Journal of internet and information system Vol. 2(3), pp. 43-57, October 2011 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/JIIS ISSN 1684–5315 ©2011 Academic Journals

Full Length Research Paper

The state of e-government readiness in Africa: A comparative web assessment of selected African

countries

Brendan E. Asogwa

Nnamdi Azikiwe Library University of Nigeria Nsukka, Nigeria. E-mail: asogwabeze@yahoo.com, ezeb.asogwa@unn.edu.ng. Tel: +2348036804036.

Accepted 15 September, 2011

This paper surveyed the level of preparedness of selected African governments in using information and communication technologies to enhance the range and quality of services provided to the citizen; and determined the extent of, and continuous improvement efforts of African leaders towards the attainment of connected government. Data for the study was a secondary data adapted from the Internet. The UN global e-government readiness ranking and the five stages of e-government evolution was downloaded, adapted and used as a benchmark and analytical framework for measuring the web readiness of African governments in 2005, 2008 and 2010. It was discovered that many African governments have demonstrated their willingness to apply information and communication technologies (ICTs) in their public administration, but majority was at the emerging and enhanced stages. The strength of their web presence continues to diminish as they move upward the benchmark or the ladder to integrated governance. A very serious impediment which characterized e-government readiness in all the African governments was lack of continuity which arose from their inability to update their websites, high level of poverty, and low level of human capital and knowledge economy. The implications include poor provision of government services and underutilization of ICTs facilities in Africa which might result in the widening of ‘access divide’ between the rich and the poor. Key words: Africa, e-government, information and communication technologies (ICTs), public services, global ranking, benchmark, web assessment.

INTRODUCTION Electronic government is the creation of government website or portal where information and other internal processes about a government are posted. It is the use of ICTs to transform the internal and external operations of government so as to optimize government service delivery. Sudan 2005 in Asogwa and Asiegbu (2009) defines e-government as the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by government to enhance the range and quality of government information and services provided to the citizens in an efficient, cost-effective and convenient manner. “It is Internet-based public administration” (Kitaw, 2006). It is the use of the Internet and other information technologies to enhance access to, and delivery of government goods and services to the public, and therefore bring about improvement in government services.

Since the advent of information technology;

empowerment in this 21st century is anchored on the

ability to use information, technology, and knowledge economy to broaden individual and collective choices. The development imperative today is to employ Information and communication technologies ICTs to level the playing field for all. This means that ICT capable of being applied in all sphere of human activities and of solving the problems of all irrespective of discipline or profession. ICTs have offered wide range of opportunities to transform traditional governance in ways government businesses are conducted. The dramatic advances made by information and communication technology have transformed much of the world into a digitally interconnected community, and the predominant drivers of change have been the Internet and the World Wide Web, and both have added new and unprecedented electronic dimension to academics, commerce and now

44 J. Internet Inf. Syst. the electronic government (e-government).

E-government readiness is the capacity of the government and the governed to deploy ICT for the provision and improvement of knowledge and information in the service of the public. Capacity here encompasses financial, infrastructural, human capital, regulatory, administrative and systematic capability of the state. It also includes “the willingness of the state to provide information and knowledge for the empowerment of the citizens” (UN, 2004).

E-government initiative provides a number of opportunities to improve governance. Proponents of e-government have suggested many benefits that will result directly or indirectly from such projects. These may include: Efficiency which can reduce errors and improve consistency of customers (Seifert, 2003). E-government advocates like Heek 2002, Hernon and McClure (1988) are of the opinion that by reducing the amount of time spent on repetitive tasks, e-government will give government workers an opportunity to develop new skills and advance their careers (Breen, 2000). E-government possesses the potentials to stimulate the emergence of an African-adapted cyber-culture, hasten ICT literacy and thereby encourage the development and application of e-agriculture, e-commerce, e-health, e-education e-library, and the rest. It impacts directly on cost-effectiveness and efficiency of government, empowers citizens and improves governments’ citizens’ relationships especially with those in remote and underdeveloped or rural areas (Kitaw, 2006).

Electronic government makes government processes more accountable, responsive and transparent. It improves governance and the quality of life of citizens and offers a number of compelling benefits such as better quality government services, increased citizenship satisfaction, higher efficiency, reduced costs, and lowers processing time (Sudan, 2005). Electronic government in Africa will in the foreseeable future transform the processes and structures of government to create a public administration that is less hierarchical, empowering and more responsive to their needs. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE E-government has its origin in Britain (Koontze, 2003) when in 1957, the British government directed the technical support unit of the telecommunication service to evaluate and give advice to government on the use of computers in government offices. Mnjama et al., 2008 noted that since that directive from the British government, many countries have gradually introduced computers into their public administration. In Europe, e-government became more pronounced in 1990s because of the development of the Internet and World Wide Web (www).

