Defined broadly, E-Government is the use of ICT to promote more efficient and effective government, facilitate more accessible government services, allow greater public access to information, and make government more accountable to citizens.
The fact that governments need to make use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) is no longer questioned. It is globally recognized that ICT promotes good governance and clean government.
ICTs help improve efficiency in mass processing tasks and public administration operations. Internet-based applications can generate savings on data collection and transmission, provision of information and communication with customers. Significant future efficiencies are likely through greater sharing of data within and between governments.
Adopting a customer focus is a core element of the current reform agenda. Successful services are built on an understanding of user requirements. A customer focus implies that a user should not have to understand complex government structures and relationships in order to interact with government. The Internet can help achieve this goal by enabling governments to appear as a unified organization and provide seamless online service. As with all services, e-government services must be developed in light of demand and user value.
ICT can help stakeholders share information and ideas and thus contribute to specific policy outcomes. For example, online information can boost use of an educational or training program and information sharing between central and sub-national governments can facilitate environmental policies. The sharing of information on individuals, however, will raise privacy protection issues, and the potential trade-offs need to be carefully assessed.
E-Government helps reduce corruption, increases openness and trust in government, and thus contributes to economic policy objectives. Specific impacts include reduced government spending through more effective programs, and efficiencies and improvements in business productivity through ICT-enabled administrative simplification and enhanced government information.
The great majority of countries are facing the issue of public management modernization and reform. Current developments mean that the reform process must be continuous. ICTs have underpinned reforms in many areas, for example by improving transparency, facilitating information-sharing and highlighting internal inconsistencies.
Building trust between governments and citizens is fundamental to good governance. ICT can help build trust by enabling citizen engagement in the policy process, promoting open and accountable government and helping to prevent corruption. Furthermore, if limits and challenges are properly overcome, e-government can help an individual's voice to be heard in a broad debate. This is done by harnessing ICT to encourage citizens to think constructively about public issues and assessing the impact of applying technology to open up the policy process.
ICT helps to increase the transparency of decision-making processes by making information accessible - publishing government debates and minutes, budgets and expenditure statements, outcomes and rationales for key decisions, etc.
Defined broadly, E-Government is the use of ICT to promote more efficient and effective government, facilitate more accessible government services, allow greater public access to information, and make government more accountable to citizens.
The fact that governments need to make use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) is no longer questioned. It is globally recognized that ICT promotes good governance and clean government.