Abstract
The four country case studies presented in this book cover different periods of time and are not part of an experimental design, but rather attempts by their authors to explore national experiences with some guidance from a common e-development model. A companion book covers four additional countries of different sizes, conditions, and levels of development: Brazil, China, Canada, and Sri Lanka. Taken together, the two books cover a broad range of countries at different levels of development and take an international comparative approach to the study of e-transformation.
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Notes
- 1.
For details see Dutta and Mia (2010), the 2010 issue of the World Economic Forum’s annual publication: The Global Information Technology Report.
- 2.
Other traditional comparative indicators would be the growth rates and total factor productivity (TFP) indicators: all four cases show high levels of growth rates relative to their per capita income level, over the last decade, but TFP growth for both the Philippines and South Africa are lower and income inequality much higher.
- 3.
An analysis of the political economy for such reform is attempted in the South Africa chapter, but much more in-depth understanding of why such coalition did not form for a long time is warranted.
- 4.
There are many definitions for telecenters, but a good one is “a facility that offers community members the ability to use ICTs in a publicly shared manner. Telecenters often provide the only connectivity available to many community members, and their services may be offered with or without a fee.” See cyber.law.harvard.edu/readinessguide/glossary.html.
- 5.
Singapore, with a small and 100% urban population with a high per capita income, while heavily Chinese, has significant minorities of Malays and Indians, so it is a multicultural society where in addition to English, other languages such as Chinese, Malay, and Tamil are spoken.
- 6.
Finland’s population is small, generally has high per capita income, and is quite homogenous, but over 30% is still rural and it has a large territory in relation to its population (like Canada).
- 7.
We also draw on country cases in the companion volume (Hanna and Knight 2011) and on our experience in many other countries.
- 8.
Like the Internet bubble of 2000, and the emerging social media (e.g., Facebook) bubble in 2011.
- 9.
- 10.
Singapore’s TradeNet is an example. It was launched first in the late 1980s using pre-Internet electronic data interchange (EDI) technology to connect all members of the Singapore trading community through the exchange of intercompany documents in format conforming to established public standards. This was later linked to the international trading community, and subsequently migrated to the Internet. The processes of collaboration and coordination across many institutions, and of encouraging adoption of ICT by SMEs and small traders provided the foundations for successive advances in using ICT in trade facilitation, and for the diffusion of ICT across the economy. Subsequently, TradeNet launched Singapore’s full entry into deploying value-added networks throughout the Singaporean economy, and later, to sell the expertise of trade facilitation and networks to other countries. Meantime, building on its earlier learning from TradeNet, Singapore commissioned TradeXchange in 2007, to facilitate collaboration across many actors by providing a secure, multiparty collaborative platform to integrate trade and logistics processes.
- 11.
The benefits of tapping these synergies have to outweigh the cost of coordination.
- 12.
- 13.
The gap between the potential of ICT innovations and their widespread diffusion and economy-wide impact is significant, similar to earlier GPTs. The rapid diffusion of mobile phones may be the exception in view of the dramatic decline in costs and the low barriers and skill requirements for users. Yet, realizing the full potential of using mobiles for affordable Internet access and for development-oriented applications may take more time.
- 14.
An early study of this phenomenon is best illustrated in Wilson (2004).
- 15.
Some micro-tasking solutions are being piloted to outsource IT-enabled services to micro enterprises in the rural areas in India, among others, with great promise for growth and employment opportunities in rural India.
- 16.
See Hanna (1994).
- 17.
In the case of the World Bank, for example, engaging at the national level would enable the global ICT unit to deal directly with core ministries like Finance, Planning, and Economy, not just telecommunications, industry or ICT ministries, or the technical staff in the sectoral ministries. This should help bridge the gap between World Bank country managers and the global ICT unit, and bridge similar gaps between the core ministries and specialized ICT agencies within the client countries. It is essential to bring e-transformation strategy development to the central institutions formulating the national development agenda.
- 18.
A short-term horizon also fits with the short horizons of election and budget cycles.
- 19.
There is a complete absence of an architectural or enterprise-wide view when it comes to using ICT in government. Each sector or government agency goes about constructing its own room, without any overarching architecture bringing coherence to the building.
- 20.
Some have argued that ICT applications inevitably have a high risk high reward profile, not that much different from the projects associated with venture capital. We think this is a misleading analogy as most ICT applications in developing countries are not creating new and untested technologies, and with adequate design and complementary investment in capabilities and change processes, failure rates could be significantly reduced, and benefits sustained and scaled up.
- 21.
With the increasing integration of technology into both the public and private sectors, the level of complexity is increasing. This exponential increase in complexity is likely to pose grave risks in the future. For example, Bank projects with ICT components do not adequately deal with cyber security threats. This is likely to become a serious problem going forward. Similarly, open government initiatives involve change management and political risks that should not be ignored. Both governments and organizations like the World Bank need to develop new skills, competencies, and processes to address such threats.
- 22.
Notable exceptions are a few Nobel Laureates in Economics such as Stiglitz and Spence.
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Hanna, N.K., Knight, P.T. (2012). Comparative Experience and Lessons in e-Transformation. In: Hanna, N., Knight, P. (eds) National Strategies to Harness Information Technology. Innovation, Technology, and Knowledge Management. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2086-6_6
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