In the USA, the Congress enacted Paper Reduction

Act in 1980, which served as a single framework for federal government management of information resources. Since then, there were several acts signed with the purpose of transiting from paperwork to electronic. They include the amended Paperwork Reduction Act of 1986 and 1987; the Computer Security Act of 1987; the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996; and the 1998 and 2002 Paperwork Elimination Act which was calculated at automating every sphere of government operations. The elimination act (Paperless Government) required government agencies to provide the public with options of submitting; maintaining and disclosing needed information electronically. It was an act aimed at developing and implementing sound information technology architecture and enforcing technology management policies that would lead to strong leadership and integrated approach to information provision. The purpose of the US e-government act was to foster citizens’ access to government information and services (Reyea and Hague, 2003).

In Asia, Africa, and other developing countries, governments have been using computers in their administration for many decades now. In Africa, the use of internet services in government and private business started in a more serious note in the 1990s. Mnjama et al. (2008) revealed that the implementation of e-government in Africa was carried out in line with the various national and regional declarations. For example, the concept of e-government was declared in the continent first in the 1980s when the Organization of African Unity (OAU) now African Union (AU) through the institution of Pan African Development System (PADIS) recognized the importance of access to government information as a way of solving Africa’s development problems.

Other early e-government initiatives in the region were: The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa whose assignment was to create an enabling environment for Africa’s e-government. The UN General Assembly’s emphasized on the needs for African countries to create indigenous technology for adapting and adopting information technologies to the African environment. The computer for Africa (CFA), an ICT project (http://computers4africa.org/) with the goals of sharing the wealth of the US technology with people in least developed nations; provide good technology environment to Africa; and build US-African partnership (Well and Well, 2007). These in addition to other various attempts by the World Bank to mainstream indigenous knowledge in Africa, formed the background for e-government initiatives in Africa.

Electronic government targets four webs of interrelationships: relationships between a government and other governments within and outside a country’s territorial frontiers [G and g]; relationships between government and the business community [G and b] around it in such areas like e-payment of taxes, e-registration, e-procurements and other transactions;

relationships between government and its citizens [G and c] such as in areas like the provision of government information and services to the citizens or the public, and relationships between government and the worker/employees [G and w]. This is an interaction electronically between government and its workforce such as e-learning, e-business, teleconferencing, and sharing of knowledge and information about the government itself, its policies, projects and programmes. Many governments in the world have applied it in their political and democratic system. Benchmarking e-government To globally measure the e-government initiative of member states the United Nations developed a five-phase benchmark for assessing their global presence. The five stages are: emerging stage, enhanced phase, interactive phase, transactional, and connected phases. Emerging phase A country has a web page and an official website where links to ministries, departments, regions/states and local governments may or may not exist. Government information such as the constitution may be available online, but most information on the web remains static. Enhanced phase Government provides greater archival information on their websites. Citizens can search for government documents and download them as the need arise. Interactions between government and the citizens are primarily unidirectional. Information flows essentially from government to the people in form of announcements, directives and orders. Interactive phase Government officials can be interacted with or contacted online via their e-mail, and telephone. Governments provide opportunities to render services to the public online. The websites is updated regularly to keep the information current. Transactional phase Transactional phase is characterized by the presence in a country’s website of two-way information flow between government and the citizens. Options or opportunities for online completion of forms 24 h every week is available.

Asogwa 45 Connected phase Networking of government and its ministries, citizens, its workforce, and citizens for vertical and horizontal interactions. There is online participatory decision making, solicitation of citizens’ views on important public policies, and so on. There is online integration and networking of the public sector, ministries, institutions, departments, and agencies in collective decision-making.

It was on the strengths of this benchmark that the UN carried out series of research to ascertain e-government initiatives of member states. For instance, in 2001 the UN surveyed the web presence of 190 member states using the benchmark, and reported that 88% of member states have made legitimate efforts to commit to e-government; that the websites of 25% of member states in developing countries of Asia, Caribbean, and Africa consisted of static and insufficient information that were often of public relations and strong political overtones; that the capacity to conduct online transaction was available only in 17 countries (American Society for Public Administration, 2002).

