New e-Government policy

Deliberations and inter-action by eGovernment stakeholders took place recently to arrive at a new e-Government policy for Sri Lanka.

The workshop themed 'eGovernment for good governance' hosted by ICTA was held at Hotel Galadari.

A large number of Government Institution heads, Chief Innovation Officers (CIOs), representatives from academia, the private sector and other institutions were present.

The event included presentations on 'Background and introduction to the new 'eGovernment Policy', 'eGovernment Policy - Vision and Overview of Policy' and 'Introduction to review process' by the Review Committee.

This was followed by group activities and group presentations comprising ratings of policy clauses with regard to qualities such as clarity, applicability and implementability.

The first eGovernment policy in Sri Lanka 'the ICT Policy and Procedures for the Government (eGovernment Policy)' was initially approved by the Cabinet of Ministers in December 2009. It was to be implemented by all government organisations including Ministries, Government Departments, Provincial Councils, District Secretariats, Divisional Secretariats and Local Government Authorities.

With rapid changes in technology and the advancement of eGovernment implementation, it is necessary to review and reformulate eGoverment policy.

Even at the time when the policy was approved, it had been identified that it should be dynamic and should be amended as and when necessary.

To achieve this, a committee comprising senior government officials, Chief Innovation Officers, academics, technologists and eGovernment experts have been set up to review and reformulate eGovernment policy.

The eGovernment policy was reviewed in March 2011 and in April 2012. Although self-assessment by relevant stakeholders on their compliance with the 2009 policy was 55 percent in 2011 and 51 percent in 2012, two drawbacks surfaced during the review.

One was that inter-institution understanding needed to be improved. The other was the maturity of the understanding of the eGovernment policy needed to be raised to a higher level.