TheWorld Bank A u g u s t 2 0 0 4 PREMnotes n u m b e r 9 1 Public Sector Building blocks of e-government: lessons from developing countries Electronic government offers enormous potential for improving public sector performance. This note provides lessons on how national e-government plans can be formulated and what makes individual projects successful. E-government is about changing how gov- users had to pay bribes of 100­2,000 rupees, ernments work, share information, and deliver but only 3 percent of users of the online services to external and internal clients. It har- system report paying bribes (see http:// nesses information and communications www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/bnpp/ technology to transform relationships with Bhoomi.pdf). E-government citizens and businesses, and between arms of · Delivering services to businesses. Businesses government. Benefits can include reduced often face significant administrative road- initiatives should corruption, increased transparency, greater blocks when interacting with government. convenience, higher revenues, and lower Electronic delivery can shorten the turn- be part of broader costs. But case studies show that these bene- around on license applications from sev- fits do not result solely from the use of infor- eral weeks to a few days. Rules can be made public sector mation and communications technology. transparent and consistent across depart- Instead, e-government initiatives should be ments. Transaction costs for both busi- reforms part of broader reforms to improve public nesses and government can be reduced. sector performance in: And government can benefit from more · Delivering services to citizens. E-government efficient revenue collection. In Guatemala, can benefit citizens by reducing delays, for example, 9,000 taxpayers file taxes consolidating multiple services under one through BancaSAT, an online platform roof, eliminating the need for frequent vis- managed by the Guatemalan Tax Agency its to government offices, and containing (SAT). BancaSAT contributed to a 13 per- corruption. In addition, publishing rules cent increase in SAT revenue between and procedures online can increase trans- 2000 and 2001. parency. Moreover, because poor people · Increasing efficiency. E-government can lead bear the largest costs of administrative inef- to higher productivity. Governments can ficiency and corruption, delivering services cut staff or redeploy workers in more pro- through rural kiosks leads to their eco- ductive tasks. Data captured by an elec- nomic and social empowerment. For exam- tronic system often enables more frequent ple, 7 million farmers in Karnataka, India, and accurate data sharing across depart- can now obtain printed copies of land titles ments, closer monitoring of employee (needed two or three times a year to secure productivity, easier identification of pres- bank loans) online in 10 minutes at 177 sure points for delay and corruption, and government-run departmental kiosks or improved compilation of historical data at privately operated Internet kiosks. The that can be mined for policy analysis. For fee is 15 rupees (about 33 cents). Under example, Karnataka's Department of Pub- the previous titling system two-thirds of lic Instruction has realized numerous effi- from the development economics vice presidency and povert y reduction and economic management network ciency gains from online processing of difficult. Thus many countries are trying teacher transfers. Each year the depart- to decide which strategy is best: central or ment receives 10,000­15,000 applica- departmental. tions from teachers requesting to be In choosing the right approach, an asso- transferred. The process used to be rid- ciated concern is the size of budget allo- dled with corruption and nepotism, but cations. Centrally driven initiatives tend today requests are prioritized using well- to be expensive. Canada, which has taken publicized criteria, and teachers are such an approach, spent $210 million on asked to make their choices online-- e-government projects in 2002 and expects enabling transparency and reducing to spend $450 million by 2005. And the U.S. bribery. Transfers are now processed in Office of Management and Budget, which One of the key a brief period during school vacations, manages a national e-government initiative, avoiding the year-round disruption was provided $20 million in 2002 and a total questions is caused by the previous system. of $100 million through 2005. India's national plan for e-government, announced in 2004, countries' Models for delivering electronic is projected to cost $2.5 billion. services Countries that choose to create a central readiness to Industrial and developing countries take very support agency have to define its role, loca- different approaches to e-government appli- tion, mandate, and size. Central agencies implement cations. In industrial countries the delivery should have a mandate to perform many model is based on self-service through the tasks, including assessing and enhancing e-government Internet, while in developing countries it is readiness, developing a strategy and imple- a hybrid of automated and manual processes. mentation plan, building shared infrastruc- An increasingly popular model is being ture, finding resources for reengineering, used in Bahia, Brazil, where citizen assistance application development, and change man- service centers integrate federal, state, and agement, developing guidelines, standards, municipal agencies in a single location. The and best practices, forging public-private centers are in convenient locations (such partnerships, identifying departmental cham- as shopping malls and major public trans- pions, monitoring progress and impact, and portation hubs), offer tremendous time sav- overseeing pilot projects. ings, and deliver services with courtesy and professionalism. The centers also reduce Identifying readiness and overhead costs for government because most moving forward agencies pay much less than they did for pre- One of the key questions facing countries is vious properties rented to interact with the their readiness to implement e-government. public. Although business owners must still Readiness depends on an enabling envi- go to a government office to register a new ronment that includes a: business, registrations can be renewed in just · Mature technical infrastructure in vari- minutes at a citizen assistance center or over ous government departments. the Internet. (Renewals used to take a day.) · Civil service willing to reengineer, share information, and treat citizens as Orchestrating a national effort customers. To ensure effective coordination of inter- · Deep Internet penetration or presence departmental initiatives, many countries of many public access points. have opted for centralized implementation · Legal framework that fosters public con- of e-government efforts. This approach is fidence and supports a government man- more likely to succeed in small countries date to conduct transactions online. such as Dubai, Jordan, Mauritius, and Sin- · Political commitment from departmen- gapore. But for most developing countries, tal champions and managers. where manual processes remain the norm, · Demanding, aware citizenry that under- a centrally driven strategy is complex and stands its rights and is willing to express PREMnote 91 August 2004 them--and fight for them in cases of lax- Significant process reengineering is ity and inefficiency. required Few governments are completely