In 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2010, similar studies were carried out by the United Nations and the reports were almost the same for Africa and other developing countries. For example, the e-government readiness survey 2004 assesses more than 50,000 features of e-government websites of 191 UN member states. The purpose was to ascertain the e-government readiness of countries around the world. It found that the United States of America was the world leader followed by Denmark, United Kingdom, and Sweden. At the regional levels Europe was the leader followed by the North America, while South Central Asia and Africa was the least and the last. Africa which comprises 14% of the world population has only 12 million or 1.5% internet users, compared with the USA with a population of 5% of the world but has 203 million internet users. When similar study was carried out in 2005 and 2008 respectively, it reported that a larger number of countries improved their online presence, and many of those countries without websites in 2005 showed up. That 8 of the 12 countries in the world that were not online in 2008 were from Africa, notwithstanding, a number of African governments have set up national websites where critical information about their states is put online (UN Global E-Government Report, 2005 and 2008). The task of this paper is to carry out an investigation on the levels of e-government readiness of African states and compare the degree of their attainment. This paper limits itself only to government–to–citizens and citizens-to-government relationships. Despite the incredible advances in information technology, digitizing government is, and will continue to be a complex and constant process. For advanced countries, such departures have culminated in success; for developing countries, the challenge is formidable but not insurmountable. What is the situation

46 J. Internet Inf. Syst. of information technology with relation to its application in government business in Africa today?

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to:

1. Survey the state of e-government initiative of selected countries in Africa between 2005 and 2010. 2. Provide a comparative web assessment of the countries’ performance at each of the five phases of e-government evolution. 3. Find out the phase(s) in which countries were persistently present and the extent of their regularity. 4. Make a projection of the years to come what the e-government readiness will be for the African countries. Significance of the study

E-government readiness survey is beneficial to governments, the public, academics, and information professionals. It will help them to understand the emerging patterns of e-government across regions in Africa and the world. It will make developing countries government to be more visible and at the same time portrays the areas where their potentials for e-government development have not been fully exploited. The survey will contribute to the ongoing attempt by individuals, organizations, institutions, and governments, etc to provide qualitative research in the use of ICTs to provide better public services in developing world. The outcome of this research will improve planning and goal setting decision and resource allocation for African leaders.

Statement of the problem

Information and communication technologies has revolutionized traditional model of governance and placed emphasis on electronic government. These changes have affected the tools, methods, and formats in which services are delivered. Governments in advanced countries of the world are using these technologies to improve the range and quality of services they provide to the public. Africa being a member of the global community is being influenced by these rapid innovations. This paper surveys the levels of e-government readiness of Africa and carries out a comparative web assessment of selected African state’s readiness to use ICTs to transform their public administration. Research questions This study is guided by the following research questions:

1. How many African states have made their visibility online? 2. What is the extent of e-government readiness of African states at the: - a. Emerging presence, b. Enhanced presence, c. Interactive presence, d. Transactional presence, e. And connected presence in the global e-government? 3. What is the extent of their presence? METHODOLOGY/APPROACHES

Data for this study was a secondary data collected from the Internet. In secondary research, the data required to answer a research question was already collected by others. Therefore, a researcher uses information which he played no part in gathering (McQueen and Knussen, 2006). The UN Global E-Government Reports of 2005, the Survey of 2008 and 2010 was retrieved from the internet and used as data and analytical framework for this study.

Using the internet and www the UN measured member states by examining their national websites in order to analyze and chart each country’s level of progress. The citizen-centric approach was the basis for the analysis using predominantly websites of government ministries and departments. The reason was that these ministries were considered to be the most representative services

where the citizens were likely to seek information from government. Sampling technique

There are five UN e-government reports for 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, and 2010, in the Internet as at the time of this study. However, there was no UN Report in 2006 and 2007.

In this study, all the African states that have official websites

were sieved from the list of all other countries in the world that was surveyed by the UN in the three years, 2005, 2008 and 2010 and their web presence or absence used as data for this paper. The choice of 2005, 2008, and 2010 was because they were the latest UN Reports on E-Government and are capable of providing the current e-services of African states for assessment.

The method of selection was that: an official government web presence must exist; an African government that has official websites/portal and or scores at least one percent (1%) and above at any of the five phases was considered as e-government ready state and therefore chosen for assessment.

From the array of states that was online in 2005, the first twelve highest scorers were systematically selected for this study. The purpose was to monitor the websites of these states for three years and be able to assess extent and position of their web regularity (with the aim of projecting what the trend will be in the next 10 years). Analytical framework

The framework for the study was the UN five stages of e-government development as stated in the foregoing. The magnitudes of e-government readiness were stated in ascending order, just like Maslow’s theory of hierarchy of needs. In order to quantify the result, a numerical scale ascendency ranging from 1 to

5 with 1 = an emerging presence; 2 = an enhanced presence; 3 = interactive phase; 4 = transactional phase; and 5 = seamless/integrated phase was involved.

