cross-agency, cross-government planning. In order to systems to exchange information, to combine assess the cost implications of such an undertaking, a it with other information resources and to sub- financial feasibility study should be conducted. sequently process it in a meaningful manner. When semantic interoperability is achieved, in- There is also a so-called ‘platform’ approach. formation is made understandable for different The platform approach does not aim at centraliz- applications and consequently it can be reused ing and dispatching the data but provides common tools and common functionalities (security, data • in different settings. exchange mechanisms, electronic signature) that Technical interoperability of e-government solu- allow service delivery. In this configuration, local tions for sustainable development demands the actors are directly responsible for service provision establishment of an IT infrastructure that allows and have to coordinate their actions (technical and for the efficient exchange of information among organizational interoperability).11 Both have been different levels of administration, both horizontal successfully employed separately and in combina- and vertical. It also presupposes that there is tion by different countries. homogeneous equipment among all the actors involved and a significant number of end-users. The experience of the United Arab Emirates in Many governments have started creating managing its e-government initiative is instructive interoperability frameworks spanning agency in this respect. While the Emirate of Dubai centrally boundaries that, among other things, facilitate the controlled and monitored the e-services develop- deployment of multichannel delivery of government ment overall, government departments were given services. Achieving interoperability in government the freedom to creatively build their own e-services organizations is difficult. In many cases, agencies in an early phase of the project. This not only acceler- are reluctant to change existing processes, open ated development, but also helped the government data and services to external parties, and renegotiate departments to meet the initial target of 70 per cent their way of operating with external parties. Open of government services to be online by 2005.12 standards are particularly recommended as they are platform independent and cannot be controlled Similarly, Dubai adopted a hybrid approach to by any single agency. Legal offices, academia, and implementing its e-government initiative whereby other organizations involved in interoperability can government departments focused on e-service en- be invited to discuss key issues. An inter-ministerial ablement while the central authority focused on board can also be set up as a working group to agree building common parts (e.g., payment, customer support, etc.) needed by all offices. This balance66

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 3Chapter Three Taking a whole-of-government approachbetween centralization of common aspects of e- Protection of personal data calls for a number of A central challenge ofservices implementation and decentralization of organizational and technical measures to prevent un- one-stop governmente-services enablement was one of the key pillars of is the need tosuccess in the Dubai e-government initiative, which •authorized access and processing, for example by:15 strengthenresulted in standardization, best practices sharing, Protecting premises, equipment and systems confidence in datacost savings, and reduced time to market. privacy and security • software, including input-output units; measures, for Implementation can be augmented by adding Protecting software applications used to pro- example by allowingidentity management andsingle-sign-on functionality. citizens to verifyThe former allows the government to verify the citi- • cess personal data; the accuracy ofzen’s identity, which in turn permits a broader range of Preventing unauthorized access to personal personal records.online service offerings. However, it also permits gov- data during transmission thereof, includingernment to more easily tie together information about transmission via telecommunication means 67individual citizens from multiple data repositories.This enables the government to increase efficiency by • and networks;reducing data duplication and administrative over- Ensuring effective methods of blocking,head while providing more personalized services to destruction, erasure, or anonymization ofcitizens. Single-sign-on functionality adds the abilityfor citizens to only log on once regardless of with how • personal data;many disparate government ICT systems they inter- Enabling subsequent determination of whenact. The whole-of-government model of information individual personal data were entered into aand service delivery benefits citizens by simplifying filing system, used or otherwise processed, andtheir interaction with government. As a result, it can the person responsible, for the period coveredbe expected to drive user take-up of government in- by statutory protection of the rights of anformation and services. individual with regard to unauthorized supply or processing of personal data.3.2.4 Privacy and security matters Creating a trusted framework for digital authenti- cation is also a crucial factor in assuring the integrity ofThere must also be a strong emphasis on a legal frame- online and mobile financial transactions. Digital signa-work that embodies elements of trustworthiness, ture is only a beginning. Concrete applications have totraceability, security and privacy of citizens’ data. be developed, and they require a lot more legal changes.One-stop government often requires the adaptation of Individual laws, governing both the operation of pub-laws to make e-government solutions legally binding. lic administrations and policy-specific issues, have toAmong the legal issues to be investigated for a success- institute digital signatures as an accepted way of iden-ful one-stop government are: data protection, access to tification and authentication.16 A key concept with se-sensitive data, networking of authorities and databases, curity issues is scalability. At the same time, the securityequal opportunities, electronic signature, etc.13 framework should take into consideration the fact that a majority of administrative transactions do not need A central challenge of one-stop government is high levels of protection and that secure procedures arehow the new technology can be used not only to expensive, difficult to implement and not always wellincrease efficiency for public administration, but accepted by the end user.17also to strengthen confidence in privacy measuresby creating mutual transparency between public Given the complexities, implementation ofadministration and citizens.14 For example, while trusted security and privacy measures constitutessecure systems are needed to impede unauthor- a major challenge to one-stop-shops, which manyized access to data, such personal data must be governments have yet to tackle. Only about one fifthmade accessible to a citizen who wishes to verify of national portals clearly indicate the presence ofthe use, authenticity and accuracy of his or her own security features with significant regional variation.personal data. According to the 2012 Survey, almost half of the coun- tries in Europe display secure links on their national websites, while only one in Africa appears to do so, underscoring the continuing difficulty that African governments face in moving to the transactional and connected stages of e-government development.

