Friday, December 20, 2002

Governing the Internet In the December issue of Foreign Affairs, Zoe Baird of the Markle Foundation shares her thoughts on Governing the Internet. 2:57:05 PM

e-Maturity in Government Last month, the UK in conjunction with Booz, Allen, Hamilton released a report entitled The World's Most Effective Policies for the e-Economy.  The report identifies characteristics that are important indicators of a government's e-maturity: Government Readiness describes the readiness of government to participate in and drive the e-agenda. Governments with a high degree of readiness have articulated a clear vision for the e-economy and e-government, and put in place delivery strategies with accountable government departments, a change programme to deliver improved government processes and well trained staff. This further requires a dedicated (e-government) organisation to drive and co-ordinate the programme across all parts of government,and to set targets and track progress. The most ready governments will be progressing toward seamless integration of departmental systems across all government levels and agencies, and a coherent, secure interface with citizens and businesses. This in turn requires that plans for back office integration are in place and being actioned, and that interoperability frameworks have been adopted. The level of systems readiness, defined as the readiness of a government’s IT infrastructure and systems to support e-government, are also key. This refers specifically to having a high number of networked PCs for staff, a sound IT core infrastructure, and an effective and secure means of interacting with partners (e.g. Gateway, PKI, etc.). The importance of each of these items cannot be underestimated.  They also require a lot of work and commitment to achieve. 2:18:49 PM

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.