The criterion of measurement The author obtained the scores from the UN Global Survey Reports for the years. The figures in columns 4, 5, and 6 in Tables 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 represent the percentage scores in 2005, 2008 and 2010 for each of the countries studied by the UN; while column 7 is the grand or cumulative percentage average of each country’s scores for the three years. The cumulative percentage averages was computed by the author using the percentage figures and the percentages obtained were used as the criterion of judgments/measurement. The criterion of assessment therefore, was that an African country whose average percentage scores for the three years fall between:

0 to 0.09% was rated none existence, 1. 0 to 4.9% was rated weak presence, 5 to 7% rated strongly present, and 7% - above was rated very strong

FINDINGS African governments and the levels of their web presence This study found that many Africa countries have official websites where limited government information was made available to the public within the period of investigation. Table 1 presents an alphabetical order list of some of those countries and the years they appeared or disappeared online. The websites of African countries was monitored since 2005 and throughout the study to determine the extent of their web regularity. The Table 1 shows that: 1. Fifty-one African governments have their official websites within the period. 2. In 2005, eight African governments had no official websites. They were Central African Republic, D.R. Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Libya, Tanzania, and Zambia. 3. D.R. Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Libya that had no websites in 2005 came online in 2008. 4. Tanzania+ and Zambia+ that had no websites in 2005 and 2008 came online in 2010. 5. Swaziland which maintained its website in 2005 and 2008 lost out in 2010. 6. Central African Republic, Somalia and Western Sahara, were conspicuously out of the web throughout the three years. 7. Forty-four countries had maintained their web presence during the three years. One feature that was peculiar in this finding was the inconsistency of these states in the web sustainability and maintainability. This was not peculiar to Africa alone. For example, in the 2004 survey report, it was found that in the global ranking, the USA was the world leader followed by Denmark, the UK and Sweden, in 2008 when

Asogwa 47 similar study was conducted, the result changed for the USA. It was found and reported thus: “Sweden surpassed the US as the world leader… three Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Norway, and US took the top three positions with Denmark and Norway in second and third positions respectively while US came fourth” (UN Global E-Government Report, 2008).

Despite being classified among the least e-ready countries in the world, 15 of the 45 countries in Africa registered an improvement in their ranking. For example, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, and Libya came online in 2008. Extent of e-government readiness of African states The UN five stages of Global e-Government were referred to and adapted as benchmark and analytical framework to measure the levels of online government services of twelve best practicing countries that represented Africa. Here, twelve governments that scored highest at the emerging stage were sampled and presented in Table 2 for assessment using each country’s web presence in 2005, 2008, and 2010. Table 2 presents the data adapted from the emerging stage. Emerging presence (Stage 1) Many African governments were present in this stage, but the best twelve African countries in 2005, 2008 and 2010 were represented in the Table 2. It shows that in 2005, Mauritius, South Africa, and Morocco (100%) were the best, followed by Egypt (100%), Botswana (100%), Seychelles, Swaziland, Mozambique, Senegal, Algeria, Lesotho and Benin. In 2008, these countries were still the best, though their scores were abysmally lower. In 2010 Egypt, Lesotho, and Mauritius were the best online service countries for Africa.

However, for the three year study, it was found that two African countries were very strong at the stage one. They were Mauritius and Egypt which at the global level respectively ranked 29

th and 59

th in 2005. Two Southern

African regions countries, South Africa 9.5% and Lesotho 9.8% followed. Others, such as Botswana, Seychelles, Swaziland, Mozambique, Senegal, Algeria, and Benin were present. These findings were further illustrated in Figure 1.

In Figure 1, Series 1, 2, and 3 represent the score of each country in the three respective years, while series 4 is the percentage of the total scores for each. Columns 4, 5, and 6 represent the percentage scores of each country for the three years under study, while columns 7 and 8 were the grand sum of the percentages and the cumulative percentage scores of each county.

The figure shows the extent Mauritius (1) (10%) and Egypt (3) (10%) were strongly present by 10% each; and

48 J. Internet Inf. Syst.

Table 1. African countries that were web presence in 2005, 2008 and 2010.

