AWERProcedia Information Technology & Computer Science

AWERProcedia Information Technology & Computer Science 1 (2012) 876-881

2nd World Conference on Information Technology (WCIT-2011)

E-government implementation problems in developing countries Ali M. Al-Naimat a *, Mohd Syazwan Abdullah*b, Wan Rozaini Sheikh Osman c, Farzana Kabir Ahmad d a,b,c,d

ITU-UUM Center of Excellence for Rural ICT Development,Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010 Sintok, Kedah, MALAYSIA a,b,c,d School of Computing, College of Arts and Sciences,Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010 UUM Sinto k, Kedah, MALAYSIA

Abstract E-government can be described as a sophisticated system that connects the government with businesses, citizens, and other stakeholders using computers and the internet to achieve desired objectives and benefits. Most e -government researchers have classified e-government initiatives into three major categories: government-to-business (G2B), government-togovernment (G2G), and government-to-citizen (G2C). Such classification is based on the needs of the stakeholders, as some stakeholders may require transactions via internet, while others are only interested to access the information. E-government generally has two main objectives, namely to provide internal focused processes and to offer external focused services. Internal focused processes are process that provides services to internal community for example to employees and other government agencies. These services are mainly given to enhance the collaboration among agencies and increase work efficiencies and productivities. External focuses services on the other hand aims to provide services to the public, business, and other agencies at anytime without waiting in long queues. In this application, interactions between various governments are simplified by using online services. Although e-government implementation could be useful to enhance the quality of services, it’s development is not simple. As a result, this paper discusses the problems of e-government implementation in developing countries, which are normally carried out by simply adopting the experience of developed countries. Lacks of changes in the political and social aspects, lack of harmonization between the design of implementation strategies and the reality of application in current and future systems, as well as the gaps in this area are also discussed. A novel way to handle these problems is also highlighted. Keywords: E-government Implementation, Developing Countries, E-government Failure, Success Factors. Selection and/or peer review under responsibility of Prof. Dr. Hafize Keser. ©2012 Academic World Education & Research Center. All rights reserved.

* ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE: Ali M. Al-Naimat, -UUM Center of Excellence for Rural ICT Development,Universiti Utara

Malaysia, 06010 Sintok, Kedah, MALAYSIA

877 Ali M. Al-Naimat / AWERProcedia Information Technology & Computer Science (2012) 876-881

1. Introduction The computer’s widespread use in developed and developing countries has invented a new revolution in information and communication technology (ICT). This revolution is known as the digital revolution. The digital revolution has changed daily lifestyle for people all around the world, especially those who live in developing countries [1]. These changes include the way governments interact with their citizens, business and other entities. Unlike conventional approach, e-government offers services at the fingertips. Accordingly, the development of e-government initiatives possibly lead to the construction of good governance that is free from corruption, strengthen existing relationships and create new partnerships within civil society [2]. E-government refers to the use of ICT tools such as Internet-based applications, phones, and other digital means to delivery e-government services at lower cost and greater public access [3, 4]. The advent of the Internet, digital connectivity and widely use of innovative technologies have open a new opportunity to empower citizen through the access of information and knowledge. As a result, e-government is a global phenomenon taking place in developed and developing countries [5]. According to Ndou [1], many developing countries are recognizing the power of using ICT tools to support e-strategies and initiatives to address the economic, social, technological, infrastructure, legal, and educational issues. The use of technology in providing government services is also observed to improve the lifestyle of the population in developing countries up to 80%. Furthermore, e-government initiatives can assist in increasing government’s transparency to better manage a country’s economic and social resources. E-government can be described as a complicated system that connects the government with the other entities, such as businesses, citizens, and other stakeholders by using ICT tools like computers and the internet to achieve desired objectives and benefits [6]. Most e-government researchers classify e-government initiatives into three main categories: government-to-business (G2B), government-to-government (G2G), and governmentto-citizen (G2C), which usually depends on the need of the stakeholders. G2B is a type of e-government initiatives that includes electronic interaction between government agencies and private businesses. Companies involved in such category are interested to lower their cost and increase the inventory control. As a result, egovernment initiatives help in providing a healthy business and competitive environment. G2G on the other hand is a term used to refer the interaction between governmental organizations . Notably, government organizations are operating as single unit. Various transactions are govern at different levels such as national, regional, local, or even other foreign government organization. For this reason, online services are provided to collaborate and integrate all these entities. Quite opposite from G2B and G2G, G2C deals with the relationship between government and citizens. G2C allow citizens to get faster access on the government information and provide a venue for them to contribute their opinion. Another current category is the government-to-employee (G2E), which describes the contact established between the government and the people who work within the government [7, 8, 9]. Despite of the successes and acceptance of e-government initiatives in the form of egovernment systems, it is not fully implemented in many parts of the world. Failed e-government initiatives are evidence to the difficulties in accepting a fully functional system and the inability of implementation to achieve the set goals. The implementation of e-government initiatives has become one of the main goals in several countries. However, e-government implementation is not a simple task. E-government initiatives have encountered different problems in its implementation and thus these are not fully implemented in developing countries. Therefore, a thorough analysis on these problems is required to identify the challenges in developing egovernment model that suit developing countries. The reminder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses a number of problems in implementing e-government in developing countries. Based on these identified issues, Section 3 presents emerging research direction, while Section 4 provides concluding remarks.


