Document(s) 3 of 16

4.1 LOCAL e-GOVERNMENT AND e-LOCAL GOVERNANCE: BENEFITS AND LIMITS

If we consider the "basic e-government equations: G2C, G2B and G2G", these are exponentially reproduced at local level. Local governments, in fact, are in the front line of government in their service delivery to the citizen (LG2C) and to business (LG2B), while at the same time, ICTs can improve co-ordination and communication within government agencies at different levels (LG2Gn) (where n = levels of government in a specific institutional setting). This is particularly true in the strengthening of financial systems and accountability, by reducing the risk of corruption through minimising the face-to-face relationships.

Local governments, in addition to being close to citizens and business, constitute for many of them the main (or even unique) representation of government. The relationship of citizens and local authorities tends to be one based on proximity as the interests at stake for both parties are clearly entwined concerning issues such as public services, urban development, school planning, environmental concerns and local politics. It is at the local level that the impact of ICTs on the relationship between governments and citizens, can be most effective.

Traditionally, the interaction between a citizen or business and a government agency took place in a government office. Utilising ICTs it is possible to locate service centres closer to the "clients" (e.g. citizens and businesses). Such centres may consist of an unattended kiosk in the government agency, a service kiosk located close to the client, or the use of a personal computer in the home or office. In this regard, it has to be underlined that the potential for ICTs to have a positive impact on the lives of citizens in a variety of ways (especially in marginalised and rural areas) is being widely recognised. In fact, cities and local authorities play key roles in the Information Society and are fully involved in the process of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS).

The Declaration of the World Summit of Cities and Local Authorities on the Information Society (Lyon, 5 December 2003), was the result of observations carried out throughout 2003 at the preparatory meetings of Bilbao, Shanghai, Curitiba and Nouakchott. It used as reference points other declarations and works carried out by many organisations in this field, such as the "Charter of citizens' rights in the Information Society", taking into account that "half of the world's population lives in cities and urban areas, whereas the other half relies increasingly on cities for their economic survival and very existence". Also being aware of the fact that, "by relying on the heritage and vitality of cities and regions, there is the increasing need to build a society of inclusive cities whose wealth is founded on their diversity, cultures and languages rather than a society of impersonal and uniform information", observing, among other conclusions and recommendations, that "cities and regions are often at the forefront regarding the transformations brought about by ICTs in areas as diverse as universal access, education and training, housing, culture sustainable economic development, water, sanitary conditions, social cohesion, etc.. it was therefore determined "to totally fulfil the role that befalls in developing the Information Society, being eager to provide new local and regional dynamism in its development, with the aim of improving the quality of life in local communities and answering the needs of citizens".¹ For this purpose the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), was also established in Paris, in May 2004, and the second phase of the World Summit of Cities and Local Authorities on the Information Society took place in Bilbao in November 2005.

But why should we focus on the local/municipal level when introducing ICTs in government operations?

At the local level (urban and rural municipalities), it is recognised that the appropriate use and integration of ICTs in the community can enhance and support social and economic development, particularly in empowering officials and community representatives; ensuring linkages, networking and community cohesion; providing timely, efficient, transparent and accountable services; improving the management of the services and operations; facilitating planning and policy making processes; monitoring and recording physical and social changes in the municipalities.

Moreover, the integration of ICTs into the local/municipal governance can lead to informed populations being the basis of effective participatory governance and a knowledgeable community. The challenge remains, however, on how the use of ICTs in the municipalities can be beneficiary to all the stakeholders while avoiding, at the same time, a digital divide between members of the municipality itself.

A particular and important aspect of the application of ICTs at the local level is related to the recognition of the governance system as an integrated combination of several actors other than the government and considering the potential in all the services that the government is to provide.

