Context

Governments, worldwide are investing substantial human and financial resources to achieve improved service delivery, transparency and accountability using ICT. The benefits of e-Government, where they are apparent, result from the application of technology to a process of transformation involving innovation in building capacity, practices, and overall improved business process. 

This investment in people, processes and technology has proved challenging in the most well-resourced and technologically advanced contexts and poses special challenges in countries low down on the WDR/HDI rankings.  Given the complex interplay of success factors; including appropriate policies, regulatory frameworks, infrastructure investments, choice of technology, techniques for effective change management and creating relevant content, etc: it is not surprising that many e-Government implementations fail or run hopelessly over cost and time targets.  However, even when implementation is only partially successful the benefits can be real, positively redefining the relationship between citizens and their Governments.

Objective

The establishment of the WITFOR E-Government Commission provides a global knowledge-sharing and networking forum to explore: What works, what does not and why?’ As well as the key question of ‘how?’ e-government implementation varies between countries across the range of various e-readiness indices.

WITFOR 2009 will explore the following areas:

1. Public Private Partnership in the context of E-Gov Procurement

2. Content

3. Capacity-Building

4. Open Source Solutions

5. Emerging National Security Issues