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STATEMENT
BY
Excellencies
Today’s Breakfast Meeting for UN Permanent Representatives and Honoured Guests, is a follow up to a series of lectures that have been organized under the auspices of the Working Group on Informatics, and sponsored by AIT Global Inc. These lectures, which draw experts from the private sector, are aimed at sensitizing the Permanent Missions with the powerful tools of Information and Communication Technologies.
E-Government can be defined as the use by government agencies of information technologies (such as utilizing the internet and the world wide web networks, and mobile computing) that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. According to the World Bank, some of these technologies can serve a variety of different ends by delivering government information and services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through access to information, or more efficient government management., revenue growth, and/or cost reductions. E-Government ensures that the population has access to timely, useful, and relevant information and services, and hence an alternative channel for accessing information and services and interacting with the government.
E-government is based on principles that services are around the citizens’ choices:- services that will be more accessible and provided regularly, and that the tax payers money is used effectively and efficiently. Over the last several decades, these services have evolved in stages from the provision of simple telephone/fax directories by governments, to official web sites with links that provide information on legislation, newsletters, publications and links to user ministries or departments. With improved technologies, and additional resources, more governments have expanded the services to enable the citizens to search the databases and download various forms and submit them for processing. As sophistication grows, the services will include transactions for visa, passports, birth and death records, and payments - all to be performed on-line.
In most of the developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, E-government is a new and challenging phenomenon whose implementation is prioritized side by side with other pressing social services like poverty eradication and provision of education and health services. These countries need the basic vital e-government components such as PC hardware, software, telephone lines, internet access, and qualified personnel. However, with emerging information and communication technologies, investing in the appropriate ICT infrastructure and human capacity building, it is possible to set up tele-centers that will enable ordinary citizens to have cheap access to government information bureaus and ministries. According to UN statistics for 2001, of the 190 UN Member states, 169 (88.9%) of their national governments used the internet in some capacity to deliver information and services. For 16.8 % of these governments, their presence on the internet was just emerging
I am confident that our expert panelists will provide useful information on e-government, which if implemented, should result in the reduction in government red tape and empower civil servants to serve citizens better, be more responsive to their needs, and break down barriers between government and the public.
I continue to be grateful to the private sector for their partnership with Working Group on Informatics, and I appeal to them to extend this gesture to our governments as we strive towards reducing the digital divide.
I thank you.
Kenya Mission to the United Nations © 2002 by CODIA |