In fact, the developmental impact of ICTs at local level is twofold. The first consists of the benefits of enhancement of the infrastructure and applications to users of information and communication services who can be distinguished according to whether they use these services as an everyday tool for production, distribution or consumption, and for their day-to-day activities. The second consists of the benefits derived by the economy from changes in the production, supply and operation of communications infrastructure, facilities, equipment, services and applications, or more generally what we called: ICTs or info-communications (see before). ²

Improvements in ICTs lower the cost of information and knowledge exchange, the cost of dealing with others in the market (such as suppliers and customers), and the cost of business start-ups and of delivering social economic services, including governmental services. Through these processes, transaction costs in society drop which improves overall efficiency and growth. In many instances, the additional and more reliable information that becomes accessible will contribute to the expansion of markets, assisting, for example, producers to move from local/rural into regional and national markets, and from domestic to international markets. Access (or the lack of it) to cheap and sufficient information is an important determinant of the competitive advantage of firms, sectors and countries. Furthermore, the efficient and easy access by citizens to up-to-date information on their local and central governments, NGOs and other civil society institutions, and even corporate enterprises, improves interaction, mutual trust, confidence and participation. These, in turn, could enhance empowerment, unity, democracy, peace and stability.

But although there are many examples on the nature of the linkages between ICTs and local governments, there is no evidence that unequivocally proves that there is a direct causal connection between ICTs and innovations in local governance, ultimately, to support local economic development.

If we look at the experiences of integrating ICTs in local governance worldwide, there is a growing effort in providing connectivity and accessibility at a local level, but there is not yet enough on monitoring and evaluating the real impact of projects and programmes on effective social and economic development of local communities.

Most local governments in the USA have already met the recommendation by the Kettl Commission that all local governments serving populations of more than 25,000 have web sites by June 30th., 2002. Only 2 out of 71 local governments with this population did not have web sites in 2005. In this context there are also some interesting examples of "participatory e-governance at local level" or "e-participation", such as the City of St. Paul, in Minnesota, or Menlo Park, in California³, but some people argue that instead of increasing, "democracy is reducing in the United States, with people overloaded with false, misleading, corrupt or politically tainted information".⁴

The e-Europe Strategy⁵ focusses on "connectivity" at local level: schools, home-access, with national/local indicators and rewards for local governments and, within this framework at national level, there are many examples of particular interest in terms of e-participation, such as the National Strategy for local e-government of the British Government⁶, or the Italian National e-government strategy with Regional Plans⁷, and the new French national e-Administration strategy ADELE⁸ (just to mention a few). But the economy and especially the integration of ICTs in the day-to-day life of citizens and government is still lagging behind in many regions in Europe, especially in the south and marginalised areas.

The Canadian Government has been a pioneer in developing services "far-reaching" connecting communities and local governments with citizens, allowing their participation, even in control of the decision making process.⁹ But how much did the government spend to achieve these results? In Japan, the e-Japan Strategy emphasises the development of local e-governance schemes, including self-evaluation of online government services, allowing citizens' feedback and participation.¹⁰ However in the instance of Japan, as well as in the previous examples, we are talking about the richest regions of the world, and in particular some of the G8 countries.

In Australia, a "best practice" example is represented by the City of Brisbane¹¹, the capital city of the State of Queensland. It is the third largest city in Australia with a growing economy. The Brisbane City Council's development of electronic government started in 1994 with the Customer Service Integration Project that introduced advanced technology and electronic business into Brisbane's Contact Centre environment. This Centre currently handles over 1.6 million calls per annum, providing information and action on more than 3000 separate Council services. The next major step was in 1996 when the Council released corporate information to Brisbane via the Internet at www.brisbane.qld.gov.au, at the same time as starting internal knowledge management through an extensive intranet known as CityWeb. A number of projects followed including public information kiosks, Internet applications and a telecommunications infrastructure review of the city. The Council then launched the first "Ourbrisbane.com Strategy" in late 2000. This has been an eight initiative programme which has included pro-active support for assisting communities and businesses online; the ourbrisbane.com Portal at www.ourbrisbane.com which connects the city's people with information and other people to encourage participation in the global information revolution and the city's life; affordable access strategies to address the "digital divide"; and further work on the telecommunications infrastructure. Successes to date include the doubling of community and business access to the Internet with 300 community organisations online covering sporting, environmental and seniors groups; more than 3000 businesses connected to each other via the eBIG user group and 7 online business networks; a successful city Portal; over 500 "Green PCs " (refurbished PCs at affordable prices) distributed; Internet training for nearly 50,000 people; free Internet offered through the extensive Library network and a city-wide telecommunications infrastructure plan. The next stage of the Strategy includes targets of: increasing weekly Internet usage by Brisbane people from 59% to 75% by December 2004; broadening the range of everyday uses for which Brisbane people use the Internet; and increasing the percentage of Brisbane business trading on the Internet. But is Brisbane the rule in Australia, or just an exception?

