1.2 - L. ICT Policies and Strategies

Mr. Peter Moore, Regional General Manager, Public Sector and Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Asia Pacific, provided an overview of the main business, technology and policy issues in e-government. Mr. Moore said that connectivity was the key to successful e-government implementation. Other concerns of government included digital inclusiveness, security and privacy, all of which were associated with connectivity, with a focus on local economic development. Access and education were important to meet those goals, while a policy such as digital literacy for all would create an educated, competitive workforce. The overall goal should be to improve the quality of life for all people.

In education, the focus should be on more than just providing access to technology. It was also about ensuring that there was a place for people to learn, teachers had the skills and individuals had the means to achieve their potential. An enabling environment to create a technology economy included hardware, software and services (Figure 16 [PDF 51KB | 1 page]). The role of Microsoft was in the provision of people, training tools, programmes, worldwide reach and research. The role of government was to provide leadership, a research base, an education system, an appropriate business/regulatory climate to foster innovation and trade sharing of ideas across borders.

Mr. Moore described government as a series of disconnected islands and said that was one of the challenges in leveraging technology in government. At each layer of government, different tasks were assigned, but the responsibility to talk to other layers of governments was often not recognized. If government were to leverage IT, it had to reach from national to local levels of government and across the islands. In connecting Governments and constituents, recognizing the needs of constituents was very important. However, in developing countries in Asia and the Pacific, alternative and innovative solutions were needed. For example, was it necessary to provide a government portal when there were more mobile telephones than land lines in a country? Perhaps Governments needed to think about messaging and texting and other alternatives for community access. It was important hence, to look at constituents and how they accessed services.

In the late 1990s, the impetus was to create a government portal, but in many cases the portals were only one-way and limited to pushing information out without allowing interaction. The future of e-government should be taskoriented, with web services where government agencies became transparent to citizens and solved the problem of the complexity of the infrastructure themselves, rather than leaving it to citizens. Examples of good practice in that area included the Australian business register system, which provided one place for government (Figure 17 [PDF 62KB | 1 page]).

Mr. Moore noted that when planning changed, finding matching technology to that change was easy. However, finding the right people and skills was the challenge. He encouraged participants to think about taking smaller steps, rather than formulating one all-encompassing plan that had a high risk of failure. Technology was an enabler, but not the answer. For example, if people had no landlines or electricity, creating a strategy on how citizens could access government through a web site was not going to work. Governments should focus on meeting citizens' needs. He emphasized that sustainability was also important. Too often projects were undertaken without thinking about sustainability. That was where most of government's resources should be. Governments needed to learn how to market their online capacities and services. Activities had to be end-to-end to realize cost savings, and service improvements had to be delivered. Mr. Moore said that it was "80/20" – 20 per cent of inputs produced 80 per cent of results. That 20 per cent included:

• National vision and leadership
• Enabling policy
• Clear goals and implementation plans
• Partnership and collaboration
• Peopleware – citizen-centric mindset
• Localization – breach access barriers

Microsoft's vision was to enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential. Specifically, Microsoft aimed to deliver more value through innovation, trustworthiness, partnership and delivering choice, and integrated innovation and customer responsiveness. Mr. Moore said there were lessons for government as well. Further, more time was needed to think about education and lifelong learning. An educated workforce and citizenry were needed if e-government was to work. A trustworthy system was needed. Security, privacy, reliability and business intelligence were needed for trustworthy computing. A responsible leadership on public policy issues was required and an openness of the system was also needed.

He concluded by emphasizing that vision drove success, Governments must adapt, localize and leapfrog, and that change management was key.

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