2. Problem and Gaps in Implementing E-Government in Developing Countries E-government is one of the most important ICT applications to sustain and improve standard of living around the world. In addition, it serves as a measurement tool to determine the country’s development strategies through the level of application and completed initiative in e-government implementation. As a result, the implementation of e-government initiatives has become one of the main goals to boost the operations and services in government organization. Accordingly, most governments are interested and looking forward to implement e-government initiatives that best suit their respective countries. Regardless the great interest, there are many differences in e-government implementation. Some models are built to achieve specific objectives, while others are developed upon different benefits. Therefore, direct usage of these models may not be appropriate and eventually have caused many e-government project failures. The failure of e-government implementations in developing countries have been discussed in several studies such as [5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17]. Researchers have discovered that 85% of e-government implementations have failed to attain their main objectives, in which 35% are classified as a total failure and 50 % are categorized under partial failure. Total failure occurs when the initiative was never implemented or was implemented but immediately abandoned, while partial failure take place when the major goals for the egovernment initiative were not attained and/or there were significant undesirable outcomes. In addition, only 15% of e-government implementations are observed to be successful developed and are able to achieve predetermine goals. Based on this analytical review, the process of e-government implementation in developing countries is still considered at the initial level. Therefore, to identify the actual causes for these failures, this paper discussed several problems that typically plague the development of e-government. Adopting e-government initiatives from developed country - Most e-government implementations in developing countries are built upon the initiatives that were carried out in the developed countr ies. According to [18, 19], although it is simple to re-implement e-government based on existing systems, this approach is not appropriate since many developing countries are not yet ready to adopt this expansion. In addition, the e-government initiatives that were implemented in developed countries are generally based on their own theories and experiences which may not be applicable to other counties, especially developing countries that are still struggling even in developing their basic infrastructure. Most e-government models in developed countries are exclusively designed to cater their specific contexts, ranging from economic, social and political aspects. Since every country is unique and portraits distinctive characteristics, it is quite obvious that e-government systems that belong to developed countries will not work well in others developing countries. Therefore, these egovernment models are required to be modified accordingly to the developing country’s situation and requirement before it can be applied in developing countries. The political and social changes - The political and social changes are other issues that should be taken in consideration in developing e-government system. Political change is a situation where there is a gap between the current political situation and what is required for a successful e-government implementation to take place. Generally, the political desires from government officials play an important role in achieving e-government goals. Self interest, political dominance and effective project management are examples for political drivers that can influence the success of e-government implementation. E-government is not just about value-neutral technological advances in service delivery and communication, but it also affects societal groups in different ways. There are a number of possible outcomes when implementing e- government such as a scale of low and high impact on society status. Divisions in high and low skilled, rich and poor, as well as disabled people are expected to come in to picture and receive high impact with the implementation of e-government. Lack of harmonization between design and implementation strategies - The e-government problem is getting worse in developing countries due to the lack of harmonization between design and implementation strategies. There is a large mismatch between software designs and the location of the implementation for developing countries, in terms of physical, cultural, economic, and various other contexts [11, 12, 14, 20]. The difference between technology and the reality of social factors is known as the Hard-Soft Gap [12, 14, 21], indicating the difference between actual technology (hard) and social factors (soft). Social factors include culture, politics, and