3 Chapter Three United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Taking a whole-of-government approach Box 3.5 Cloud computing Cloud computing has been a big beneficiary equipment with the fastest response times – major vendors of cloud computing equipment of virtualization, enabling organizations to while less important data can go to lower cost reports that virtualization has enabled the share computing resources and, depending devices with slower response times. Data that Municipality of Copenhagen, Denmark to cut on service level agreements, pay only for what is rarely accessed or needed only in emergen- the number of servers it uses from 638 to just they use. In the United States, as part of the cies can be sent in devices that are less ad- 32. That meant not only less infrastructure to new Cloud First Initiative, government agen- vanced and less costly. Virtualization enables maintain but also lower power consumption, cies are required to consider cloud options organizations to use their most expensive reducing carbon emissions by 77 per cent.19 before making new IT investments. With storage devices for their most important data virtualization, data can reside across a shared and to buy fewer of them.18 A major caveat, however, is that data about pool of storage devices, but the devices them- citizen-government transactions and the con- selves do not have to be equal. Critical infor- Another possible advantage of virtualiza- tent of those transactions is better off kept mation that needs to be accessed frequently tion is that it can contribute to green IT when under governmental control to protect privacy can be sent to high performance storage – the data centres are established in areas with ac- and ensure that use of data complies with ap- cess to renewable energy sources. One of the plicable regulations. u 3.2.5 Issues in infrastructure run by a large telecommunications carrier. With development this alternative, the government entrusts the secu- rity of the network to the operator, who will also be Relevant infrastructure issues to be considered here assuming the costs of regular network maintenance include the country’s existing infrastructure, cur- and technical support and the risks of possible net- rent level of Internet penetration, telephone density, work sabotage. existing speed of technology change, allowances for convergence, and investment in broadband. In order to minimize the threat of security risks, governments that choose to ride on a private back- Table 3.5 National portals clearly bone will have to set up specific security measures, indicating a security feature including: firewalls, intrusion detection software, encryption, and secure networks (such as Virtual Portals with a security Number of Percentage Private Networks, Wide Area Networks or Local feature indicated countries in region Area Networks) for government agencies that re- 2% quire high levels of security. Africa 1 54 11% 35 26% One-stop e-government requires IT support. Americas 4 47 44% It is therefore necessary to develop the appropriate 43 21% technical infrastructures, such as a full-fledged elec- Asia 12 14 20% tronic network among agencies, including applica- 193 tions for communication and electronic filing. Europe 19 Standardization and intelligent functional- Oceania 3 ity has to be provided for the portal, front-office (intake and communication) as well as the back World 38 office.20 Specific attention has to be paid to small units of government in rural regions, which other- The advantage of having one’s own backbone is wise would never get a chance to use the required that government communications are open and secure government infrastructure. In this respect, the and operating 24-7. However, this may imply regular need for cooperative, shared architectures and funding for upgrades and maintenance of the network, infrastructures to avoid lack of skilled resources and for hiring a team to support the network full-time. and to lower investment and maintenance costs becomes important too. Given the cost and time implications of building a backbone, governments may opt for an existing private telecommunications backbone, usually one68

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 3Chapter Three Taking a whole-of-government approach With the silos being phased out, IT resources be- management while avoiding fragmentation and lack Despite widespreadcome much more tightly linked and collaboration of coordination. Knowledge and attitudes of public support for whole-of-becomes crucial. Increasing flexibility and efficiency servants to the whole-of-government vision are also government, therein e-government operations can now be achieved via seen as critical elements to its success. remain majorvirtualization, which enables organizations to pool problems incomputing resources and use the same servers and Why is integrated service delivery so hard, and overcomingstorage devices for many different users and applica- what are the key lessons that can be extracted from departmental silos,tions. On-demand computing is the new model for reviewing the literature? The problem lies not with reducingorganizations looking to get the best returns from the technology but in the political challenge of re- fragmentation andtheir technology investments. wiring a range of public sector programmes deliv- enhancing ered by different levels of government – often with coordination.3.3 Conclusions different qualification requirements – for the people. Adding to the complexity is the fact that an increas- 69Employing e-government to improve efficiency and ing number of these services are delivered on behalfeffectiveness of public service delivery, and to pro- of a government by a network of private and non-mote development for the people helps governments profit organizations with a common mission suchuse available resources to their best advantage, thus as reducing poverty, improving education or help-contributing to economic sustainability. In the past, ing teens find jobs.e-government development efforts tended to focuson the short term, in particular on getting isolated The network model for service delivery hasservices online, publishing information without evolved because traditional hierarchical govern-providing for regular updates and adding new fea- ment has failed to figure out how individual agenciestures to websites in response to changes in technol- can interconnect and deliver services that success-ogy. This approach has helped meet the immediate fully deal with the complex and tough social andneeds of specific agencies while bypassing reform of economic challenges facing societies. For some,institutional frameworks, enabled by technology, in networked service delivery avoids the inefficienciesresponse to the long-term financial and operational inherent in earlier efforts to reorganize governmentchallenges of the public sector. agencies into single large units. Instead, it focuses on engaging existing agencies in joint problem solving The 2012 Survey finds that many Member States without realignment of formal authorities.21are moving from a decentralized single-purpose or-ganization model, to an integrated unified whole- The key lessons that can be drawn from the pre-of-government model, contributing to efficiencyand effectiveness. The model aims at centralizing •ceding analysis are:the entry point of service delivery to a single portal On strategy: It is essential to begin with awhere citizens can access all government-supplied strategic framework. That involves definingservices, regardless of which government authority the framework for the whole-of-government,provides that service. In some countries, the whole- basic roles of the public as well as the privateof-government approach helps build a transparent sector, and strategic decisions to be taken, asgovernment system with interconnected depart- well as identifying constraints to be consid-ments and divisions. ered for realizing and implementing a one- Although there is widespread support for the • stop government.principles of whole-of-government, there remain On leadership, commitment and vision: If effec-major problems in implementing the concept re- tive one-stop government is to materialize inlated to issues of ensuring accountability for pub- any shape or form, public officials must have alicly funded activities and overcoming the ‘silos’ long-term coherent vision that identifies, artic-created by departmentalism or vertical styles of ulates and advocates the benefits of a one-stop government programme. They must also be aware of potential resistance to change, which is always inherent in projects like one-stop government. Since tradition is deeply rooted in public administration, leaders must address

