E-government in Rwanda : Implementation, Challenges and Reflections

The purpose of this study was to assess the state of e-governance in Rwanda by exploring how Irembo Portal is used, how people view its services and the suggestions for improvement according to their perceptions. As academicians have not fully explored the reaches of egovernance, this study sought to evaluate the state of e-governance in Rwanda. This study used random sampling to collect data from Irembo Portal's two social network pages of Facebook and Twitter posted between January 2016 and April 2017. Considering the network nation theory, documents availed by Irembo Portal administration and 152 posts have been gathered and analyzed within a quantitative and qualitative context. The findings revealed that services most applied for through Irembo portal are Birth Certificate at 22%, Registration for Driving test with 14% and Application for National ID with 10% and the reason is due to the fact that the population of Rwanda is young at high rate, the youth related services always come in the first place among others. People say that they appreciate the new tool that help them to access the services from the government in a convenient way as it keeps improving ICT infrastructure, Human resource capacity building and sensitization to the population about the new changes. The study recommended further researches in e-governance in most of developing countries to increase the academic works in this field.

2016

In today's information age and knowledge society, many countries in the world, including South Africa and Rwanda, have now adopted the use of new Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), especially the internet, in their public sector as one of the main delivery channels for public services. Online service delivery is increasingly seen as a means to reduce costs while providing better services to citizens. Local government, being the centre and cornerstone of service delivery and the channel used by government to improve people's lives, has to be at the forefront of utilising modern ICTs in order to effectively and efficiently address the changing and increasing needs and expectations of citizens. The utilisation of e-government by local spheres of government in developed countries such as France, South Korea and England has played an important role not only in streamlining public administration but also in enhancing the quality of service delivery to citizens. The end results were, amongst others, improved transparency and accountability, less corruption, and less citizens' dissatisfaction with government services. However, the local spheres of government in both South Africa and Rwanda are still struggling to deliver effective services to citizens. Citizens express their dissatisfaction with service delivery through strikes and community protests as frequently reported in the media. The researcher assumes that if e-government had effectively been used by the district municipalities in particular, it could have assisted the district municipalities in complying with the Batho Pele Principles, and therefore in delivering better services to the citizens. The aim of the study was to determine and compare the level of utilisation of egovernment by the four selected district municipalities both in South Africa and Rwanda. In addition, from the research findings a model for the effective utilisation of e-government by the selected district municipalities was to be developed. The main objective and the nine co-objectives of the study were achieved through the data collected by means of the three main data collection techniques, namely documentary, survey and structured interviews. As two parties (supply side and demand side) must be involved for the utilisation of e-government to be successful, two types of respondents were targeted. The simple random sampling method was

Emerging Practices

In recent years, e-Government has been the favourable theme for numerous studies and reports. Yet, there is a lack of systematic evidence regarding the key challenges for the e-Government implementation in less developed countries. Consequently, This chapter is devoted to a comprehensive review of literature relevant to shed light on the e-Government in less developed countries, its importance, and finally the effect of the e-Government on the government activities. It also discusses some applications which have been tried by a number of less developed countries and the results they have achieved.

Digital Literacy, 2012

Electronic government, or e-Government, is the practice of providing public services to citizens, businesses, and other government agencies where government services can be accessed through the Internet, mobile phone, fax, mail, telephone, and personal visits (MGAHA, 2005). Developing countries, utilizing the late comer advantage, are mimicking trends of paperless governments with the expectations to reap the same benefits enjoyed by developed countries. However, e-Government initiatives have not always been successful in developing countries. According to the study conducted by Heeks (2003), the rate of e-Government success in developing countries was only 15 percent. The authors believe that such failures are mainly due to certain unique social, economic, technological, and environmental challenges faced by e-Government in developing countries. For example, some major issues include digital divide, political instability, and skills-related issues. However, the research dealing with these problems is limited. Therefore, in this chapter, the authors discuss these challenges.

Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance - ICEGOV '10, 2010

E-Government, considered to be a narrower concept than e-Governance, offers a great potential and opportunity for developing countries to improve their governance and citizen satisfaction. E-Government reduces costs, increases transparency and citizen participation in decision-making processes, strengthens accountability, improves service delivery, etc. In the process of setting up e-Government initiatives and to become successful, there are some prime issues for developing countries to assess and to research. In developing nations where capital is a major scarcity, failing to be successful in the implementation of information communication technology (ICT) initiatives can have a great impact. In case of faller, the leadership commitment, which is already low in some countries, could be greatly affected. This will cause major obstacles to get some other ICT project's approved. ICT is a capital intensive (for example in infrastructure and application development) and requires qualified human resources. Apart from this, the globalization and dynamism associated with the field are making the realization of e-Government in particular in developing countries more challenging. Implementing e-Government principles and functions require a range of standards, guidelines, rules, policies and legislative changes which do not exist in most developing countries. These all add up to the challenges in e-Government implementation. The following are also potential threats in implementing e-Government: low level working culture, high resistance, weak private sector, low level collaboration/partnership between private and public sectors, etc. In this case study, I will assess the potential of e-Government projects and initiatives for developing countries by taking the case of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The opportunities will be widely discussed by taking practical examples. I will also identify and analyze major challenges that may be encountered in implementing e-Government initiatives based on my practical experience in Ethiopia.

Theory, Applications and Benchmarking, 2007

The use of information communication technologies (ICT) in governance is growing rapidly in many parts of the world. Developing countries in Africa are also making efforts to harness the new technology. In this chapter, we review the problems, progress, and prospects of e-government in Nigeria, a sub-Saharan African (SSA) country. Governments in the developing countries of SSA can benefit from e-government initiatives, as do their counterparts in advanced nations, when the concept of e-governments in SSA is understood, and concerted efforts are committed towards institutionalizing it in the region. This chapter provided useful insights in this regard. We discussed the contribution of the chapter to information systems (IS) research, and we highlighted the lessons from Nigeria for comparable nations in the SSA region as they prepare for e-government.

Procedia Computer Science, 2019

E-government application and use is presently a worry for all government administration everywhere throughout the world, from developed to developing countries including Rwanda. Be that as it may, the utilization of those administration services requires numerous components from experts to the clients. It is verifiable that ICT is driving numerous tasks and procedures in both open and private organizations which is a significant feature of globalization. In this paper, we have dissected variables that influence Social norms to use E-government service to support public institutions in Rwanda on the grounds that the stage of e-government eventually diminished the rate residents used to request administration services contrasted with the past. After numerous inquiries concerning such downturn, we have suspected distinguished elements that may be a reason, but we have conceded the investigation of some which are Behavioural intention, Social influence, Trust internet, Trust e-government and Trust Propensity. An organized survey was used to gather information from 92 respondents interested in the investigation. The investigation utilized a review as a strategy for information accumulation. polls sent straightforwardly by means of email and telephone message. The respondents are the native of Rwanda. The poll was made up with two segments A and B whereby A comprises of demographic questions and segment B comprises of Likert Scale addresses extending from 1-Strongly agree to 5-Strongly Disagree. Therefore, we have proposed a model of five variables from the suspected cause of such downturn. Using PLS-SEM 3 student version to process data, the result is that all dependent variables have direct positive effect to the independent variables to utilize e-government services supporting government organizations while two factors have demonstrated the proper support for hypothesis toward the intention to use e-government driven organizations.

2012

The public sector plays an important role in the economic growth and development of developing countries. The application of modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) may help improve the public sector by contributing to new services and processes that address citizens as well as government-to-government services, involve citizens more directly in decisions being made, and contribute to streamlining work processes and standardizations needed to develop a well-functioning public sector. Research focusing on Egovernment in developing countries is still dominated by case studies and conceptual pieces of work. Thus, more empirical-oriented work is needed to expand our knowledge on current status, challenges and future plans. The reported study has been initiated to address such needs. The objective is to investigate, from a broad perspective, ongoing E-government initiatives in the public sector in Tanzania. The contribution of this work is twofold. First, the descriptive findings are important to gain insight into the current status of Egovernment projects in Tanzania. Second, the study reported here could guide the way forward for practice as well as research. We firmly believe that both practice and research should be based on the current situation and identified challenges and aim to describe such issues to guide future work.