S/N State/web presence in 2005 State/web presence in 2008 State/web presence in 2010

1 Algeria

2 Angola

3 Benin

4 Botswana

5 Burkina Faso

6 Burundi

7 Cameroon

8 Cape Verde

9 Chad

10 Comoros

11 Congo

12 Cote d’Ivoire

13 - Demo. Rep. of Congo*

14 Djibouti

15 Egypt

16 - Equatorial Guinea*

17 Eritrea

18 Ethiopia

19 Gabon

20 Gambia

21 Ghana

22 Guinea

23 - Guinea Bissau*

24 Kenya

25 Lesotho

26 - Liberia*

27 - Libya*

28 Madagascar

29 Malawi

30 Mali

31 Mauritania

32 Mauritius

33 Morocco

34 Mozambique

35 Namibia

36 Niger

37 Nigeria

38 Rwanda

39 Sao Tome & Principe

40 Senegal

41 Seychelles

42 Sierra Leone

43 South Africa

44 Sudan

45 Swaziland -

46 - - Tanzania+

47 Togo

48 Tunisia

Asogwa 49

Table 1. Contd.

49 Uganda

50 - - Zambia+

51 Zimbabwe

Sources: UN Global E-government Report 2005: from e-government to e-inclusion; UN E-Government Survey 2008: from e-government to connected governance; and UN E-Government survey 2010: leveraging e-government at a time of financial and economic crisis.

Table 2. E-Government practicing levels of African States at the emerging stage in 2005, 2008 and 2010.

GR S/N Country 2005 2008 2010 Total % Assessment

29 1 Mauritius 100 8 46 154 10.2 Very strong

42 2 South Africa 100 8 34 142 9.5

59 3 Egypt 88 8 55 151 10.1

74 4 Botswana 75 7 31 113 7.5

78 5 Seychelles 88 7 11 106 7.05

85 6 Swaziland 88 5 0 93 6.1 Strong

91 7 Mozambique 75 5 32 112 7.5 Very strong

96 8 Senegal 88 8 32 128 8.5

104 9 Algeria 75 7 19 101 6.7 Strong

106 10 Morocco 100 0 40 140 9.3 Very strong

107 11 Lesotho 88 7 52 147 9.8

108 12 Benin 88 8 20 116 7.7

Total 1053 78 372 1503 99.99

Table 3. The state of e-government of the best 12 African countries in 2005, 2008 and 2010.

GR S/N Country 2005 2008 2010 Total % Assessment

29 1 Mauritius 80 63 23 166 13.0 Very strong

42 2 South Africa 79 64 34 177 14.0

59 3 Egypt 88 63 51 202 15.8

74 4 Botswana 49 26 21 96 7.5

78 5 Seychelles 38 31 7 76 6.0 Strong

85 6 Swaziland 36 35 0 71 5.6

91 7 Mozambique 34 37 13 84 6.5

96 8 Senegal 44 28 14 86 6.7

104 9 Algeria 36 26 9 71 5.6

106 10 Morocco 37 30 22 89 7.0

107 11 Lesotho 29 51 29 109 8.5 Very strong

108 12 Benin 25 13 10 48 3.8 Weak

Total 575 467 233 1275 100

Sources: UN Global E-government Report 2005, 2008 and 2010.

how Lesotho (11) (9.8%), South Africa (2) (9.5%), and Morocco (10) (9.3%) respectively, were following closely. Others were clearly represented in the bar with Swaziland (6) (6.1%) trailing behind.

The total scores of each country for the three years were also portrayed. It shows how Mauritius cumulative mark 154, Egypt’s 151, Lesotho’s 147, South Africa’s 142

and Morocco’s 140 made them the best in Africa, while Swaziland scored the least.

The results in the Table show that there were wider disparities between and among countries and regions in Africa in terms of their online service offering. It means that African government with high income and the willingness to provide online services, communication,

50 J. Internet Inf. Syst.

Table 4. Interactive stage of e-government readiness of 12 best African states.

GR S/n Country 2005 2008 2010 Total % Assessment

29 1 Mauritius 83 57 18 158 13.5 Very strong

42 2 South Africa 62 72 27 161 13.7

59 3 Egypt 60 78 49 187 16.0

74 4 Botswana 52 23 6 81 6.9 Strong

78 5 Seychelles 51 49 0 100 8.52 Very strong

85 6 Swaziland 43 32 0 75 6.4 Strong

91 7 Mozambique 38 40 3 81 6.9

96 8 Senegal 21 51 3 75 6.4

104 9 Algeria 29 34 1 64 5.45

106 0 Morocco 21 29 9 59 5.0

107 10 Lesotho 33 45 1 79 6.7

108 11 Benin 37 13 4 54 4.5 Weak

Total 530 523 121 1174 99.97

Sources: UN Global E-government Report 2005, 2008 and 2010.

Table 5. Transactional stage of e-government readiness of 12 best African countries.