3 Chapter Three United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Taking a whole-of-government approach and explain what the one-stop government be filtered through one agency, reducing the portal is, inviting the opinion of personnel in variation and duplication of e-government the process and emphasizing the importance of systems. Decentralized e-government systems continuous communication while developing allow individual agencies more control over and implementing the project. Leaders must e-government administration and content. also provide all necessary resources to person- Agencies can choose which firms to use when nel to carry out their work effectively, while they outsource e-services. training them in an adequate and continuous way during the whole process. The argument can also be made that decen- tralized information provision is more accurate There are many examples illustrating that because it is as close to the source as possible. in the search for appropriate institutional Decentralized systems can provide agencies arrangements for implementing whole-of- with a sense of ownership that can encour- government for sustainable development, age better site management and design.22 The whether supported by ICT or not, there is a decision to develop a centralized or decentral- need to emphasize collaboration, partnerships, ized e-government system depends on the mainstreaming, and inter-agency or interde- economic and political circumstances within partmental coordination across the whole a government and the objectives stated in its e- spectrum of governance. This includes collabo- government strategy. In either case, there needs ration and partnership with private sector and to be smooth cooperation among government authorities (central government, local govern- • civil society organizations. On funding: Governments fund their e- • ment and other administration bodies). government programmes in a variety of ways: On sustainability and efficiency: A study on the financing through a general fund, user fees, strategies of the European Union plus 21 other and public-private partnerships. When good countries showed that the most prominent economic conditions prevail, tax revenues strategic objectives that appear among e-gov- can be an effective way to pay for a one-stop ernment strategies are: enhancement of public government portal. When economic hardship sector capacity for better services; networked prevails however, spending on e-government government; efficiency; simpler procedures to and one-stop portals becomes more difficult as boost business participation; business facilita- it must compete with spending for education, tion; simplification of life; increasing public health care, and other social welfare concerns. value; and human capacity building, respec- Therefore, it may make sense to embark on tively.23 One of the study’s most striking findings ambitious one-stop portals during economic is that the most frequent guiding principle is to always consider efficiency while devising solu- • boom times. tions. The second most prevalent guiding prin- On systems transformation: The objective of ciple is to design e-government in such a way as one-stop government should be to focus on the to allow greater participation from the constitu- depth of services, integrating them as deeply as ents. Clearly, this is a social requirement that also possible, especially those frequently in high de- calls for government to become more responsive mand. The breadth of services should be the next and considerate vis-à-vis users of its services. A focus. Such an undertaking implies developing responsive government aims at offering better seamless links from the front to the back office. services. To achieve this, internal efficiency also An e-government system may have both needs to be attained. The third most important centralized and decentralized processes for guiding principle for e-government is to achieve implementing and executing e-government universal access, while the fourth was found to goals for the people. Neither system guarantees be user-centricity. All of these four goals, in turn, the success of these goals while each has its feed directly into making sustainable develop- advantages and disadvantages. Centralized ment citizen-centric and participatory. administrative systems allow IT requests to70

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 3Chapter Three Taking a whole-of-government approach It is important to note that creating a Herein lies perhaps the biggest conundrumone-stop portal is a great step forward towards facing whole-of-government approaches. Whileestablishment of a one-stop-shop. However, whole-of-government approaches and the tech-the portal per se does not guarantee such nological benefits to be derived thereof requirean outcome. That requires connecting all cooperation across the boundaries that separatethe e-government systems so that no matter one agency from another, and the governmentwhere the user starts his/her quest, he/she from the private sector, sustaining cooperationwill always be pointed to the desired service.24 among diverse entities is almost always difficultThis clearly needs collaboration among all if not a Herculean task. However, given thegovernment units. Internal efficiencies and substantial benefits for both governments andgovernment networking are therefore needed citizens that can result, many governments areto make systems sustainable. finding it well worth the effort. – 71



United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 4Chapter Four Supporting multichannel service delivery IQoncept/Shutterstock.com Chapter 4Chapter 4 SupportingSupporting multichannel service delivery multichannel service delivery4.1 Global and regional trends 74 Increasingly powerful and user-friendly technologies are creating4.1.1 Channel selection 75 opportunities for governments to offer new ways to interact with citizens in order to respond to their needs more effectively4.1.2 Integration of mobile services 76 and with their integral participation. Taking advantage of the introduction of devices such as smartphones, interactive voice4.1.3 Public service access points 77 response systems, digital television, and self-service terminals, the private sector has been making use of multiple channels4.1.4 Channel coordination 79 for a long time.1 Such initiatives encourage citizens to envision new forms of interaction with the desire that service providers –4.2 Challenges and opportunities 79 public and private – be as accessible and responsive as modern of multichannel service delivery technology allows. Although many governments are aware of this trend, few developing countries are exploiting the full potential of4.2.1 Strengthening service 80 multichannel service delivery to serve their constituents. delivery frameworks Multichannel service delivery is the provision of public4.2.2 Responding to changes in technology 81 services by various means in an integrated and coordinated way. Citizens can make selections according to their needs and4.2.3 Expanding delivery options 82 circumstances and receive consistent information and services through partnerships across channels resulting in an increase in their satisfaction and trust in government.24.3.4 Channel steering and 83 e-government marketing4.3 Conclusion and recommendations 83 73