education, particularly, also the lack of citizen knowledge on the value and benefits of e-government, lack of training and qualified staff, and lack of changing management efforts for e-government implementation. Reality of current and future systems - The deficiency between the design of implementation strategies and the reality are the primary difference when e-government systems are implemented in developing countries [9, 12, 18, 22]. Most e-government systems are built using advance technology, where these facilities are not present in developing countries. However, due to increased citizen demand for e-government implementation in developing countries, governments simply re-implemented previously developed systems, those designed for developed countries without considering the differences in technologies and infrastructure between the two countries [23]. Although such attempts have been successful in short-term to achieve the objectives and deliver e-government services, it has resulted in failure to sustain operation over the long-run. As a result, it requires countries to critically identify and developing the organizational structure, the methods of interacting between citizens and businesses, the means to reduce costs, and the levels of business processes prior the implementation of successful e-government. The Gaps - A number of gaps have been also identified that denotes to the failure of e-government systems. There are severe gaps between developed and developing countries in term of Internet technological infrastructures, practices, and usage, which eventually getting wider rather than narrower over recent years. Besides that, the lack of sufficient capital to build up expensive national information infrastructure (NII) on which e-government is based is another issue that should be taken into consideration [14]. Furthermore, most developing countries have insufficient knowledge and skill to develop suitable and effective strategies for establishing and promoting e-government [19]. For developing countries to succeed in e-government implementation, the specific requirements and characteristics specific to these countries must first be examined and understood. 3. Research Direction Nowadays, e-government implementation has become a priority in all countries around the world, and this priority is rapidly gaining interest from developing countries. Governments around the world have different plans and strategies to implement and build successful e-government. Some countries have comprehensive long-term private implementation plans, and others have chosen to distinguish only a few key areas as focal points by using other developed countries’ plan to implement initial e-government. E-government initiatives have typically failed to be implemented in most of developing countries for several reasons as discussed in the Section 2. Therefore, future endeavors for this research is to conduct an analytical study on the reality of e-government and extent of the success implementation of e-government in developing countries. Such investigation could reveal the benefit and the challenges of e-government implementation initiative. It also can offer insight into popular e-government implementation models, whereby each model will be analyzed according to it model stages, factors, facilities and processes. Additionally, success factors, processes, facilities, weakness and strength for all popular e-government implementation models can be identified. Comprehensive e-government implementation model will be propose based on all good characteristics from popular e-government implementation models. Success factors can be determined through the e-government services that will be provide to citizens, businesses, and other entities. The critical successes factors for e-government implementation in developing countries will be identify by the collecting data and validate it through experts in e-government. This success factors are important to support the e-government implementation model for developing countries and to implement a successful e-government.


4. Conclusion This article presents an overview on the e-government initiative in developing countries, as well as success and failure of implementing this initiative. Despite the e-government successes and acceptance, it is not successfully implemented in most countries. The reasons for e-government failure varies, which includes direct adaptation of e-government initiatives from developed countries, the diversity in political and social charges, the lack of harmonization between current and future systems and also the gap between the design of implementation strategies and the current reality. Each of these problems seriously affects the performance of e-government systems. As a result, comprehensive understanding and thorough analysis on several aspects of egovernment models are required to avoid such drawbacks. There is also a need for empirical based research studies in order to further explore the critical success factors that contribute to the successful implementation of e-Government projects in developing countries. References [1] V. Ndou, ""E–Government for developing countries: opportunities and challenges EJISDC 18(1): 1-24

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