GR s/n Country 2005 2008 2010 Total % Assessment

29 1 Mauritius 27 13 0 40 29.0 Very strong

42 2 South Africa 17 17 0 34 25.0

59 3 Egypt 22 24 0 46 33.3

74 4 Botswana 0 6 0 6 4.35 Weak

78 5 Seychelles 0 0 0 0 0

85 6 Swaziland 0 0 0 0 0

91 7 Mozambique 0 7 0 7 5.1 Strong

96 8 Senegal 0 1 0 1 0.07 Weak

104 9 Algeria 0 0 0 0 0

106 10 Morocco 0 1 0 1 0.07

107 11 Lesotho 0 0 0 0 0

108 12 Benin 2 1 0 3 0.22

Total 68 70 0 138 97.11

Sources: UN Global E-government Report 2005, 2008 and 2010.

and outreach to citizen were more disposed for e-government practice. Enhanced presence – Stage 2

At this stage, an African state that scores 5 to 7 and 7% and above was considered to have entered enhanced web presence, and those that scored 1 to 4.9% were rated weak presence. Table 3 and Figure 2 present the levels of e-government implementation of sampled countries in Africa in stage 2. They show that respectively, Mauritius which ranked 29

th, South Africa

42nd

, Egypt 59th, Botswana 74

th, and Lesotho 107

th, in the

world, was very strongly present at the enhanced stage. In this stage, Egypt has consolidated herself as the strongest African government since 2005 followed by

South Africa and Mauritius. Other countries that was present, but not as strong as that of the aforementioned were Seychelles, Swaziland, Mozambique, Senegal, Algeria, and Morocco.

One character that featured prominently in most of these

countries was that their scores at this stage continued a downward trend right from 2005 and that negatively affected their scores in 2010. The effect of this development was that limited access to government information remains a serious issue in Africa because it resulted in wide disparities between and among nations. Interactive presence (Stage 3)

In this study, as demonstrated in Table 4 and Figure 3 a and b, Egypt was the African champion in 2008 and 2010

Asogwa 51

Table 6. Connected/Networked stage of e-government readiness of 12 best countries in African.

GR S/n Country 2005 2008 2010 Total % Assessment

29 1 Mauritius 9 0 6 15 9.0 Strong

42 2 South Africa 22 4 2 28 16.7 Very strong

59 3 Egypt 7 6 12 25 15

74 4 Botswana 6 3 5 14 8.4 Strong

78 5 Seychelles 6 3 0 9 5.4

85 6 Swaziland 4 3 0 7 4.2 Weak

91 7 Mozambique 9 4 6 19 11.4 Very strong

96 8 Senegal 6 4 7 17 10.2

104 9 Algeria 6 0 2 8 4.8 Weak

106 10 Morocco 7 2 4 13 7.8 Strong

107 11 Lesotho 4 0 1 5 3.0 Weak

108 12 Benin 2 2 3 7 4.2 Weak

Total 88 31 48 167 99.9

Figure 1. Position of twelve African countries at the emerging stage of e-government initiative.

with the highest percentage score of 16%, followed by South Africa, Mauritius, Seychelles, Mozambique, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco, and Lesotho.

The figure shows how the online services levels of most states improved in 2008 over that of 2005. Mauritius, Botswana, Seychelles, Swaziland, and Benin scored higher in 2005 better than in 2008. In 2010 they were Egypt, South Africa, Mauritius and Morocco also when individual scores were summed up and computed in percentage as illustrated in Figure 3b, the three were still the best.

This is a stage where government officials expected to be interacting with and contacted online by citizens via their e-mail, and mobile telephone. Governments are expected to provide opportunities to render online

services to the public; update the websites regularly to keep the information current for the public. But the performance of all the states in 2010 was not encouraging. Egypt was the only country whose performance has improved over the previous year’s result; the rest had declined markedly as seen in Figure 3a.

The implication for this kind of relationship is that citizens are denied access to current information on government policies. In addition, online governments-citizens interactions would be seriously severed. Foreign governments, institutions, government documents librarians, researchers, archivists and other information science professionals are compelled to be physically present in their government offices to access government

52 J. Internet Inf. Syst.

Figure 2. Twelve best e-government African countries at enhanced phase.

information. Transactional presence (Stage 4) Table 5 and Figure 4 present e-governments service levels at transactional stage and they show that a vast majority of African government were not present in this stage. As can also be seen in Table 5 and Figure 4, this is the position or stage where more African countries were not present. The scores of most countries were less than 5% while others scored zero. In 2010, all the countries scored zero indicating that transactional activity between governments and the citizens were skewed or completely not existed.

However, there were countries that were not only present but strongly maintained their position. They were Egypt, Mauritius, South Africa, and Mozambique. The governments of these countries have continued to maintain and update their online services up to transactional stage. This picture is clearly expressed in Figure 4 where only five of the twelve countries existed at this stage.