4 Chapter Four United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Supporting multichannel service deliveryTable 4.1 List of countries Traditional channels can include face-to-face countries, and can be expected to play a leadingutilizing all channels contact, telephone or postal mail. Digital channels role in multichannel constellations going forward. encompass websites, mobile-based services and Research suggests that the economic and socialAustralia Malaysia public access points such as kiosks. Public agen- benefit of mobile technologies will be highest inAustria Netherlands cies can also make use of existing physical and rural areas, which currently have less telephonyBahrain Oman virtual networks managed by private sector or non- services.5 Mobile phones allow rural citizens ac-Canada Qatar governmental organizations. To facilitate higher cess to information, whether for business, medical,Chile Republic of Korea penetration of e-government and to advance effi- or educational purposes. For those without fixedChina Singapore ciency and effectiveness in public service delivery, addresses and without bank accounts, a cell phoneCroatia The former Yugoslav it is necessary that the use of all available channels provides a place where they can be contacted andDenmark Rep. of Macedonia be considered. a means through which they can pay bills. UnlikeJapan United Arab Emirates other forms of communication, including mostKuwait United Kingdom Multichannel service delivery can contribute web technologies, mobile phones do not require to sustainable development by delivering public literacy, although they can play a role in its devel-Multichannel services to those who most need them, that is for opment, at the same time contributing to a kindapproaches support the people. Poverty and isolation are closely re- of sustainable development that is people-centreddelivery of services lated in many parts of the world and result from and inclusive.6to the poor and the lack of access to markets, emergency healthincrease participation services, education, the ability to take advantage This chapter reviews the usage of multichannelof socially disadvan- of government services and so on.3 Multichannel service delivery mechanisms by national govern-taged groups service delivery supports the provision of acces- ments and specifically highlights mobile-basedin government sible services needed by the poor and increases technologies, due to their pervasiveness and agility.policy-making. the inclusion and participation of socially disad- It then presents some of the major challenges and vantaged groups in government policies and deci- opportunities that are faced by public officials re- sions. For example, public access Internet points sponsible for implementation of multichannel ser- in rural areas, supported by intermediaries, can vice delivery platforms and concludes with major bring the benefits of public services to poor people findings and policy recommendations. who would otherwise need to make tremendous efforts to reach them, such as travelling to the 4.1 Global and regional trends nearest city. The 2012 Survey finds that the majority of coun- Multichannel public service delivery can also tries are not fully utilizing the opportunities be used to deliver sustainable services to socially provided by multichannel delivery mechanisms. excluded groups. Research shows that these groups Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, France, require an intermediary person or organization to the Netherlands, Qatar, the Republic of Korea, enable them to benefit from a combination of in- Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sweden, the United formation and transactions to meet their highly Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the specific and complex needs. In multichannel de- United States rank high in multichannel service livery, public services can be delivered by using a delivery because they provide services in vari- mix of channels, complemented by human interac- ous channels such as traditional ones supported tion and networks. The intermediaries can be from by intermediaries, free access to public services any sector – public, private, or a social enterprise or through kiosks or WiFi, and mobile-based chan- community support group. Multichannel service nels such as mobile web or applications. As seen delivery is thus defined as involving the organi- from the list, these are all high income countries, zational interactions that make up the network, suggesting that financial capacity is one of the rather than as just a collection of access routes for main factors in implementing multichannel ser- delivering the service.4 vice delivery mechanisms. Among the channels within multichan- nel platforms, mobile-based technologies hold tremendous promise, especially in developing74

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 4Chapter Four Supporting multichannel service delivery4.1.1 Channel selection Figure 4.2 Breakdown of channels by region As seen in figure 4.1, 190 countries are using webchannels to deliver public services, which are by far Africa 94the most common means used across United NationsMember States. Seventy-one countries utilize public- 17private partnership, 32 use kiosks and 60 provide ser-vices via mobile-based channels. There are 19 countries 0which utilize all channels listed in figure 4.1, 15 being 7high-income countries and, the remaining four (Chile,China, Malaysia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Americas 100Macedonia), upper middle income economies. 29 37 29 Asia 100 53 32 47 Europe 100 56 37 51 Oceania 100Figure 4.1 Overview of channels 21 Webfor public service delivery 14 Public-private partnership 14 Kiosks Mobile-based channels 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Percentage of countriesWeb channels 190Public-private 71 and low income countries. This finding implies that Partnerships in whichpartnership countries with limited resources do not invest in mo- public services are 32 bile-based technologies and kiosks. However, public- provided usingKiosks 60 private partnership is the second most used channel private infrastructure in low income and lower middle income countries, are increasinglyMobile-based which implies that countries with limited resources common in low andchannels can still make use of the private sector to deliver pub- lower-middle income lic services. The figure confirms previous findings that countries where 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 193 countries with limited resources are not able to invest many people cannot Number of countries in kiosks and mobile-based channels. afford or do not have access to the Internet. Figure 4.2 shows the regional breakdown of Figure 4.3 Breakdown of channelschannels in percentages. As seen, public-private by income level 75partnership is the second most utilized channel inall regions except the Americas, where Member High 100States make use of kiosks more than public-private incomepartnership and mobile-based channels. In Oceania, 68utilization of kiosks is much lower (14 per cent) and 46there is no single country in Africa that lists usageof kiosks in its national portal. Delivering services 66through public-private partnership is utilized mostin Europe and Asia, 56 and 53 per cent, respectively. Upper- 98Public-private partnership is significantly lower in middleother regions and lowest in Africa (17 per cent). Asia income 29and Europe are also the leaders in the usage of mo- 38bile-based channels, 47 and 51 per cent, respectively.Utilization of mobile technologies by governments 35is lowest in Africa with only 7 per cent of countriesproviding services to citizens’ mobile devices. Lower- 100 middle Figure 4.3 shows the breakdown of channels based income 27on income level. As seen, usage of kiosks and mobile-based channels is very low in lower middle income 5 11 Low 20 94 income Web 0 Public-private partnership Kiosks 9 Mobile-based channels 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Percentage of countries

4 Chapter Four United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Supporting multichannel service delivery 4.1.2 Integration of mobile services Figure 4.4 Selected mobile-based channels for multiservice delivery Mobile phones are becoming the most rapidly ad- opted technology in history and the most popular SMS notification 27 and widespread personal technology in the world.7 service 25 Mobile government (or m-government for short), as one of the channels in multiservice delivery, Separate m- 29 has tremendous benefits for public agencies.8 government site 33 M-government can help modernize the public sector organizations – hence the business process, Mobile work and interactions between citizens and gov- applications ernment – using mobile-based services.  Mobile phone penetration extends outreach and access Payments using to often difficult-to-reach groups such as seniors, mobile phones people with disabilities and persons living in rural areas. Citizens have access to government 0 10 5 15 20 25 30 35 information and services anytime and anywhere Number of countries using wireless networks through their mobile andMobile devices are wireless devices. As mobile phones are typically Qatar, the Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia,among the most personal, the possibility of locating an individual’s Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the Unitedwidespread personal exact physical location ensures that governments States are the only countries utilizing all channelstechnologies in the can directly provide services to each person. depicted in figure 4.4.world yet m-service Empowerment of field workers and cross-agencydelivery lags behind interactions can reduce requirements and costs Figure 4.5 Breakdown of mobile-basedweb channel for time, travel and staffing, as well as eliminate channels by regiondevelopment in many redundant data entry. Mobile crews with mobilecountries. devices can increase unit availability. Real-time Africa 2 and location-based processes result in quick and 076 easily accessible data and communications, infor- mation consistency, responsive case management 4 and seamless information exchanges. 2 Figure 4.4 summarizes the findings of the 2012 Survey on selected mobile channels. Americas 14 Compared to the 2010 Survey, there is little dif- 14 ference in the number of countries that provide 11 SMS notification services. In 2010, 25 Member 9 States provided SMS service while in 2012, 27 out of 193 Member States had initiated the service of Asia 19 sending messages and alerts via SMS to citizens’ 28 mobile phones. The 2012 Survey started looking Europe 28 at the availability of a separate m-government site 30 in 2012 and noted that 25 Member States have a Oceania 0 website specifically designed for mobile phones. 0 28 Noticeable increases in mobile applications (from 7 19 14 Member States in 2010 to 29 in 2012) and in 19 mobile payment transactions (from 17 countries 14 in 2010 to 33 in 2012) were also noted. Bahrain, 30 SMS Separate m-gov. site M-apps Payments 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Percentage of countries Figure 4.5 shows the regional breakdown of mobile-based channels. As seen, there is little information about mobile-based channels in the national portals of countries in Africa. While there are many innovative and widespread uses of mobile phones by the private sector in Africa,9 the finding above implies that African govern- ments are running behind compared to the pri- vate sector in utilizing mobile-based channels. Madagascar is the only country in Africa – and

