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7 years ago

e-Governance and economic growth

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The use of information and communication technology (ICT) in public service delivery is usually termed e-Governance. There is no debate that the integration of ICT in public service delivery has many benefits. Notable ones are reduced time and cost to access the public service. For example, instead of going to passport office to know the status of issuance of passport, getting the status over the phone through an SMS is far faster as well as a cheaper means for citizens. But should we consider the role of technology integration in public service delivery as an isolated intervention? Or, should we also look into it as a means to increase our local innovation capacity and to drive economic growth?

 

 

The use of ICT in public service delivery started with the replacement of typewriters with personal computers and printers. In course of time, those computers were connected through dedicated networks, and eventually through the Internet. In recent times, computers have also been connected with mobile telephone network, particularly to take the advantage of short messaging services (SMSs). Over the years, both dependence and investment in technology for improving public service delivery have been increasing. For example, a single multilateral lending agency has current commitment of almost USD900 million for ICT components spread over 21 ongoing projects in Bangladesh. Utilisation of such large investment not only depends on just procurement and deployment of readily available technologies, but also on continuous service and organisational transformation leveraging such investment. Moreover, the information security concern of integrated public service delivery over the digital platforms, eventually progressing towards paperless operation, is raising growing concern.

 

 

So far, the e-Governance programmes in Bangladesh and many other developing countries have focused on procurement of off the shelf technology solutions and managing the deployment with the support of foreign consultants. Till date, investment in e-Governance has been kept limited within the agenda of improvement of public service delivery only. But due to growing investment and public reliance, it's becoming imperative to look for other options to expand the scope of leveraging growing financial outlay, and also to address cyber security concerns. Instead of looking into mounting investment in e-Governance just for the purpose of improvement of public service delivery, it would be prudent to use it as an window of acquiring growing capability to innovate more complex, high-value ICT solutions-both for improving the functioning of the government and other services.

 

 

Despite the growing human resource, job creation urgency and political commitment, it's well understood that the growth of local value addition capacity and job creation of local ICT firms are far behind our target. It's well understood that a whole new era of discovery and innovation lies before us. But to capitalise on its potential, like many other developing countries, Bangladesh needs to work on its key weaknesses-related to innovation ecosystem. Today, too many promising leads fail to make it to market because of the missing link among good ideas, inspiration, development and commercialisation. The journey of taking the innovative ICT ideas to the market to generate profitable revenue is highly complex, as well as uncertain. Neither the public nor the private sector can do it alone in a complex, high-cost, high-risk environment. Rather a bridge needs to be created between the academia, industry and government - the triple helix of e-Governance.

 

 

The shifting of e-Governance from fragmented technology deployment to integrated digital ecosystem has been demanding continuous innovation-for steady service and organisational transformation. In the absence of local innovation capacity, such transformation is not feasible. Moreover, the growing cyber security threat is also raising the question of reliance on foreign firms to pursue core public service transformation over the digital channels. To address such and other issues, local value addition in developing integrated digital public service delivery platform has become a crucial issue. Progression of local value addition capacity will also develop the national capability of monitoring the technology progress, pursuing proven policy and regulatory reforms, and conceiving projects, which will likely produce maximum return on investment.  

 

 

The integration of technology in pubic service delivery improves the performance. But what should be the performance improvement target? The performance improvement target should not only be limited to replacement of human roles with technology. Rather it should focus on innovation to maximise the implication on economic growth. With the growing investment in e-Governance and scope for innovation, conscious efforts should be taken to target quantitative contribution to GDP growth, with the progression of migration of public services to digital channel.   To progress along this line, it is recommended that e-Governance Development Index should be linked with the economic growth. Specifically, we should target for an indicator: X percentage of shifting of public services to digital channels will lead to Y per cent increase of GDP. In the absence of such economic indicator, it will be quite difficult to measure economic growth as a result of investment on e-Governance. 

 

 

The issues of procurement complexity in engaging local firms are understandable. It is understandable that value addition will take place, as foreign firms will likely form partnership with local counterparts. We should also look into the issue from political-economy perspective as well. e-Governance proposition of making possible maximum contribution in local value addition, leading to job creation and firm level growth, also contributes to buy-in of country's political leadership.

 

 

There is no doubt that there is an intuitive correlation between public service migration to digital channels and economic growth. But in the absence of taking it as an indicator and setting quantitative target to attain attractive value, justification of large-scale investment in integrated digital government (IDG) in economic planning becomes questionable. To create buy-in of large-scale e-Governance initiatives, the correlation between e-Governance service uptake with economic growth should be included and attractive target should be set to attain. Once such indicator is given due consideration, the quality and efficiency of improvement of services, and the selection of services will be guided towards having maximum implications on economic growth.

 

 

In the absence of these two indicators, growing investment in e-Governance runs the risk of being questioned along the line of 'Value for Money'. It's well understood that the inclusion of these indicators are going to increase the complexity of e-Governance initiatives. But it's also the case that measuring success along these two indicators, in addition to others, will strengthen the justification of making large-scale investment. Once substantial progress in these two indictors is shown, making the case of undertaking complementary projects will have strong reason.

 

 

With the given nature of investment being made and the leveraging opportunity, e-Governance should no longer be looked upon from the perspective of isolated deployment of readily available technologies-with the support of foreign consultants. Prudent approach should transfer e-Governance projects as a platform for effective collaboration of the government, industry and academia, to address multiple development issues simultaneously-including job creation, human resource development, cyber security, local value addition, economic growth and strengthening the industry. Moreover, we must target quantitative linkage of e-Governance investment to economic growth to justify large-scale investment for public service migration on digital channels.

 

 

M Rokonuzzaman Ph.D, academic, researcher and activist: Technology, Innovation and Policy, is Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North South University, Bangladesh.

[email protected]

 

 

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