ICT 04 : E-GOVERNMENT FOR DEVELOPMENT
DURATION: 3 DAYS
COST: Kshs. 18,000
DATES: 15-17 November 2010
COURSE ABSTRACT:
E-government is one of the most appealing public sector management initiatives in Kenya today. E-government can redefine the fundamental ways of how the public sector operates: developing, introducing and providing new ways of delivering (enhanced) services. It is often seen as a solution to bureaucracies with high costs and low performance. However: not only rewards, also risks associated with taking a plunge in the uncharted e-government waters are tremendous. Moving interactions to a digital platform raises issues related to all departments within a public sector entity and to those entities (businesses, citizens, NGOs, other public sector entities, etc.) interacting with the public sector. Officials, executives and managers are challenged here because e-government disrupts traditional communication channels and at the same time transforms them: it poses the fundamental question whether actual structure and processes of the public sector are to be changed or not. In short: e-government enables and forces us to make new choices. Therefore an understanding is needed of technology, organizational and policy issues associated with e-government.
This rationale for this short course recognizes that Kenya, a developing country recognized as a economic powerhouse in Eastern Africa, has been implementing a broad-based public reform program partly founded on an e-government vision which was officially articulated in 2004 with the adoption of the E-Government Strategy. The e-government vision has increasingly found a voice within the government's development framework of achieving economic prosperity. A number of institutions have been setup to help in the attainment of this vision. For instance, the Kenya E-Government Secretariat was set up in 2004 under the Office of the President to be an oversight body to galvanize all ICT projects within government aimed at enhancing service delivery of all the ministries. The Ministry of Information and Communications was set up in 2004, for the first time in the history of Kenya, mainly to handle the wider universal access goals to enable the citizens actively participate in a global economy which is increasingly knowledge-based. The Ministry of Health, together with a consortium of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other development partners and health institutions have partnered under an initiative known as Afri Afya (www.afriafya.org) with the goal of improving access to health management information through the use of various ICTs.
This course seeks to contribute to the attainment of this vision by training policy makers, managers, consultants and other stakeholders how to articulate and realize e-government in Kenya. The guiding philosophy for this course is to ensure that e-government should be implemented to be socially inclusive to the masses and also take advantage of the convergence of technologies.
A few countries such as Canada, Singapore, Sweden and South Korea) have been successful with e-government, but many have not. In many countries e-government has only been fruitful for a small part of society. Several studies show that there are still huge disparities in the use of technology and that these are not likely to be removed unless concerted action is taken at different national and international levels. They also show that, subsequently, disparities in development may continue to exist. If e-government is to be a driver for development, it should therefore be oriented towards the social inclusion of all. An understanding is needed on how to make e-government acceptable and inclusive of all and so achieve high performance in governance objectives. The 5-day course on e-governance for development is aimed at achieving this.
In this course, participants will develop: an understanding of technology, organizational and policy issues related to e-government; an insight on present e-government 'gaps' and how to overcome them; a direction for e-government to improve performance and "involve all"; and the managerial and leadership skills to exploit the e-government potential.
COURSE OUTLINE:
1. Building confidence in local stake-holders: fundaments, concepts and trends of ICT and e-government; opportunities and strategies for e-government; crafting the message for e-government towards a customer-focused analysis and design; local applications and cases.
2. Building 'Nomadic' networks of e-governance: Process modeling - 'mainstreaming' structures & counter networks; towards e-Literacy - 'communities of practice' as centers of learning; stabilizing the institutional infrastructure for e-government
3. Developing the technological and services infrastructure: consolidating the knowledge architecture of e-government; flexible standardization and e-government for the masses; attaining modularization through Change Flexibility ; attaining scalability through Use Flexibility ; opportunities for the future - Natural Speech in the third world.
4. Building the implementation proposal and planning to make it work: Crafting the e-government message; gap analysis - macro, mezzo & micro perspectives; ICT project management
5. Funding e-government: Individual agency initiatives; national projects
TARGET AUDIENCE:
The program is designed for managers, executives and officials of public and non-public entities with an interest in policy making, public sector management, ICT, public sector performance and related areas; Management consultants, ICT specialists, researchers and teachers are also welcome in the program.
INSTRUCTORS:
Mr. Nixon Muganda Department of Management Science, University of Nairobi
