Success and Failure in eGovernment Projects

What is eGovernment?

A. What is eGovernment?

eGovernment is the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to improve the activities of public sector organisations.

Some definitions restrict e-government to Internet-enabled applications only, or only to interactions between government and outside groups.  Here, we do not - all digital ICTs are included; all public sector activities are included.

In our definition, then, governments have been practising e-government for more than 50 years: using that first mainframe in the Statistics Office was "e-government".  We just didn't give it that name 50 years ago.

B. What Does eGovernment Cover?

There are three main domains of e-government, illustrated in Figure 1 (adapted from: Ntiro, S. (2000) eGovernment in Eastern Africa, KPMG, Dar-es-Salaam) :

Respectively, these particularly address the problems that government is too costly, too inefficient and too ineffective (e-admininstration); too self-serving and too inconvenient (e-citizens and e-services); and too insular (e-society).

Figure 1: Focal Domains for eGovernment Initiatives



In a little more detail, the domains of e-government are as follows.

B1. Improving Government Processes: eAdministration

eGovernment initiatives within this domain deal particularly with improving the internal workings of the public sector.  They include:

B2. Connecting Citizens: eCitizens and eServices

Such initiatives deal particularly with the relationship between government and citizens: either as voters/stakeholders from whom the public sector should derive its legitimacy, or as customers who consume public services.  These initiatives may well incorporate the process improvements identified in section B1.  However, they also include a broader remit:

B3. Building External Interactions: eSociety

Such initiatives deal particularly with the relationship between public agencies and other institutions - other public agencies, private sector companies, non-profit and community organisations.  As with citizen connections, these initiatives may well incorporate the process improvements identified in section B1.  However, they also include a broader remit:

C. How Do I Spell "eGovernment"?

There are many variations.  The forms we try to stick to here are:

 

Page Author: Richard Heeks. Last updated on 19 October, 2008.
Please contact richard.heeks@manchester.ac.uk with comments and suggestions.