In the past few years, governments in Asia-Pacific have invested millions in online initiatives in the hope of giving citizens easier access to services ranging from the filing of taxes to the application of government permits. "Plans have envisioned improving user satisfaction and modernizing the government, but despite their high aspirations, many e-services remain under-utilized," said Nathan Milder, IDC Asia-Pacific's public sector research manager.
The situation is evident in developing countries around the region, where their governments have "had the most difficult time with finding any substantial e-government success", he said.
For example, citizen portals have been launched in most of these countries, but the public is frequently unaware of what is available online or how to access such government information, Milder explained. Services which allow online license registrations, payment and authentication have also received a lukewarm response from citizens.
According to Milder, lower levels of computer ownership and Internet use are not to be blamed for the poor uptake of e-services among developing Asian nations. Rather, the issue lies with the e-government approach adopted by authorities, he said.
"In Asia, there's no direct correlation between high PC and Internet penetration and e-government services use," he told CNETAsia.
Despite having the highest PC, broadband and Internet penetration rate in Asia, Korea has one of the smallest user bases for e-government services in the region, a recent IDC study revealed.
"In our latest survey of Internet users, only 14.2 percent of Korean Internet users had used e-government services within the last 12 months, compared with Malaysia, where 27.7 percent of its Internet users had used such services," Milder stressed.
To ensure greater success with their e-government efforts, he said authorities need to conduct proper research to ensure the services they plan to introduce match their citizens' needs.
"If governments invest in the type of services that users want, they will come online," he said. "Proof of overwhelming online success occurred in the U.S. when the government launched its 'No Call' e-service, where citizens could register their name on a database in order to stop telemarketing calls. Response to the service was much greater than the government had originally expected."
Milder said governments should also invest more in the marketing and training for their e-services, and ensure their online efforts are better integrated with traditional service channels such as call centers and physical counters.
"Many governments have also measured e-government performance in terms of online service availability and functionality. This focus needs to shift toward directly measuring e-service usage, and going a step further to compare online usage with offline usage," he added.
Autor: Winston Chai
Quelle: Cnet Asia, 06.07.2004
