Background: Social, political, and economic elements influence the implementation of E-Government greatly. These include information infrastructure of a country, human resources, leadership and vision, maintenance of a legal system, and a revolutionary public administration system (UNDPEPA & ASPA, 2002, 6). The 2010 United Nations e-Government Survey reported that the majority of positions in the top 20 rankings belong to high-income countries, which have the financial resources to develop and rollout advanced e-government initiatives, as well as to create a favorable environment for citizen engagement and empowerment. Developed countries have a distinct advantage in their telecommunication infrastructure and human capital components, which both require long-term investment. For developing countries, the challenge is to invest telecommunication infrastructure and human resources as well as reengineering their public administration system to narrow the current digital gap. The UN e-Government survey in 2012 reported again Korea at the first position. It now proper time for Korea to propose the establishment of a Global e-Governance Forum to work on the subject matter of “Global e-Government and Digital Gap Reduction” focusing on developing countries.
Problem to be solved:
UNDPEPA & ASPA (2004. 6) report lists the failure factors when developing countries implement e-government: (i) unstable public administration system; (ii) inadequate plans and strategies; (iii) lack of adequate manpower; (iv) absence of investment plan; (v) shortage of IT and system suppliers; and (vi) immature technologies.
In other words, simply having a great website does little in e-service provision if the majority of people in the country cannot read or write, nor if they have no access to the internet. The lack of adequate plans and specialists also result in the failure of system application, excessive investment, and high maintenance costs in the process of implementing e-government projects.
Mobile technology may become an affordable tool to fill in the digital gap between developed and developing countries, given the rapid price decline of mobile products. Emerging and least developed countries have already demonstrated that they are capable of narrowing the digital gap by investing in websites and Web portals and by applying tools such as telecentres, kiosks, community centres and other similar outlets to increase access to the Internet. The search for how to reduce the digital gap between developed and developing countries is the global agenda to speed up and share the achievement of the information technologies in global society. Therefore there is need to examine the various factors that may contribute to successful achievement of the goal of digital gap reduction. The factors that this study is targeting are related to public administration and governance model.
Linking e-Government and Digital Gap Reduction
We know the digital gap is a poverty problem in the era of information society. Information riches are getting richer since they can access to key information faster than poor people who cannot afford to possess expensive high-tech devices while living in the isolated places. Digital gap means information gap, and it is related with poverty of educations, job opportunities, and house hold incomes.
The 2010 United Nations e-Government Survey presented various roles for e-government in addressing the ongoing world financial and economic crisis: (i) the public trust that is gained through transparency can be further enhanced through the free sharing of government data based on open standards; (ii) the ability of e-government to handle speed and complexity can also underpin regulatory reform; and (iii) empowering citizens to question the actions of regulators and bring systemic issues to the fore. During the last decade, the costs associated with telecommunication infrastructure and human capital has impeded e-government development. Nevertheless, effective strategies and legal frameworks could compensate significantly, even in least developed countries. Those who are able to harness the potential of e-government have to understand the specific goals of e-government to gain achievement forward. First, e-government has to increase productivity and efficiency by utilizing information technologies in public administration. However, it should improve citizens’ quality of life as its highest objective by reconsidering transparency of public administration and democracy. Second, e-government should provide adequate and efficient civil services by applying information technologies in the right places. In order to make this happen, civil services have to be reformed to that of citizen-oriented work processes. Third, e-government must reengineer public administration processes and should include a systematic effort to change public administration models. And fourth, e-government should refer not only to information-oriented civil services; it also has to be an advanced model of government in an information society and consider society’s equilibrium through extended civil services under democratic ideals.
We expect that e-government should find conditions under which countries can meet the extreme digital gap reduction target. It may include appropriate policy and strategy framework of national information and telecommunication infrastructure, an effective and responsive government system, a transparent and accountable public service delivery system, and innovative and sensitive leadership.
Objective of the Forum:
The main objective of the Forum would be to provide the global network and partnership models and strategies in building e-government for developing countries. Research goal would be to focus on building e-Government Model adoptable to developing countries beyond their different economic, political, cultural, and administrative environments.
Outcome of the Forum
The outcome of the study would be (i): a set of recommendations/guidelines on public policies and public officials conduct for digital gap reduction in developing countries (ii) a data base on the policies and strategies e-governments have put in place to eradicate policy including successful and not so successful ones. This would be compiled and included in the United Nations e-Government strategies as a UNDESA product to support information, and experience sharing as well as learning from best practices.
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EDUCATION
1983-1987: B.A. in Public Administration, Hankuk Univ. of Foreign Studies
1987-1989: M.A. in Public Administration, Hankuk Univ. of Foreign Studies
1991-1992: M.P.A., Syracuse University
1992-1996: Ph.D. in Social Science, Syracuse University
CAREER
2011-2013: Vice Dean of the Graduate School of Policy Studies, Inha University
2008-2010: Department Chair of Public Administration, Inha University
2005-2006: Vice Dean of the School of Social Science, Inha University
2010-2011: President of the E-Government Study Forum, the Korean Association for Public
Administration
2010: Director of the Special Committee, the Korean Association for Public Administration
2009-present: Research Director in Chief, the Korean Forum for Electronic Government
2007-2010: Senior Research Associate (Center for Technology & Information Policy)
Syracuse University
2006: President of the Korean Association for Regional Information Society
2006-2008: Managing Director in Chief, the Korean Forum for Electronic Government
2005-present: Committee Member for the Evaluation Committee of the Korea Customs Service
2004-2006: Advisor, The Administrative DB Sharing Committee