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 4Chapter Four Supporting multichannel service deliveryBox 4.1 Malta MyAlerts12: Notifications through multiple delivery channelshttps://www.mygov.mt As part of the e-government strategy to notifications, while myAlerts also provides enhance citizen communication with the citizens with news regarding ongoing and government, Malta provides timely no- new e-government initiatives. tifications and alerts citizens to govern- ment services of interest through multiple Using mobile channels makes sense in delivery channels. Malta myAlerts pro- Malta in particular, as mobile cellular sub- vides citizens with a one-stop-shop for all scriptions per 100 inhabitants were 109.34 notifications by email and SMS, allow- while internet users per 100 inhabitants to- ing citizens to be notified about various talled 63 in 2010 according to ITU. As the government services instantly. These ser- numbers reveal, the penetration of mobile vices are updated continuously to provide phones is much higher and public agencies the latest information on governmental can reach the majority of the population by using mobile-based services. ualso the only low income country – with a website Figure 4.6 Breakdown of mobile-basedoffering a service to send SMS messages to the channels by income levelcitizen’s mobile phone. High 38 Asia is the leading region in utilization of income 36mobile-based channels, specifically in providingmobile applications and a separate mobile gov- Upper- 12 38ernment site. In Singapore,10 citizens can receive middle 10 46timely and personalized SMS alerts and notifica- incometions for various services such as passport renewals 13 SMSand road tax renewals. In Malaysia,11 the Ministry Separate m-gov. siteof Agriculture and Agro-based Industries enables 13 M-appsfarmers to lodge reports on problems of paddy Paymentsattacks, including assaults by pests and diseases, Lower- 2through SMS, which will enable fast and imme- middle 4diate action to be taken by the Department of income 4Agriculture. The Republic of Korea provides a na-tional mobile portal service (http://m.korea.go.kr) 4through which citizens can use the m-governmentservices of each government organization and re- Low 3ceive customized national policy information at income 0once. Bahrain’s mobile portal, a mobile version ofthe national portal, enables anyone with a mobile 3phone to communicate with all government enti-ties and access their services, in addition to other 3services, via text message. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 Figure 4.6 shows the breakdown of mobile- Percentage of countriesbased channels based on income level. As seenin the figure, high income countries are much transactions via mobile phones are the mobilemore active in delivering public services through channel functions most utilized by high incomemobile-based channels compared to other coun- countries. Less than 5 per cent of lower middle-tries. It is also important to note that payment income and low income countries provide public services through mobile-based channels while the ratio hardly exceeds 10 per cent in upper middle income economies. 4.1.3 Public service access points Public agencies are using public-private partnership, kiosks, and free wireless access to services to provide additional access points to citizens. 77

4 Chapter Four United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Supporting multichannel service delivery Box 4.2 Turkey: UYAP SMS information system13 http://www.sms.uyap.gov.tr The SMS judicial information system, announcement related to their case needs developed by the IT Department of the to be sent. Thanks to this system, the parties Ministry of Justice of Turkey, provides a no longer have to go to the courts to collect legal notification service for its citizens this information. This service also provides and lawyers. This system automatically improved access for the disabled and el- informs all related parties who have cases derly and enhances overall e-accessibility. before the Turkish courts by short mes- The SMS service does not replace official sage service (SMS), also known as text notifications, as it only intends to provide message, when any legal event, data or up-to-date basic information. u As the private sector can bridge the gap be- the nature and scale of private sector provision is tween public agencies’ offers and citizens’ wishes often greatly dependent on how well public sector and requests, public-private partnerships can re- services are performing. sult in both increased efficiency and better cus- tomer-oriented service delivery.14 An important A review of cases suggests that more and more role private organizations can perform is to cre- governments are now using public-private partner- ate multifunction access points for citizens (e.g., ship to provide services. In India, citizens can visit when a citizen purchases a car, the dealer does all 51 e-seva centres (community one-stop-shops) the necessary work instead of the citizen having to with 400 service counters spread over the state of visit different government offices).15 The private Andhra Pradesh where they can pay taxes and utility sector’s comparative advantage can be its f lexible bills, register births and deaths, and apply for driver labour force, lower cost through competition, and licenses and passports, among other transactions. wide distribution network, which results in ser- The e-seva centres are formed as a result of partner- vices that are more accessible and acceptable to ships between the government and private firms citizens. However, it should not be forgotten that with government providing staff and firms provid- ing hardware and software in return for transaction Box 4.3 Italy: Reti Amiche for multichannel public service delivery http://www.poste.it/azienda/ufficipostali/reti_amiche.shtml In Italy, Reti Amiche (User-friendly More than 70 per cent of the front Networks) is an initiative adopted with the desks are Lottery and Betting Offices and aim of bringing the public administration Tobacconists, activated by Reti Amiche on closer to the citizen by offering as many the basis of memorandums of understand- channels as possible that provide access to ing signed with the Italian Tobacconist the various services and by adopting a user- Federation and with Lottomatica. Two types friendly rationale in interacting with the citi- of transaction that are the most frequently zens. The Reti Amiche utilizes the networks used are requests for the issuing of docu- and channels existing in the private sector ments such as passports, birth, marriage and (Post Office, Tobacconists, large-scale retail death certificates and residence permits; and trade outlets, ATMs, etc.) to provide infor- payment transactions such as social contribu- mation and deliver services through points tions for domestic help, taxes, and fines. Reti of access that are easily found and close to Amiche is an initiative of the Ministry for the citizens. Public Administration and Innovation. u78

