UN e-Government Survey 2008: from e-Government to Connected Governance

In a world characterised by rapid change driven by globalization, the knowledge-based economy poses some challenges but also opportunities for the private sector and the public sector alike.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Knowledge Management (KM) has for some time been at the core of government tasks - inseparable from strategy, planning, consultation and implementation. Nevertheless, indications are that the public sector has been falling behind in these practices, compared to the private sector. This realization has prompted some governments to put KM high on their policy agendas.

For citizens, the benefits to be reaped from KM include better services, more choices, more personalization and greater accountability of how their money is spent. For the organization, KM provides the major benefit of improving the organization’s performance through increased efficiency and innovation. But for these benefits to occur, the back office processes must be in place.

KM is founded on the notion that the organization’s most valuable resource is the knowledge of its people. This year’s Survey therefore
looks at the issue of connected governance from the perspective of how governments manage and how they should manage their back office processes.

Part II of the Survey therefore, examines the idea of connected governance as the means to achieve maximum cost savings and improved service delivery. The underlying principle is to improve the internal workings of the public sector by reducing financial costs and transaction time, to better manage the work flow and processes, to improve institutional linkages between different government agencies, ministries and units and enable a better flow of resources and allocation of responsibilities to promote the delivery of public services.

By bringing issues of connected governance to the mainstream of development thinking, the Survey intends to stimulate thinking and debate around an important issue: that egovernment has great potential for public sector transformation.

Full article:http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UN/UNPAN028607.pdf