e-gov, patricia j pascual

Information and communications technologies (ICTs) are playing an increasingly
vital role in the daily lives of people, revolutionizing work and leisure and changing
the rules of doing business. In the realm of government, ICT applications are
promising to enhance the delivery of public goods and services to citizens not
only by improving the process and management of government, but also by
redefining the traditional concepts of citizenship and democracy.
The effects of ICTs on societies are both far-reaching and uneven. On the one
hand, ICT is fueling the transition from industrial-based economies to knowledge-
based societies. On the other hand, ICT still has little or no impact in the lives of
people in many countries. This wide disparity in the impact of ICT around the
world today underscores the uneven progress of economic development. It also
highlights the critical role of government in the information age.
The goal of this primer is to clarify the major issues surrounding e-government, as
well as to provide readers with best practices in e-governance in the developing
world. Leaders committed to e-government are demonstrating that by combining
technology with new ways of operating, government can be made much more
effective, efficient, transparent and responsive.

What is e-government?
Definitions of e-government range from “the use of information technology to free
movement of information to overcome the physical bounds of traditional paper
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and physical based systems” to “the use of technology to enhance the access to
and delivery of government services to benefit citizens, business partners and
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employees.” The common theme behind these definitions is that e-government
involves the automation or computerization of existing paper-based procedures
that will prompt new styles of leadership, new ways of debating and deciding
strategies, new ways of transacting business, new ways of listening to citizens
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and communities, and new ways of organizing and delivering information.
Ultimately, e-government aims to enhance access to and delivery of government
services to benefit citizens. More important, it aims to help strengthen government’s
drive toward effective governance and increased transparency to better manage
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a country’s social and economic resources for development.