Some emerging countries have also pointed out the importance of strengthening local governance using ICTs. For example, in Mexico, the "Agenda Presidencial de Buen Gobierno", puts particular stress on Innovation & Quality of Local Governments¹².

In Malaysia, the National ICTs Policy Planning and Strategic Intervention, is centred on the efficient provision of online services by the government at all levels, to improve the economic and social development of the country.¹³

The Indian case is recognised worldwide as an example, considering the several "good practices" on local e-governance development, often created with a "bottom-up" approach and the involvement of the civil society organisations, often led by young people. One of the most popular experiences is the e-Seva Centre in Andhra Pradesh.¹⁴ Following this example, many other initiatives have been started involving local communities in their own self-development.

In South-East Asia, the progress achieved by countries in the last few years bears witness to the effective potential of ICTs for development and how ICTs can lead the economy in a positive way in developing countries.

Looking at the municipal level, the "First Study on Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide"¹⁵ ranked Seoul, the City States of Hong Kong and Singapore, New York, and Shanghai as the Top Five Cities of 100 Large Cities Worldwide, even if New York City was ranked no.1 worldwide in terms of content. Rome, Auckland, Jerusalem, Tokyo and Toronto rank respectively in the 6th to 10th positions. Among the top 20 cities, three are from emerging countries: Tallinn (Estonia) 14th., Dubai (United Arab Emirates) 18th., and Jakarta (Indonesia) 20th. This survey was the first research effort to evaluate digital governance in municipalities throughout the world by examining the largest city in each of 98 countries with the highest percentage of Internet users, including Hong Kong and Macao. The research evaluated the official Web sites of each city in their native languages, by using 92 measures over five core areas (Security and Privacy, Usability, Content, Services, Citizen Participation), developing an index which was considered "culture neutral". The research identified a digital divide between developed and less developed countries. Although the average score for all cities is 28.10 out of 100, the average score in OECD countries is 36.34; while the average score in non-OECD countries is only 24.26. In addition, 67% of cities selected in Africa have not established official city websites, whereas only 3% in Europe have no city Web sites.

The results of this survey are highlighted from many examples of projects and experiences of innovative applications of ICTs at local level. Some of particular interest in developed countries are the project of e-Participation in the City of Tampere, Finland¹⁶; the Personalised Information and email notification system, in the United Kingdom¹⁷; the Iperbole Internet Civic Network, in Bologna, Italy¹⁸; the e-Democracy experience of the City of Issy-les-Moulineaux, France,¹⁹ and the M.O.R.E. – Member Organised Resource Exchange, in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.²⁰ Some interesting examples of projects and experiences in developing countries are, for instance, the Citizen Service Centres, in Bahia, Brazil²¹, the Seoul Anti Corruption - OPEN System, in South Korea²² and the TOM Portal for e-Democracy in Estonia²³.

But are we sure that all these experiences are successful and are really increasing the participation of citizens, and especially the poor and marginalised people ?

A recent report of UNCRD, Japan, evaluates the cases of Singapore and Naga City (Philippines) underlining that, "while these cities are making major contributions to their country's economy and house populations who are participating in the information revolution, large sections of their populations (50% or more), live in poverty, are located in slums, and engaged in informal sector activities, being therefore seriously threatened by human development"²⁴. What about their needs and voices?