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 4Chapter Four Supporting multichannel service deliveryfees. In Mexico, delivery of public services such as Figure 4.7 Availability of paymentsocial subsidies in remote areas is achieved through transactions in different channelsbanking correspondents.16 Telephone 26 The 2012 Survey assesses the availability of Kiosks 32free access to government services through kiosks Mobile phone 33or free wireless networks and finds that 24 coun- Webtries provide free access. In Estonia, free WiFi 71implemented by public agencies not only pro-vides wider access to government services but also 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70helps the economy by attracting global conference Number of countriesand event organizers.17 In the United States, SanFrancisco’s Department of Technology is expand- and responsiveness on the supply side. Storing dataing public WiFi in a variety of neighbourhoods centrally means that data need to be collected onlyas part of the city’s community broadband net- once and that they can be accessed (reused) bywork. In Mexico, digital community centres aim back office applications.to reduce the digital divide among adults, whilealso offering advanced tools, training and entre- The 2012 Survey assesses whether countriespreneurial support to younger generations who are coordinating delivery of public services acrossare already “wired.” In New Zealand, the city of channels. In order to do this, the Survey checksWellington has launched cbdfree,18 which is a availability of payment transactions in differentpublic access WiFi network that allows WiFi en- channels. As seen in figure 4.7, 26 Member Statesabled devices to freely connect with the Internet allow citizens to complete payment transactionsfrom anywhere outdoors within the designated by calling the respective agency. There are 33area. It is important to note that there is no low in- countries that accept payments via mobile phonescome country offering free access to government and 71 countries that accept payments via govern-services and that only three lower-middle income ment portals, and 32 countries have implementedcountries do so: El Salvador, Guatemala, and the self-service kiosks for citizens to complete pay-Republic of Moldova. ment transactions. For a positive user experience, it is important for public agencies to unify infor-4.1.4 Channel coordination mation delivery and transactions across channels and deliver the same message in all channels re- While previous sections analyzed availabil- gardless of citizens’ channel preferences.ity of multiple channels, it should be noted thatmultichannel public service delivery means more 4.2 Challenges andthan just using multiple channels. In multichannel opportunities of multichannelservice delivery, all channels are integrated and service deliverycoordinated. Front office applications commu-nicate to each other and support the service pro- While there are tremendous benefits associated withvision with centrally stored and accessible data. multichannel public service delivery, realizing theseCitizens always receive the same response and see benefits is not easy. Multichannel provisioning re-the same information no matter which channel quires substantial institutional change as well as co-they use to access public services. They can select ordination within government agencies and in sometheir preferred channels given their needs and cir- cases with outside organizations. The complexitycumstances and, especially with the availability of of multichannel projects further increases whenmobile channels, they can reach governments any- considering the challenges that public agenciestime, anywhere, anyhow. Central data storage andreuse of data increase governments’ performance 79

4 Chapter Four United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Supporting multichannel service delivery Box 4.4 ServiceOntario of Canada19 ServiceOntario is currently a programme The historical roots of ServiceOntario within the Ministry of Government and go back to the year 2000, when the http://www.ontario.ca/en/services_for_residents Consumer Services. It has the support of the Integrated Service Delivery Division was Cabinet, the Minister, a Board comprised created within the Ministry of Consumer of Deputy Ministers from other ministries and Business Services. The focus of the providing service, and key corporate stake- organization was on working with minis- holders. ServiceOntario delivers informa- tries to develop a multichannel service de- tion and transactional services through four livery system, with particular emphasis on channels: online, in-person, kiosk, and tele- the electronic channel. The involvement phone. Mechanisms used to encourage the of partner ministries was on a voluntary use of the online channel are service guar- basis at that time. However, in 2006, the antees (e.g., a two-day service guarantee Cabinet approved a revitalized vision and for an electronic master business license), mandate for ServiceOntario, which then and expedited services. ServiceOntario has became the government’s primary pub- built partnerships with the private sector to lic-facing service delivery organization. assist with service delivery (e.g., Teranet, a Ministries then ceased providing those private sector company, provides access to services that are delivered on their behalf the Ontario land registration system). by ServiceOntario. u sometimes face in e-government implementation. Allocating adequate resources for multichan- These include a bureaucratic culture, outdated poli- nel public service delivery projects is a must. Initial cies, budgetary constraints, inadequate technical costs can be quiet high since undertaking these skills and lack of leadership. projects would require a review of existing systems and infrastructure, including legacy applications. 4.2.1 Strengthening service Introducing new channels in the front office would delivery frameworks also require creating a back office that is able to handle these new channels in an efficient way. Since Public officials responsible for multichannel service multichannel provisioning requires collaboration delivery have a variety of channels at their disposal. within and between agencies, it is important to cre- Once government agencies can answer why they ate a fair financing methodology to accommodate want to offer new channels, they can make properly each agency. This can be achieved by taking into motivated choices in terms of which channels to im- consideration agency size, budget and referrals for plement and how to redesign services to reap the op- its services. Although a multichannel approach can, timal benefits from them.20 It is also important that in principle, enable an “anytime, anywhere, anyhow” these channels be part of a multichannel strategy policy of e-service delivery and increase efficiency, and that their impact and role are assessed within most government agencies, especially those oper- the context of that strategy overall. Introducing new ating on a shoestring, may not be able to afford to channels without clear goals may result in separate develop and maintain such sophisticated networks. channels that are neither integrated nor coordi- nated. Channels that “do not talk to each other” Multichannel public service delivery can con- would result in negative user experience and even- tribute to sustainable e-government development tually cause project failure due to low utilization. by enhancing the allocative efficiency21 of public administration. It is naïve to assume that new channels will always lead to cost savings and in- creased efficiency for public agencies. Instead, new80

