E-government for export - Article by James Smith
South Korea lends a helping hand – with strings attached, writes James Smith.
Judging by a recent spate of agreements, as well as tracking over the deals we’ve covered in this magazine over the last four years, no government in the region has been as active as South Korea when it comes to promoting the adoption of e-government in other countries.
From the ‘E-Indonesia’ network in Java, Sumatra and Bali, to e-government training in Thailand, online registries in Kazakhstan, cooperation committees with India’s Union Government, and elaborate e-government plans for local government in Russia – no country has been more prolific in exporting the tools of IT-enabled governance.
As a rising star in the field of government technology adoption, you might think there was nothing unusual in this frenetic burst of cooperative endeavour. Afterall, for the second time in a row a survey of municipal e-government by the E-governance Institute of Rutgers University-Newark found Seoul to be the top-ranked city (though coincidentally the research was jointly conducted with Sungkyunkwan University in, er, Seoul).
Meanwhile last year’s Global E-Government Survey from our friends at Brown University eccentrically charted a leap from 86th place to the number one position for … South Korea. And as we all know, the country genuinely is one of the world’s most wired societies with over 70 per cent of homes receiving broadband internet. So the country clearly has more to contribute to the development of the regional public sector beyond Korean drama serials and kimchi.
"Korea will not spare efforts to support countries in not only building advanced network infrastructure but also in introducing e-government services," said Rho Jun-Hyong, Minister for Information and Communications at a recent inter-governmental talking shop focusing on more pervasive ICT adoption in Asia.
And this is a message which certainly seems to go down well in some of the region’s least developed countries. Only a month or so ago Myanmar’s forward-looking leadership announced a wide-ranging agreement to let South Korean chaebol Daewoo to establish new online citizen services. Don’t expect high participation rates for these services for a while – the country has an internet penetration rate 0.03 per cent.
Then there is a new e-government roadmap that has been put together with South Korean expertise and funding for Nepal. Over the next four years the country (internet penetration rate 0.42 per cent) is set to roll-out a “fully-fledged e-governance system” which will deliver the usual comprehensive range of citizen-focused administrative services, and provide all arms of government with a single data network.
But, without wanting to detract from the generosity of spirit which provides trade finance for elaborate e-citizen applications in countries with low teledensity, and next to no internet penetration – perhaps South Korea’s drive for e-government exports will do more harm than good.
When it comes to government modernisation and the consolidation of a country’s information infrastructure, Public Sector Technology & Management likes to be on the side of the angels. We are certainly not arguing that developing countries should limit their ambition – and in the past we have advocated the role of disruptive new technologies to enable countries to leapfrog generations of technology.
But a spirit of adventure when it comes to the value of ICT needs to be married with a certain degree of pragmatism. The easy availability of trade finance does not, by itself, create a business case for importing South Korean e-government expertise wholesale.
The stark truth is that language is still a barrier preventing many of the nuanced lessons that South Korea has learned during its own rapid pace of development from being shared with the audience it deserves. With the right financial terms, it may be easier for South Korea to push metal, code and wires than to sell soft skills and expertise – but it’s the latter the region needs most.
[source:Copyright © 2002 - 2006 Alphabet Media Pte Ltd.]

Judging by a recent spate of agreements, as well as tracking over the deals we’ve covered in this magazine over the last four years, no government in the region has been as active as South Korea when it comes to promoting the adoption of e-government in other countries.
From the ‘E-Indonesia’ network in Java, Sumatra and Bali, to e-government training in Thailand, online registries in Kazakhstan, cooperation committees with India’s Union Government, and elaborate e-government plans for local government in Russia – no country has been more prolific in exporting the tools of IT-enabled governance.
As a rising star in the field of government technology adoption, you might think there was nothing unusual in this frenetic burst of cooperative endeavour. Afterall, for the second time in a row a survey of municipal e-government by the E-governance Institute of Rutgers University-Newark found Seoul to be the top-ranked city (though coincidentally the research was jointly conducted with Sungkyunkwan University in, er, Seoul).
Meanwhile last year’s Global E-Government Survey from our friends at Brown University eccentrically charted a leap from 86th place to the number one position for … South Korea. And as we all know, the country genuinely is one of the world’s most wired societies with over 70 per cent of homes receiving broadband internet. So the country clearly has more to contribute to the development of the regional public sector beyond Korean drama serials and kimchi.
"Korea will not spare efforts to support countries in not only building advanced network infrastructure but also in introducing e-government services," said Rho Jun-Hyong, Minister for Information and Communications at a recent inter-governmental talking shop focusing on more pervasive ICT adoption in Asia.
And this is a message which certainly seems to go down well in some of the region’s least developed countries. Only a month or so ago Myanmar’s forward-looking leadership announced a wide-ranging agreement to let South Korean chaebol Daewoo to establish new online citizen services. Don’t expect high participation rates for these services for a while – the country has an internet penetration rate 0.03 per cent.
Then there is a new e-government roadmap that has been put together with South Korean expertise and funding for Nepal. Over the next four years the country (internet penetration rate 0.42 per cent) is set to roll-out a “fully-fledged e-governance system” which will deliver the usual comprehensive range of citizen-focused administrative services, and provide all arms of government with a single data network.
But, without wanting to detract from the generosity of spirit which provides trade finance for elaborate e-citizen applications in countries with low teledensity, and next to no internet penetration – perhaps South Korea’s drive for e-government exports will do more harm than good.
When it comes to government modernisation and the consolidation of a country’s information infrastructure, Public Sector Technology & Management likes to be on the side of the angels. We are certainly not arguing that developing countries should limit their ambition – and in the past we have advocated the role of disruptive new technologies to enable countries to leapfrog generations of technology.
But a spirit of adventure when it comes to the value of ICT needs to be married with a certain degree of pragmatism. The easy availability of trade finance does not, by itself, create a business case for importing South Korean e-government expertise wholesale.
The stark truth is that language is still a barrier preventing many of the nuanced lessons that South Korea has learned during its own rapid pace of development from being shared with the audience it deserves. With the right financial terms, it may be easier for South Korea to push metal, code and wires than to sell soft skills and expertise – but it’s the latter the region needs most.
[source:Copyright © 2002 - 2006 Alphabet Media Pte Ltd.]
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