Analysing e-Administration in Developing Countries : Challenges & Best PracticesSofiarti Dyah Anggunia West Kalimantan Provincial Government, PontianakICT for Development (ICT4D), The University of Manchester, Manchester

Introduction

• This paper discusses e-government application which has role on improving internal administration processes as known as e-administration.

• The objective of this essay is to analyse the challenges and good practices of the changes from manual administrative jobs to electronic application.

• Essay structure:- PART I : e-Administration & Key Driver- PART II : Key Challenges- PART III : Best Practices- PART IV : Conclusion

PART I. e-Administratione–GOVERNMENT

• eGovernment: the use of information and communication technologies in the public sector.

• E-government drives the New Public Management (NPM) which adopts private sector techniques.

• Nevertheless, as a refinement of NPM, Digital Era Governance (DEG) offers future public management which involves flexible principles, i.e. reintegration, holism and digitalization (Dunleavy et al 2006).

• The main aim is to enhance better public management.

PART I. e-Administration• Focal Domains for e-Government Initiatives

PART I. e-Administration• e-Administration is a part of e-Government which handles

internal administration within government instead of external users such as citizens and businesses.

Definitions:• European Commission (2007b) defines e-administration

as an application using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to support back-office administrative tasks.

• Sánchez (2006) point out that e-administration is the use of communication technology to support information flow either in or outside the public authority.

• Heeks (2010) describes that e-Administration covers G2G relation to improve administrative processes in hierarchical organisation.

PART I. e-Administration• In autonomy era, decentralisation

divides government into two level organisations, i.e. central and local government (Bache and Flinders, 2005). Each level has different authorities. Nevertheless, they are interconnected (House of Commons 2009). They have strong coordination to deliver national development goals.

• However, both levels consist of many

departments those are divided into minor jobs in certain areas. These hierarchical structures typically lead to complexity of administration and specific duties within the organization (Niskanen 2007).

PART I. e-AdministrationDrivers of Change:• economic factors

cost savings, increase efficiency of work processes, the overall benefit and cost impact can be measured not only from government side, but also by user side, such as better service quality and savings of user time.

• organisational issue organisational cost reduction, it cuts bureaucratic within government by breaking down organisational boundaries (Fang 2002), modern bureaucracy (Dunleavy et al, 2006), streamline processes, reduce duplication and inconsistencies.

• political driver for example, it stimulates implementation of health management in Ecuador (Salazar, 2001). Despite focus on central operation, the Ministry of Public Health of Ecuador also enforced local level by central diktat.

• technological driverelectronic networks allow cross-matching and integration of data in different places and different departments. They also enable flexibility and connectivity to acquire much more autonomy which can be break down as e-Organisations or e-Agencies (Fang 2002).

PART I. e-Administration

ICTs and Public Processes

Automating Processes: ICTs Replace• Processes that are Cheaper• Processes that do More• Processes that are Quicker

Optimising Processes: ICTs Support• Processes that are Better

Reengineering Processes: ICTs Innovate• New Processes

PART I. e-Administration

e-Fez in Morocco: provide citizen certificates

Replace• Cheaper : saving transportation cost, less pay• More : 80–1500/day to 100–2000/day• Quicker : ±48 hours to 6 hours

Support• Better : increasing quality improvement of certificate delivery

from poor (58%) to excellent (83%).

Innovate• New : capability to predict the service delivery

PART II. Key Challenges Policy and Political Will • A regulation may become an impediment when it failed to support

the goals of e-government (Greenhill 2010a), including e-administration projects.

• Administrative law, copyright law, and liability law are some examples of legal areas that underpin e-administration barriers (EC 2007a).

• A weak policy may also caused by political leadership failures. It involves the failures in favouring e-government initiatives, minor prioritisation of resource allocation, poor senior management understanding of e-government and the lack of political will (EC 2007a).

Examples:• Participatory Information System (PIS) in Balochistan Province in

Pakistan: In making decision, senior officials did not use the formal and rational information generated by the system. Their decisions have been based on informal and political information (Qazi 2008).

• Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA): Changes of governments often follow by changes in regulations.

PART II. Key Challenges The Lack of Resources • The resources encompass infrastructures and human skills.• To take benefits of the new information and communication

technologies, the development of basic infrastructure is crucial for implementing e-government (InfoDev 2002; Greenhill 2010b), especially in small local authorities (Sánchez et al. 2006).

• Even though the infrastructures are available, uneducated workers cannot access the application because they lack for ICT skills (Dada 2006).