This situation can lead to an increased "domestic digital divide" (DDD Factor). In fact, according to Bridges.org Report (2004), "there is an overall trend of growing disparities in access to and use of ICTs between countries (the international digital divide), and between groups within countries (the domestic digital divide)"²⁵. In addition to this, the constraints are aggravated in most countries by other factors, such as: class and age (intergenerational digital divide), ethnics and gender inequalities and discriminations, and race (digital apartheid).²⁶ Of particular importance at local level is moreover what can be defined the "language divide". In fact, most of the applications and the content of ICTs (especially the Internet) is in English. Thus, millions of people are not in a position to benefit from ICTs because of the language barrier.

An important aspect to be considered is that, in introducing ICTs in governmental operations, there is the risk that large amounts of funds are being spent on creating infrastructure to enable people to have access to ICTs in developing countries. However, if we fail to recognise that access is necessary, but not the only condition for creating impact, and ignores capacity-building, citizens' participation and content development, then much of this funding will be wasted (Cost Factor).

In this connection, many of the ICTs applications that are deemed to be successful on anecdotal evidence, are, in practice, only partially successful: early recognition blinds the project managers to possible shortcomings, which remain unattended to and which can lead to failure. In particular, it is apparent that solutions that work in developed countries cannot simply be transplanted to developing country environments: solutions must be based on an understanding of local needs and conditions. (Contextualisation Factor).

Furthermore the, let us say, "natural" limits that are connected to local governance systems, such as the lack of capacity both in terms of human and financial resources, the difficulties related to the geographical position of local communities (distance from cities and lack of access to infra and info structure) have to be considered. Last, but not least, the need to communicate in local languages, respecting and in keeping with the local cultural heritage and traditional systems of governance; this includes the important role to be played by women and young people, and their connection with the hierarchical and chieftaincy organisation of local societies. This is the Cultural Factor, that is of course directly linked to the degree of "readiness" of the community for the introduction of ICTs and innovation in general. (Readiness Factor).

Therefore, if we consider the factors of risk (or success) identified above, enumerating them in a logical order, such as: Readiness; Contextualisation; Cultural/Language; Cost and Domestic Digital Divide factors, we will have a complex equation that will never have the same solution.

Introducing ICTs in local governance is not at all a simple issue; it has to deal not only with the "physical" access problem, but with the lost opportunity of people who are unable to effectively use ICTs either because they do not know how to use them or do not understand how ICTs can be relevant to their lives. It is fundamental to look at the social issues like basic literacy, poverty and healthcare and how ICTs can become part of the solution to these critical problems.

Given this fact, the key to success in introducing ICTs in local governance, are political will, community leadership and ownership. In addition, accurate strategic planning, effective monitoring and critical evaluation are indispensable in the identification of factors that inhibit impact and ensure sustainability. The development of such a policy framework cannot be done without considering the "local" component and community development and how these integrate and use ICTs, in order to create the concept of "e-Local Governance", that can be defined as:

4.2. SOME EXPERIENCES OF USING ICTs AT LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEVEL IN AFRICA

In Africa, many countries are developing National ICTs Strategies that, in some cases, are already producing positive results and are leading (or can lead) to success. Some examples are: Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa and Tunisia. Many other countries are embarking on National ICTs Strategies and Programmes, often "mixed" with Administrative Reforms, Good Governance Strategies, or Decentralisation Programmes.