The implication is that, though these governments have their official websites, there was limited informational flow between governments and the citizens and absence of opportunities for online completion of tax forms, birth registration, processing of travelling documents, payment of traffic violation fine, and other related online transactional services. Connected/networked presence (Stage 5) This stage is the apex of e-government framework and

the online services assessment bus-stop. For countries to be considered present at this stage, they must have been fully integrated with the ministries, departments, agency and lines of demarcations between government and its workforce are removed in cyberspace, and services are clustered along common needs.

This phase is characterized by the capacity and the presence of enablement for the public to instantly access government information. Any service of ministerial, departmental, institutional and agency line of demarcation are obtained in the cyberspace and services are clustered along common needs. Unfortunately, “no country studied has fully attained this stage” (UN, 2001, 2010).

However, Table 6 and the Figure 5 presents in summary, a picture of African governments’ e-services at the connected stage. They show that South Africa 16.7% was the champion, Egypt 15.0%, came second, while Mozambique 11.4%, and Senegal 10.2%, followed. Mauritius 9.0%, Botswana 8.0% and Morocco 7.8% were present or attempted their presence with very low percentage which, using the UN benchmark, cannot qualify them as having attained connected stage. Other countries that were not present in this final stage include Swaziland, Algeria, Lesotho, and Benin because they scored below the minimum standard. This result was spread in Figure 5.

Though some of the countries present in this stage have their official websites, regrettably, networking with national/federal government portal and other governments (G and g), such as states, ministries, local governments, citizens, and the workforce respectively was lacking or minimal. In addition, participatory decision-making and democratic processes, such as e-registration of voters and the citizens making their individual and

Asogwa 53

a

b

Figure 3. a. Overview of African countries’ online services at the interactive phase. b. Percentage scores

of twelve best e-government countries at the interactive phase Key: 1 = Mauritius, 2 = South Africa, 3 = Egypt, 4 = Botswana, 5 = Seychelles, 6 = Swaziland, 7 = Mozambique, 8 = Senegal , 9 = Algeria, 10 =Morocco, 11 = Lesotho, 12 = Benin.

collective contributions on important public policy issues may not fully exist.

None of the countries studied by the UN, even the technologically advanced countries, has fully actualized this level because connected or networked governance has the tasks of providing better organized, aligned and integrated information flows, new transactional capacities and mechanism for feedback; consultation, and above all, participative forms of democracy. It is about driving down costs and improving efficiency and effectiveness of internal office functions for those engaged in the management and delivery of public administration (UN,

2008). This is one evidence of proving that a paperless society envisioned by Britain and USA Paper Reduction Act of 1980s, and 1990s, and the lofty Paperless Government Act of 2002 is either unattainable or far from being accomplished now.

Extent of web presence of Africa in 2010 Table 7 is an overview or summary of e-government levels of Africa within the three years. It shows that many African countries are still maintaining online services but

54 J. Internet Inf. Syst.

Figure 4. Twelve best e-government African countries at transactional phase.

Figure 5. Twelve best e-government African countries at connected phase.

stronger at the first three phases of e-government development namely, emerging, enhanced, and interactive stages. This position is clearly interpreted in

Figure 6 where stages one, two and three stand tall above stages four and five.

The most serious barrier to higher stages for most

Asogwa 55

Table 7. A snapshot of e-government phases for Africa in 2010.

S/n Country Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5 Total %

1 Mauritius 154 166 158 40 15 533 12.5

2 South Africa 142 177 161 34 28 542 12.7

3 Egypt 151 202 187 46 25 611 14.4

4 Botswana 113 96 81 6 14 310 7.3

5 Seychelles 106 76 100 0 9 291 6.8

6 Swaziland 93 71 75 0 7 246 5.8

7 Mozambique 112 84 81 7 19 303 7.1

8 Senegal 128 86 75 1 17 307 7.2

9 Algeria 101 71 64 0 8 244 5.7

10 Morocco 140 89 59 1 13 302 7.0

11 Lesotho 147 109 79 0 5 340 8.0

12 Benin 116 48 54 3 7 228 5.4

Total 1503 1275 1174 138 167 4257 99.9

Figure 6. A snapshot of a general e-government phases for Africa in 2010.

countries not only in Africa but in other developing countries of the world include lack of ICT infrastructures, irregular or none existent electricity supply especially in rural areas, high level of illiteracy, the internet was available to only the privileged few in the upper income class.

