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E-GOVERNMENT

Seoul (seventh, tie), and Rome and sustainable development and improve on technologies alone, but also
Warsaw (ninth, tie). The LOSI covers the well-being of their citizens. The requires a comprehensive approach
the technical and content aspects of challenge lies in the speed with which that offers accessible, fast, reliable and
the city/municipality websites, as well technology is evolving, which surpasses personalised services. The public sector
as electronic services provision and the speed at which governments in many countries is ill-prepared for
e-participation initiatives available can respond to and use ICT to their this transformation. Governments can
through the portals. advantage. respond by developing the necessary
policies, services and regulations, but
Politicians, policy-makers and public The survey discusses some of these many of these instruments are slow to
ofcials are creating new policies to transformative technologies, such as be ‘brought to the market’. Principles
promote resilience and sustainability, data analytics and articial intelligence such as effectiveness, inclusiveness,
especially in the areas of poverty including cognitive analytics, robotics, accountability, trustworthiness and
eradication, equal opportunity for all, bots, and high-performance and openness should direct the technologies
support for vulnerable groups, land quantum computing. It explains how and not the other way around.
development and planning, economic forces driving such technologies are
development, smart growth, pollution the result of long-term and painstaking The survey concludes that while
prevention, energy, resources and research and development, their e-government began with bringing
water conservation, inner-city public use by businesses and citizens, as services online, the future will be
transit, eco-projects and alternative well as the increased processing about the power of digital government
energy. Public administration processes power of hardware, increasing data to leverage societal innovation and
are being reengineered to integrate availability and society’s driving needs resilience and to transform governance
these policies into local planning and and expectations. Oftentimes, it is to better achieve the SDGs. 
development efforts, even as these not the technologies that are new but
administrations are striving to keep the convergence of developments in Source: excerpts from UN
pace with the speed of technological hardware, software and data availability. E-Government 2018 report
innovation. Data is currently being referred to
as the new oil, the new raw material
Improving local e-government is insep- driving innovation and growth in both
arable from the pursuit of sustainable the private and public sectors. Indeed,
development goals (SDGs). The 2030 data use will grow exponentially in the
agenda recognises the importance of next decade and will offer the ability to
technological innovation in implement- systematically analyse and act in real
ing the SDGs and contains specic refer- time to solve more complex business
ences to the need for high quality, timely, problems, create more competitive
reliable and disaggregated data includ- advantage and make better-informed
ing earth observation and geospatial decisions in a tightly connected world.
information. Yet, integrated approaches to achieving
synergies and minimising trade-offs
Many of the specic targets of the 2030 may remain relatively untapped in many
agenda are directly or indirectly related countries.
to local e-government assessment
indicators. Local governments are Articial Intelligence is benecial, par-
indeed the policy-makers and catalysts ticularly with its potential applications,
of change. They are also the level touching on neural networks, natural
of government best placed to bind language processing, machine learn-
the SDGs to local communities. The ing, and robotic process automation.
development of electronic services The recognised benets of AI are error
and the increasing number of citizens reduction, robust functioning, delega-
participating in decision-making will tion of repetitive jobs, improved secu-
motivate efforts to achieve the SDGs rity, improved business operations as
and assist in making cities sustainable, well as improved customer experience.
inclusive, safe and resilient. However, the rise in use of AI also car-
ries uncertainty in terms of employment.
Fast-evolving technologies It is feared that AI, particularly robotic
automation, will leave low-skilled work-
affecting e-government ers without jobs.
and possible applications The fourth industrial revolution and
for the SDGs convergence of innovative technologies
such as big data, internet of things,
Today, fast-evolving technologies have a cloud computing, geo-spatial data,
potential to transform the traditional way broadband, AI and machine learning is
of doing things across all functions and promoting a dramatic shift towards more
domains of government as well as the data and machine-driven societies.
ways in which ICT offers governments an
unprecedented opportunity to achieve Digital transformation does not depend

14 SERVICE DELIVERY REVIEW | Volume 12 No. 1 of 2018