UN launches new training course to help Asian developing countries use ICT
http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=26748&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=26748&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
The government wanted to keep parliament informed of progress to date on its IT and eGovernment strategy, as well as on some current changes and updates. Approval is also needed for two supplementary credits in 2008 to pay for the ambitious plan. The extra loans will add up to CHF1 125 000 (approx. €694 700).
It is well worth it, in the authorities’ view. eGovernment, they point out, is “often a synonym for modern and efficient administration”. It enables Liechtenstein’s national administration to “supplement the traditional means of service provision with electronic access for a broad section of the public”. In recent years, the Internet has contributed to “major qualitative progress in communication between the national administration and its customers – i.e. business, citizens and administrations”.
The report, and an accompanying motion put to parliament, analyses the current eGovernment situation in Liechtenstein as well as giving detailed presentations both of strategy implementation and of individual projects. The aim is to create a wide range of user-friendly basic services by 2011. According to the government, the national administration’s clients should, in future, “be able to accomplish as many administrative processes as possible easily and fast by electronic means, without needing any particular knowledge of who is responsible, nor any special technical know-how”.
Amid the growing research of e-government, prominent e-democracy practices have been regulated to sporadic, largely populated municipalities, throughout the world. This article examines the various factors that support and deter the practices of an electronic democracy. Factors which potentially challenge and support the progress of online democratic practices are explored. These factors include budgetary constraints, form of government, and ideological perspectives of municipal managers. Chief administrative officers were surveyed on their views of e-government, with specific focus on the function of e-democracy. The data reviews online practices of municipalities in New Jersey, and through ordinal regression it becomes evident what are some critical factors for the future potential of an e-democratic society.
The findings emphasize the role of e-democracy as more of an ideological innovation than as a functional innovation. Many of the predicted variables based on e-government research were found to be insignificant when it comes to e-democracy. e-Democracy becomes more a function of a manager’s view toward the practice of online democracy than as a function of resources, planning, size and having an IT department. This study was limited in scope, and has some generalizing limitations, but the findings are still able to highlight the unique nature of e-democracy in small-populated municipalities. Not all factors previously found significant in the study of e-government are critical in the study of e-democracy. This finding emphasizes the need for further research specific to the function of e-government. That is, e-democracy should be independently studied or categorized when doing large e-government studies so as to best understand the influential aspects. e-Democracy has its specific functions and ideological framework of utilizing technology for democratic purposes.
Governments face growing pressure to improve the customer experience for citizens accessing public services, according to a new Deloitte report titled One Size Fits Few: Using Customer Insight to Transform Government.
Leading businesses have trained people to expect high quality, personalized services -- standards that citizens are now applying to government. At the same time, governments around the world are confronting significant short- and long-term fiscal pressures -- from managing rising health care costs to rebuilding public infrastructure. According to the Deloitte study, governments can both reduce costs and improve the level of service they offer to their consumers by adapting to the public sector some of the customer-centered reforms pioneered by leading companies.
Rufat Gulmammadov, the MCIT Information Society Department’s director, said that the workgroup is works on preparation the second stage of the programme “E-Azerbaijan”.
“In two or three months we will discuss its final version. After its adoption we will apply such projects as e-government, regional innovation zones, technoparks,” R.Gulmammadov said.
The Programme will continue E-Azerbaijan Programme to be valid until 2008. At present the country is applying State Programme of Information & Communication Technologies (E-Azerbaijan) for 2005-08. The fresh programme will set a challenge of full realization of ICT sector potential to bring it to the leading position (along with oil and gas sector) in economy of Azerbaijan.
http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%20Information%20Technology%20Report/index.htm