ready An important aspect of initiating e-govern- on all the above dimensions. But that should ment is documenting existing procedures not deter governments from starting small-- and simplifying them into tasks that can through experimental pilot projects used be completed in a few steps without com- to bring about changes in public sector per- promising their basic purposes. The process formance. An evaluation of e-government of simplifying documents and workflows, projects points to five general lessons. points of approval, and audits is termed reengineering. Most e-government projects Strong project management skills are that have reduced processing times and costs crucial... have done so through substantial process Resistance from Project managers should clearly identify goals reengineering. Such reengineering must and benefits. The task is often vast, and not precede any effort at automation. civil servants can manageable with the resources available to Reengineering modifies processes to a single government department. Adopting reduce steps and the number of necessary be the biggest established standards and protocols can min- employees. This often creates the greatest imize the need for customization. If off the challenge in e-government implementa- challenge to shelf software is available, it should be used tion: overcoming resistance from civil ser- instead of reinventing the wheel. Systems vants. Automation imposes more regulated e-government analysis, which provides the cues needed for workflows, and civil servants often lose the reengineering, should be done internally. flexibility to deal with applications in any But design, software development, data sequence other than the one dictated by preparation, training, and the like can easily computerized workflows--eliminating the be outsourced. power of patronage. Efforts to stall work are easily identified because both the pub- ...As are departmental ownership and lic and supervisors have the capacity to track capacity building information and transactions as they move No external agency can drive needed through workstations. Because e-govern- changes within a department. External ment projects are designed to make deci- agencies can be useful in mobilizing sionmaking more transparent, they should resources and providing technical inputs. strive to provide benefits and training to But departments need to have champions civil servants who are losing power and who can conceptualize an application and authority. implement it successfully--often by build- In Andhra Pradesh, India, Smartgov--an ing partnerships with other agencies. e-government project intended to convert Successful e-government projects typi- the state secretariat to a paperless, electronic cally spend about 10 percent of their bud- workflow--has been stalled by inadequate get on training and capacity building. effort in managing the process of change. Awareness about project benefits has to be Reengineering and changing work processes raised among senior civil servants and polit- across 70 departments in the secretariat have ical leaders. Training is required for pro- been a challenge even for the country's ject managers, who need to define project largest information technology company, deliverables, negotiate with consultants and which is implementing the project. vendors, and manage outsourced devel- opment efforts. Clerical staff need to be Private partners can play an important role trained on specific applications. Supervi- The choice of e-government project part- sors and managers need to be trained on ners can vary from multinational manage- using information. And citizens need to be ment consultants to information technology made aware of online services and how to vendors to local companies. Partners may use them. be asked to build a project, to build, own, PREMnote 91 August 2004 and operate, or to build, operate, and trans- tripled the revenue from fines imposed on fer. Regardless of the specific agreement, overloaded trucks in Gujarat, India. But as partnerships should build local capacity. If soon as the project champion was transferred, private partners are involved, contracts disgruntled inspectors disabled the system. should be fair for both parties--so that the Still, the potential of e-government in private sector earns reasonable profits and advancing good governance is increasingly the public sector achieves its goals for effi- being recognized. Many pilot projects have ciency and service delivery. shown that gains can be real and projects can be implemented successfully--overcoming Complete automation is not necessary numerous constraints. Widely used services, Handling a few critical components elec- such as issuance of licenses and certificates The potential of tronically can provide significant benefits. For and collection of payments and taxes, have example, in Chile procurement announce- been put online successfully. Replication and e-government is ments are published on a Website, and reg- scaling up of such projects must occur after istered suppliers receive announcements by systematic evaluations are conducted by inde- increasingly being email to increase competition. But depart- pendent agencies. ments handle bids manually--though once recognized bids have been processed, the results are Further reading announced on a Website. Chile has realized Bhatnagar, Subhash. 2002. "E-Government: significant savings because of expanded sup- Lessons from Implementation in Devel- plier choice and increased transparency in oping Countries." Regional Development supplier selection, even though the core bid- Dialog 24 (autumn). ding process continues to be manual. A study Orrego, Claudio, with Carlos Osorio and estimated that gains from this new system Rodrigo Mardones. 2000. "Chile's Gov- would reach at least $200 million a year-- ernment Procurement E-System." World equivalent to 1.4 percent of central govern- Bank, Washington, D.C. [http://www1. ment spending or 26.2 percent of spending worldbank.org/publicsector/egov/epro- on public housing in 1997(Orrego, Osorio, curement_chile.htm]. and Mardones 2000). This note was written by Subhash Bhatnagar Assessing e-government (Consultant, Public Sector, PREM) and Arsala projects Deane (Consultant, Public Sector, PREM) based To date the benefits of e-government have on Bhatnagar (2002) and case studies published been largely anecdotal. A World Bank evalu- on the Bank's e-government Website (http:// ation of four projects in India hailed as suc- www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/egov). cesses (and awarded prizes by international If you are interested in similar topics, consider organizations) indicates that two are mov- joining the e-Development Thematic Group. Con- ing toward failure (see http://www1.world- tact Nagy Hanna (x30346) or Oleg Petrov bank.org/publicsector/bnpp/egovupdate. (x38861) or click on Thematic Groups on htm). In its first year a computerized system PREMnet. This note series is intended to summarize good practices and key policy findings on PREM-related topics. The views expressed in the notes are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the World Bank. PREMnotes are widely dis- tributed to Bank staff and are also available on the PREM Website (http://prem). If you are interested in writing a PREMnote, email your idea to Madjiguene Seck. For additional copies of this PREMnote please contact the PREM Advisory Service at x87736. PREMnotes are edited by Paul Holtz and laid out by Suzanne Luft. Prepared for World Bank staff