The concept of Digital Governance

The future of this concept known as “Good Governance” rests upon foundations of Digital/Electronic (E-) Governance and the role of modern information and communication technologies in achieving the objectives of core values of the nation’s Sustainable Development Goals which are Transparency, Accountability, and Democracy.

Digital Governance is broadly defined as an application of information technology to the functioning of the government to enhance the delivery of public services to the citizens and other individual and organizational consumers of the government services

Digital or e-government focus primarily on two primary activities:

1. Providing information and online transaction kinds of services to citizens in the state by the government.
2. Enhance the public’s participation and their role as citizens which in recent years have been Termed E-participation or E-Democracy

However, it is pertinent to mention that Digital Governance can bring revolutionary transformation in developing countries when it comes to good governance, therefore I-GLOBE in the pursuit of its Vision

“To spearhead the revolution of Digital Institutional Reforms with new technologies that enhance the integrity of Corporate African Governance”,

is demonstrating how Digital Governance can play a primordial role in enhancing Good Governance through Administrative, Economic, Legal, policy and institutional Reforms in Developing and lest developing countries in Africa in General, and Cameroon I particular.

Digital Governance aims at satisfying citizens, initiating processes and interactions, using technology as a tool to ensure good governance, spreading democratization, delivering government services at doorsteps of citizens and simplifying administrative processes.

Digital Governance is composed of three elements, namely

1. e-Government,
2. e-regulation and
3. e-democracy.

The goal of Digital Governance is to provide better service delivery to the citizens, ensuring transparency and accountability, empowering people through information, improving efficiency within Government and enhancing interference with business and industry.

This framework will help in establishing accountability, roles, and decision-making authority, as well as supervisory and coordination authorities for an organization’s digital presence—which means its websites, mobile sites, social channels, and any other Internet and Web-enabled products and services. Having a well-designed digital governance framework enhances the management of a nation’s digital presence by making clear who on your digital team has decision-making authority.

The core theme of Digital Governance rests on enabling citizens to communicate and interact with government officials via the Internet with graphical user interfaces, instant-messaging, audio/video presentations, and in any way more sophisticated than a simple email letter to the address provided at the site.

The concept of Digital Governance is founded upon 4 major components to facilitate the interaction and functioning of the government which are:

1. Government to Citizens (G2C)
2. Government to Business (G2B)
3. Government to Employees (G2E)
4. Government to Government (G2B)

Government to Citizens (G2C) is a transaction between government and citizens.

It includes,

• Basic citizen’s services such as online registration of birth/death/marriage certificates
• Health care, education services, etc.
• filing of income taxes

Government to Business (G2B) is a transaction between government and Business.

It includes,

• Dissemination of policies, memos, etc.
• Government rules and regulations.
• Business information
• Application forms, renewing licenses,
• registration, payment of taxes.

Government to Employees (G2E) is a transaction between government and Employee.

It Includes,

• Online conference for employee
• Online training
• Employee information

Government to Government (G2B) is a transaction between the central/national and local governments and between government departments and agencies and organizations.

It Includes,

• Records by the state government
• Schemes, plan, Initiatives

Digital Governance and the role of the Modern Information and Communications Technologies in enhancing Good Governance

There are three levels of interaction between the citizens and the administration namely

• one-way information (e.g., information portals),
• interaction (e.g., filling out forms and submitting them via the internet), and
• transaction (e.g., advice or consultations via the internet).

Background

Early 90’s Information   –     Presence

Mid 90’s Interaction      –      Intake process

Present Transaction     –         Complete transaction

Future Transformation –     Integration and  organizational changes

5 stages of Digital Governance

The 5 stages of e-government were developed by the United Nations and the American Society of Public Administration (UN-ASPA).  These five categories measured a country’s e-government progress.