What this result signifies is that African governments are still providing their citizens limited and static political, economic, and social information; and most government sites neither have links to all the ministries, nor information persistently updated since the sites were not used for administrative purposes. It also implies that

there were limited interactions between the national government, the states and local governments as well as the ministries, institutions, government officials, and the public. The intermittent web presence of African states may be attributed to: 1. Inequality in the distribution of ICTs between the developed countries and Africa, 2. Income access divide, low literacy rate and lack of technical skills to using ICTs, 3. Lack of effective up to date assistive technologies, 4. Weak ICT policies in many African countries,

56 J. Internet Inf. Syst. 5. Others are political instability, corrupt leadership and ignorance of the potential effects of obsolescence of computer hardware and software, and so on. Summary of the findings

This web assessment shows that in Africa there exist an under-utilization of ICTs for the provision of efficient government services and that was responsible for widening the access divide between developing regions and Africa. Given the human and financial resources needed, and the amount available in many African countries to fully implement e-public administration, there may not be steady online services in many African countries in near future. The implication of this ugly development is that ICT facilitated services will reach only the privileged few who dwell in urban areas. And a possibility of digital divide between the urban and the rural dwellers, the e-haves and e-have-nots in Africa, and between the developing and the developed regions of the world relegates Africa as ICT dependent or an underdeveloped ICT region in the world.

More African governments were trying to use information and communication technologies to improve their delivery of government information to the people, but a greater number of them have wide distance between them and full implementation of these services at the transactional and networked phases. A common characteristic of e-government readiness of Africa at all the stages is unsteady web presence. This feature frustrates all efforts to have uninterrupted access to current government information/programmes and collection of reliable data for scholarly communication in Africa. It frustrates online implementation of government policies by public office holders. Many countries are willing to use information and communication technologies to transform their public administration. Though a vast majority of governments created their official websites, some governments have not fully recognized the centrality of ICTs in their development initiative. This may be as a result of poverty, low level of literacy, lack of adequate infrastructure or high prices of ICT services and lack of investment. The growth in the delivery of e-services within the period under review has been at a declining pace for Africa and that was why most states that attempted e-government initiative in the continent were predominantly at emerging phase. The unsteadiness of these countries in the web indicates that they have a long journey ahead toward implementation of e-government at the transactional and networked stages.

A number of challenges that could prevent the chances of realizing the anticipated benefits in developing countries include disparities in income and lack of equal access to computers. Whether it is due to lack of financial resources or lack of opportunities for training to acquire necessary skills, to become proficient in using the internet, are pre-existing conditions for e-government

initiative. Implications This finding has some implications for Africa: The core value of this paper hinges on using the e-government levels of developing countries to improve decision making and resource allocation; in determining the effectiveness of an e-government websites and the degree to which the websites adds value to the education, research, and development needs of nations; providing data to assess change over time; in identifying problems and possible solutions as well as the effectiveness of corrective action; in empowering organizational sectors to seek and enact solution, develop accountability and organizational leadership and improving public sector information access.

The creation of official websites by African governments provides greater opportunities for researchers, document librarians, employees of government and private establishments, archivists, and policy makers and so on to have speedy access to government information. It makes government policies and plans available simultaneously to millions of users not only to Africans but also to peoples in other parts of the world. The bureaucratic bottleneck, devastating delays and weaknesses in the implementation or enforcement of legal deposit laws in Africa would be minimized as government documents librarians could easily acquire government publications online without waiting for depository copies from government printing officers. Acquisitions of government publications are made more transparent and cost-effective if e-procurement or e-acquisition of these documents is made possible through African governments’ websites. Access to ICTs and educational infrastructures in Africa might remain limited if sustainable efforts are not invested, and this may pose serious impediments to e-government project to member states. Recommendations

Government leaders in Africa need to understand the potentials of ICTs as a tool for improving their public services and therefore, provide enabling environment for the attainment of connected governance.

African leaders need to continually invest in improving e-public services and in providing access tools to ever demanding citizens. The importance of providing opportunities for participating in e-governance is the first imperative for African leaders. To achieve this, there should be a realistic political vision and plan for action that completely grasps the strengths and weaknesses of its public sectors capacity. There is a need for a regular organization of multi-stakeholders’ workshops on e-government sustainability in Africa. The purpose of this is

to create awareness of e-government on government officials. To be able to accomplish this task more efforts and resources needed to be invested if Africa is not going to be left behind in the global e-information service delivery.

A growing number of research works on e-governance in Africa should be conducted in academia and published. The aim should be to raise further awareness among African government officials on the e-government opportunities; share information on national approaches and practices. This will provide and promote collective efforts in the development of national e-government strategies for Africa where experts in developed countries can be involved in playing pivotal roles in assisting African states in the implementation of steady e-government best practices.

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