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 4Chapter Four Supporting multichannel service deliverychannels should always be introduced to deliver a efficiency gains, many disadvantaged groups dobetter quality of public service to citizens. If a per- not have access to these channels. According tosonal ID can be issued within one hour on the basis the ITU, in 2011, 73.8 per cent of the populationof new channels, whereas before it took 30 days and in developed countries, 26.3 per cent in developingrequired citizens to queue up for two days in differ- countries and 34.7 per cent of the entire world pop-ent public agencies, the allocative efficiency may be ulation were able to access the Internet. This meansconsiderably higher even if the government spends that nearly 65 per cent of citizens worldwide do notmore on the delivery of that specific service.22 use the Internet at all. There is no access for 99 per cent of the population in Ethiopia, 95 per cent Competencies of the personnel involved in in Eritrea and Iraq, and 90 per cent in Mongolia,multichannel service delivery projects are ex- Nicaragua, and Angola. While mobile subscrip-tremely crucial. Strong project management and tions have increased dramatically in recent years,coordination skills as well as technical knowledge mobile broadband subscriptions are still very loware required. To address these needs, implement- even in developed economies and less than 5 pering a training and development plan in conjunc- cent in most of Africa.24tion with all the agencies involved in multiservicechannel delivery would be helpful. The plan needs Many citizens worldwide still cannot affordto start with different job streams, skill sets and to access e-services. Fixed broadband prices havecompetencies required for successful delivery dropped significantly in recent years but thereof public services in a multichannel platform. are still huge differences among countries when itProgrammes may be implemented where skills comes to affordability. ICT services continue to beand behaviours essential to service excellence are more affordable in high income economies and lessemphasized. Staff members working in different affordable in low income economies. According tochannels need to be trained in the specifics of that ITU, the cost of ICT services averaged 1.5 per centchannel, such as telephone skills for call centre of GNI per capita in developed countries, comparedagents and cash handling and dealing for front- with 17 per cent of GNI per capita in developingoffice agents. Once new technologies are used in countries in 2010. This obviously has significant im-the new channels, increasing personnel comfort plications for the uptake of ICT services for peoplewith the new technology and increasing their in developing countries.25perception of its ease of use are the best ways toprepare staff for technology acceptance.23 4.2.2 Responding to changes in technology Public officials need to take into considerationaccess and affordability issues while designing mul- Fast moving technology creates another challengetichannel service delivery platforms. Age, gender, for public officials implementing multichannel plat-income, educational background and level of dis- forms. Web 2.0 technologies such as social media,advantage affect citizens’ attitudes towards their e-participation tools and recent paradigms such aschannel choice. Public agencies can tackle these open data have only added to these challenges, andchallenges in different ways. Implementing a regu- public agencies have been slow to adjust to theselatory policy that favours competition can bring the new concepts of openness and interaction. Thereprices down so that more citizens can afford access are also growing numbers of available devices,to the Internet. Implementing social coverage pol- especially mobile ones such as smart phones andicy, which can aim at providing basic telephony and tablets that citizens are using. Finding the right bal-Internet access to the disadvantaged groups, can be ance between applications and devices and invest-another effective measure. ing wisely on technical platforms in an era of rapidly changing technology is a difficult task that public Internet access and cellular subscription con- officials face in the design of multichannel servicetinue to rise worldwide but the existence of the delivery systems.digital divide is also well documented. Whilegovernments encourage the use of electronic andmobile channels over traditional channels for 81

4 Chapter Four United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Supporting multichannel service delivery Public officials tasked with designing mul- channel for reaching people in areas with only mo- tichannel service delivery systems must have bile phone access. knowledge of the availability of different devices and their bandwidth requirements. For example, A new wave of development is happening in the proportion of mobile phones to personal mobile technologies with the use of smart phones computers can be a deciding factor on the type and web enabled phones. Mobile phones have of channel to be implemented. In countries with begun to turn into do-it-all devices that can act like low computer penetration, public agencies can portable computers. This is completely changing consider providing services through kiosks or the way in which citizens interact with govern- mobile-based channels. ments. People now can access public services by using applications in their smart phones that are Limitations of mobile devices and adaptation downloaded from commercial platforms. As addi- of information and services that can be provided tional channels, these applications offer a variety of by these devices should also be considered while useful tools, from finding the nearest tax office to designing new channels. During the assessment of reporting problems. government portals, it has been noted that many portals are laid out for presentation on desktop- 4.2.3 Expanding delivery options size displays and exploit capabilities for desktop through partnerships browsing software. Accessing such a web page on a mobile device often results in a poor or unusable Multichannel public service delivery can be used experience. Contributing factors include pages not to deliver sustainable services to socially excluded being laid out as intended. Because of the limited groups. Technology alone cannot guarantee that screen size and the limited amount of material that the benefits of multichannel service delivery will is visible to the user, context and overview are lost.26 reach large – and eventually all – parts of society. Mobile phones, therefore, may not be appropriate Disadvantaged groups maintain a strong preference for submission of long forms such as those needed for face-to-face channels and they are the biggest for filing taxes. Instead, phones can be used for pro- users (and people most in need) of public services.29 vision of emergency and other time-critical public In order to include these citizens in public service information to citizens. delivery, public agencies may consider utilizing and revitalizing traditional channels. Intermediaries To overcome limitations of mobile devices and such as those in the private sector and NGOs, sup- offer a better user experience, it is important for ported by a robust layer of technology, can pro- governments to utilize mobile-based technologies vide services to disadvantaged groups on behalf such as SMS, a separate m-government site or mo- of, or in partnership with, government agencies. bile applications. Intermediaries can assist citizens who cannot, or do not wish to access services themselves, but have SMS is one of the most widely used data appli- access to them through these third parties, whether cations in the world. Research shows that the main on an informal, professional or commercial basis. reason why citizens use SMS-based e-government This would also offer opportunities for advisers and services is because they believe that these services caretakers to offer personal services online and of- are easy to use.27 The total number of SMS sent fline and use ICT support systems to improve the globally tripled between 2007 and 2010, from quality of service, either where a personal approach an estimated 1.8 trillion to 6.1 trillion. In other is more appropriate or to fulfil the needs of specific words, close to 200,000 text messages are sent target groups.30 every second. In developing countries, seven out of ten people have access to SMS,28 which means Multichannel platforms require a sound coor- that people are more familiar with SMS than the dination framework in the public and third party Internet. As simple and cost-effective as it is, SMS organizations involved in service delivery. Services, is not widespread globally. SMS can complement information and processes in different channels e-government services where it is deemed that they are more appropriate, for example, providing a82

