This urging came from Bruno Lanvin,a representative of the World Bank, who made a presentation at the ICT Best Practices Forum for West and Central Africa. The forum was jointly sponsored by global software company, Microsoft and other agencies in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Lanvin described e-governance as the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to transform the efficiency, transparency and accountability of informational and transactional exchanges within government as well as between governments and other agencies to empower citizens, governments and businesses.
He noted that the world today was prosperous but unequal, observed that Africa was at the low tilt of the scale and that it could leverage on e-governance to bridge the gap.
He listed the benefits of effective e-governance as including poverty reduction, global competitiveness, better government, public sector reforms and better services to citizens and businesses. Others, he said included transparency, accountability, cost savings, high economic growth and fighting corruption.
To reap these benefits, he noted, governments would need to build effective IT infrastructures, sound regulatory environments and legislation.
Lanvin further noted that an e-governance environment would foster public-private partnerships which offer value propositions such as access to private financing, faster delivery of capital projects, access to project management skills, entrepreneurship and innovation and reduced operational risks for the public sector.
Making a case study, Aliyu Aziz, IT Adviser to Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, described the FCT structure as peculiar in the sense that it resembled a state but was administered as a ministry.
He added that the FCT authority had a workforce of 25,000 employees with five scheduled departments and 24 parastatals geographically dispersed in 13 locations.
The E-Government initiative of the FCT he observed was embarked upon in an attempt at improving service delivery and constituent engagement and participation.
Focus, he noted was on four key areas which covered strategy, infrastructure, software solutions and pilot e-Government applications.
Major success was achieved in some key areas but more work still needed to be done, he said.
He added that the FCT was striving to put in place a world class e-governance facility but was still at the growth stage and would take home lessons learnt from interactions at the Best Practices Forum to effect improvement at home.
Abdoulie Janneh, Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa thanked Microsoft Africa for initiating the forum which complemented the work of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African regional Action Plan for the Knowledge Economy.
"We are at the forefront of tremendous and unique opportunities for using information and knowledge for the socio-economic transformation of our continent, to enhance our global competitiveness, create wealth and eradicate poverty.
"For the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) showcasing ICTs at work through the Best Practices Forum, in partnership with Microsoft, the Government of the Republic of Burkina Faso and the African Development Bank (ADB) offers a unique chance for west and Central African countries and stakeholders to dialogue and learn from each other".
Autor(en)/Author(s): Bill Okonedo
Quelle/Source: Business Day, 25.06.2007