Examples:• (PIS) in Balochistan: The lack of IT access has constrained the project,

particularly in rural areas. The lack of IT skills were still exist. • NADRA Project: A lack of staff skills and the problems of hiring short-term

staff caused delays in producing outputs (Ahmed 2002). the shortage of computer equipment was also a barrier to gain maximum benefit from the system.

• National Data Bank (NDB) project in Bangladesh: Inappropriate technical, strategic and project capabilities within government had become a barrier for its implementation.

PART II. Key Challenges Sourcing and Internal Collaboration • Governments have to maintain partnerships with other

organisations, either private sectors or non-profit organisations, as well as relationships within departments (infoDev 2002).

• On the one hand, a poor coordination between central, regional and local agencies may leads to ineffectiveness of e-government (EC 2007a), especially for implementing e-administration.

• On the other hand, the large demand of e-administration systems requires external vendors to provide high quality products and services (Greenhill 2010c).

Examples:• NDB’s failure in Bangladesh: $440,000 project fell to the one of main

local IT provider. The poor coordination between government and suppliers then caused the withdrawal of the agent from the process.

• Computerise Programme in MoFA in a West African state: Politicisation and personalisation tendering was an obstacle on its implementation.

• e-Government Projects in Abu Dhabi: a problem of internal government collaboration caused failures. This unsuccessfulness due to the lack of cooperation within government (Ng, 2009).

PART III. Best Practices e-Leadership • e-leadership means the changes of attitude, behaviour, thoughts,

performance of people in organisations as an impact of the use of information technologyAvolio et al. (2001).

• Regarding the e-government transformation, every level of officials and administrators should have enough understanding of the technology to push the administrative reform (infoDev 2002).

• Strong leadership, both from executives and legislatives, can enhance confidence of a program. Chief Information Systems (CIO) need to be established in all government bodies to support IT initiatives (EC 2007a).

Examples:• Birth Registration Information System (BRIS) in Rajshahi,

Bangladesh: The Mayor of local government influenced the BRIS sustainability. It has made a contribution on motivating senior commissioners to support this application for accepting their advantages of being re-elected.

• Colombia’s Government Portal (PEC) : The PEC was extremely success because of high supports from the President directly. He launched the project with the presidential decree, namely Directiva 02.

PART III. Best PracticesResource Management • A good resource management is prioritising the most important

elements, for example basic hardware and software, and employee training.

• Government may implement open source application in order to reduce the high cost of buying licence software (Sánchez 2006).

• A constant and intensive employee training should be provided (Holmes 2001), both direct and distance learning, to make sure the sustainability of the system.

Examples:• Open Source Software (OSS) in Malaysia: Malaysia has been identified as

90% success rate for adopting OSS in government (Tiemann 2010) . OSS not only helps government to improve its job, but also enhances national economic development.

• Mobile Phone to connect health workers to the ministry of Rwanda Government: A monthly report about expectant mother and infants has been delivering directly by the employees, thus the central government could monitor and administering medicine availability to the people.

• Education Project for The Public Servants in the Government of Moldova: It was success in teaching the government employees to know how to operate computers, the Internet and office applications.

PART III. Best PracticesOutsourcing and Effective Collaboration • A strong partnership has to be managed efficiently.• Communication is a key point to build an effective collaboration with

other third parties, such as academics and private sectors (2010). • It is almost impossible for government to develop an integrated system

without providing a larger market (Greenhill 2010c), considering the huge responsibility that the government has to deal with.

• Cooperation and integration within government also have to be strengthened with encouraging agencies and departments (infoDev 2002).

Examples:• eFez application by Morocco’s government: Bureau d’Etat Civil (BECwith

researchers from Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, the government has built a pilot project to delivery formal certificates for citizen purposes.

• Rwanda e-Health case: The government together with its technology partners, i.e. MTN and Voxiva, provided 2,500 mobile phones to the health workers in villages.

• Government Electronic Network (GovNet) in Albania: The project was extremely success because a constant communication between government and other stakeholders has been developed from the beginning.

PART IV. Conclusion

• E-administration as a G2G application is a key point to success back-office within agencies.

• Many electronic public administrations have been deployed, due to forcing from political, economic, organisational and technological factors.

• These three drivers enable development of government performances on doing cheaper, more, quicker, better and new capabilities.

PART IV. Conclusion

• Political problem in executives as well as legislatives has to be minimised with e-leadership initiatives, such as providing or enhancing Chief Information Officer.

• The digital divide, as never end problem, can be managed by infrastructure strategies and capacity building programme in each level government.

• Finally, outsourcing and partnership barriers may be broken by maintaining good relationship either within internal government or between government and other third parties.

• The most important lesson is that a successful e-administration project needs strong commitment from all stakeholders.