Even so, the need of e-government master plan and roadmap is realized at an early stage of electronic transformation, government is not able to amass expert's teams to carve out a master plan and a roadmap that can act as guide towards the uncharted dimension. Lack of expertise in the developing countries is not the main reason for this letdown. Instead, rationale behind all this is the government's inability to attract and retain technical expertise. If government is serious, formation of multi dimensional task force consisting of technocrats, bureaucrats, private sector, and academia becomes necessary, while working towards preparing a sensible the master plan.
As a backlash, there is a customary knock at donor community for assistance because doctorates unaware of the modern technological advancement at the planning and budget allocation level refuse to acknowledge the urgency of e-government transformation. Donors, if not using the mantra of conflict resolution and poverty reduction as a pretext to avoid ICT related development, usually have their own set of agenda sidelining government's plan for Nepal. If we are lucky, donors usually bring in their set of experts from the west to carve out an e-government projects that puts more than required emphasis on the technology, disregarding crucial factors such as human capital. It takes few sets disappointment before everyone realizes that dollar funded high technology driven project has failed to address the ground realities, needs of the government and the citizens.
As an alternative, there is a newfound hope for the developing countries like Nepal. The hope comes from a new trend, a long-term collaboration with the Asian e-government champions like Republic of Korea. Korea, a country that has championed the art of successful implementation of e-government, currently ranking 5th on the United Nations e-government readiness index, is not only content with her achievement but is set out to assist developing countries Asia wide. To serve her interest of sharing technical expertise, Korea has formed many agencies specifically for the sake of knowledge sharing.
Korea IT industry Promotion Agency (KIPA) under Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC), armed with technical expertise is set to recover developing countries that are sufferers of the digital divide and bad governance. KIPA is set to collaborate with Nepal. Nepal, a beautiful country engulfed by a decade long insurgency, is set out the recover itself in any case under the strong leadership of His Majesty King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev. Although a country with a positive mindset and a forward-looking progressive headship of ICT sector by Sharad Chandra Shah, is still in infancy of reorganization towards e-government, requiring support from organization like KIPA for sustainable e-government transformation. To solidify the e-government vision through cooperation, KIPA and High Level Commission for Information Technology (HLCIT) signed a MOU in December of 2005. By March 2006, 5-month long project to develop e-government master plan and roadmap has already started, signaling significant advancement towards reality of the five-year e-government master plan and roadmap for Nepal.
With a solid history of e-government innovation and have had assisted Mongolia with development of e-government master plan and roadmap, KIPA is more than delighted to extend a lending hand to Nepal. KIPA and e-government Task Force from Nepal will jointly develop the e-government master plan and roadmap. E-government Task Force consists of following structure. Mr. Dambar Khadka, Mr. Y.S. Kim as the co-coordinator, Mr. Bimal Pratap Shah as the member secretary/project manager, while reaming members are Deepak Pudsainee, Surabh Amatya, Jaynedra Pathak, Shanker KC, and Shyam Basnet. The task force will be working together with KIPA e-government Task Force side by side to carve out e-government master plan, which should be complete by July 2006.
Although the government is extra optimistic about this development, in order to avoid the mistakes of the predecessor, the e-government master plan and roadmap will not be an exact duplication of Korean model; instead will be developed over current and future infrastructure, following thorough need and e-readiness assessment. The assessment includes many interviews with secretaries, civil servants, citizens, private sector, civil society, technicians, academia, and the grass root. Proposed model is also to be regularly evaluated and analyzed by the crowd mentioned above in order to shape e-government master plan and roadmap that is attainable based on the realistic ground realities of modern day Nepal.
Autor: Bimal Pratap Shah
Quelle: The Rising Nepal, 24.03.2006