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 4Chapter Four Supporting multichannel service deliveryneed to be coordinated in such a manner that in- less technically oriented older people who rely Mobile phones areformation is available on every channel.31 A corpo- on traditional channels, public agencies need to now becomingrate culture with excellent coordination skills and a analyze their constituents in detail. This requires do-it-all devices thatcooperative mind set is required for multichannel understanding the social preferences of citizens, act like portableservice delivery projects. Achieving this harmony their habits of information consumption, as well computers, and canwithout strong policy leadership and political sup- as accessibility requirements, including people completely changeport is nearly impossible. with disabilities.. the way people interact with4.3.4 Channel steering and Monitoring the usage of new channels is government.e-government marketing equally important for citizen uptake once new channels are implemented. Officials need to be 83 While physical access to ICT infrastructures able to answer questions such as how many peo-is important for utilization of new channels, re- ple are using the new channel and through whichsearch shows that access alone is not enough.32 types of devices; how much it costs the agency toMotivation and desire to use electronic and mobile run the new channel; how well the devices operatechannels, as well as having the necessary skills and and under what conditions; what the basic usageconfidence are other factors that prevent people trends and satisfaction levels of users are; andfrom using online channels. Once new channels the demographics of citizens accessing the neware implemented, certain user groups may need channel. For instance,  Directgov  (http://www.to be motivated to give up traditional channels in direct.gov.uk) in the United Kingdom is avail-order to accomplish both a more efficient govern- able through the government’s website, throughment and better user experience. Inf luencing citi- any Internet enabled phone and through digitalzens to use the most cost-effective channels may TV. It has been found that users of the Directgovnot always be straightforward. Raising awareness TV service are more likely to be older (63 per centof citizens via communication campaigns about over 35, 40 per cent over 45, and 17 per cent overmore cost efficient channels can help to inf luence 55, respectively); the majority are not working (67citizen perception. In other cases citizens may per cent); and half (48 per cent) rarely or never useneed to be trained on how to effectively utilize the the Internet.34 Such analysis would give further in-new channels. Frequently used channels can be sight to public officials about the future directionused to inform the client on what other channels of multichannel provisioning.are available to satisfy their needs. For example,if somebody telephones a government call centre 4.3 Conclusion andand the answer is on the web, the caller could be recommendationsdirected to the Internet via an interactive voicesystem before a contact is established between the Multichannel public service delivery and spe-citizen and the call centre agent. cifically usage of mobile-based channels will con- tinue to be high on the e-government agenda in Citizens are not homogeneous and they all the coming years. Success factors in multichannelhave different needs. In order to increase user public service delivery depend on a vast range ofsatisfaction, it is important that public services parameters; there is no single formula or genericbe tailored to the needs of individual users to the solution that fits all situations. In some circum-extent possible. Public agencies are in a better po- stances, a wide variety of channels may be needed,sition to provide tailored services if they segment whereas in other situations, a limited number oruser populations, subdividing them into more or even a single channel will suffice. While designingless homogeneous, mutually exclusive subsets of multichannel service delivery systems, public of-users who share an interest in the service(s).33 In ficials should pay particular attention to the issuesorder to identify homogeneous subgroups such listed below:as younger clients who heavily use e-channels or

4 Chapter Four United Nations E-Government Survey 2012 Supporting multichannel service delivery Have a well-established by using the latest web technologies. While de- coordination framework across signing their e-government systems, public offi- stakeholders involved in cials need to clearly define the objectives of each multichannel service delivery channel and proactively consult with citizens and Multichannel public service delivery is a complex stakeholders for successful multichannel public process. It demands interrelated, intersectoral service delivery implementation. and integrated service delivery from the many sectors and government departments involved. Ensure that all groups and indi- Collaboration and coordination within and across viduals, particularly those disad- government agencies are needed for success. All vantaged in some way, can access channels need to share a set of common principles combined and flexible services using and their data and a culture of cooperation among multichannel delivery systems agencies must be in place. Effective coordination While aiming for high efficiency and effective- and cooperation call not only for technical in- ness, public officials need to keep in mind that all teroperability but also strong political and top level citizens have equal rights to access public services, management support. (See Chapter 3, Section 3.1.2 that is, all citizens should be able to access services Public sector interoperability.) even if they do not own or have access to the new- est and most innovative platforms, such as a smart Devote adequate resources to planning phone or tablet. Disadvantaged groups are the larg- before implementing new channels est and most in need users of public services but When new channels are designed, it is important also the least likely to be able to access or afford that their impact and role be assessed within the electronic and mobile channels. Public agencies context of an overall strategy. Seamless connectiv- can tackle access and affordability issues in differ- ity of different channels needs to be considered as ent ways. Implementing a regulatory policy that part of service delivery and is increasingly impor- favours competition can bring the prices down so tant as an enabler of public sector productivity. New that more citizens can afford access to the Internet. channels should be developed complementary to Implementing social coverage policy, which can existing ones wherever possible. Therefore, an evolu- aim at providing basic telephony and internet ac- tionary approach which tries to align new channels cess to the disadvantaged groups, can be another with existing practices is more suitable. effective measure. Kiosks and public access points are effective measures to overcome the digital di- Utilize the potential of all vide and reach out to segments of the population possible channels that are entirely unfamiliar with Internet applica- Research shows that a combination of contact tions. (See Chapter 5, Section 5.1 for factors inf lu- channels works best to increase e-government ser- encing e-service access and use.) vice adoption and public agencies should therefore provide multiple contact points.35 The existence Pay particular attention to of one channel and its applications alone does mobile-based services not guarantee results. Each channel should focus Mobile government gives public agencies an op- on exploiting its specific characteristics, usually portunity to address the digital divide, especially in those that they possess as a comparative advan- developing countries. M-government is expected to tage to other channels, to reach larger groups of continuously expand due to the high penetration of citizens. In this respect, traditional channels can mobile services, especially in developing countries. focus on reaching a higher number of citizens by As a result of convergence, mobile devices such as increasing access via kiosks or free wireless access tablets will become the primary and maybe the points; mobile channels can target mobile citizens only connection tool to the Internet and therefore as a complementary channel for e-government; to e-government services. Hence, the enormous and e-channels can further strengthen their reach potential of mobile devices is still largely untapped84