At the same time, there are many examples of interesting projects, often supported by international donors and agencies, that are focussing on innovative applications of ICTs in local governance in countries lacking of ICTs infrastructure, through the use of hand held devices, touch screens and keyboard access in local languages. Some of these projects were presented to the "Workshop on Innovative Applications of ICTs for Local Governance in Africa", jointly organised by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa, between 7th. and 9th. June, 2004.²⁷ Among the several presentations of case studies, programmes and projects, of particular interest was the Project of "Application of Hand-held Computers in the Delivery of Health Services in Uganda", managed by the Uganda Health Information Network (UHIN) and funded by IDRC. This project aims at determining cost-effective ways of enhancing access, sharing and communication of critical health and medical information in a timely and efficient manner for the benefit of health care providers, managers and planners, in the Ugandan technological and institutional context. Successful examples of the application of ICTs at local level are represented by the case of the Mangaung Local Municipality, in South Africa, with the project of "Knowledge Management in the Electronic Delivery of Municipal Services", and the Project of ICTs Application in Local Government in Senegal managed by the NGO "Observatoire de la Gouvernance" (SAFEFOD) and funded by IDRC, on the development of an ICTs based accounting system of control, to prevent corruption.

Other projects of particular relevance for their cultural aspects include the Project of "Capacity Building Support for Local Governments" in Zimbabwe; and the "ICTs and Traditional Governance Project" in Ghana.

Some interesting efforts of strongly introducing ICTs in the governmental strategies, were presented in the "Woreda Study: ICTs Needs in Decentralisation Process" in Ethiopia, as well as the Project on "E-government Applications for Local and Central Governments in Ethiopia", which developed an interface in Amharic through a Multi-lingual Content Management System; the "Utilization of ICTs in the Promotion of Decentralized Governance" in Uganda and the e-government Strategy in the Gambia.

As highlighted in the annexe to this study, many other initiatives, programmes and projects in Africa focus on the application of ICTs for local governance. What is important is that these initiatives are always integrated in the government strategies of decentralisation and to effectively improve the governance systems for better delivery services to citizens and business, and to also increase their participation. But notwithstanding the growing importance of ICTs and local governance, there is a clear recognition of the need to move away from anecdotal analysis of strengthening local governance towards a more rigorous, evidence and outcome-based analysis of developing trends and the implementation of ICTs in local governance in Africa.

Notes

¹ Declaration of the World Summit of Cities and Local Authorities on the Information Society (Lyon, 5th. December, 2003).

² See also, Olekambainei Emmanuel and Sintim-Misa Mavis Ampah, "Info-communication for Development in Africa", UN ICTs Task Force Series 2, ICTs for African Development, UN, NY 2003.

³ www.firstgov.gov

⁴ Sy, J. Habib, "Critical and Prospective Views on ICTs and Governance in Africa", in "Africa Networking: Development Information ICTs and Governance, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNECA, Addis Ababa, 2004

⁵ www.europa.eu.int

⁶ www.localegov.gov.uk

⁷ www.italia.gov.it

⁸ www.adele.fr

⁹ http://www.gc.ca

¹⁰ www.kantei.go.jp

¹¹ www.ourbrisbane.com

¹² www.presidencia.gob.mx

¹³ www.gov.my/MyGov

¹⁴ www.andhrapradesh.com

¹⁵ This survey was conducted jointly by the E-governance Institute of Rutgers University-Newark and the Global e-Policy e-government Institute of Sungkyunkwan University, Korea, and was co-sponsored by the UN Division for Public Administration and Development Management (UNDESA/DPADM)), and the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). The results of the survey are available on www.unpan. org

¹⁶ www.etampere.fi/infocity

¹⁷ www.info4local.gov.uk

¹⁸ www.comune.bologna.it

¹⁹ www.issy.com

²⁰ www.stlouis.missouri.org

²¹ www.ba.gov.br

²² www.open.metro.seoul.kr

²³ tom.riik.ee

²⁴ Regional Development Dialogue, Vol. 23, N° 2, United Nations Centre for Regional Development, UNCRD, Nagoya, Japan, 2002.

²⁵ Bridges.org, "Spanning the Digital Divide: Understanding and tackling the Issues", www.bridges.org

²⁶ USA, Department of Commerce, 2000.

²⁷ www.idrc.org

Document(s) 3 of 16