E-Governance for Development: Designing an Operational Roadmap for ICT-Enabled Public Administration Reform

Background And Motivations

At the state of the art, different definitions of governance have been provided. The World Bank has identified three distinct aspects of governance: i) the form of political regime; 2) the process by which authority is exercised in the management of a country's economic and social resources for development; 3) the capacity of governments to design, formulate and implement policies and discharge functions (World Bank, 1991). For UNDP, governance is viewed as the exercise of economic, political and administrative authority to manage a country's affairs at all levels. It is about the process by which government, the private sector, citizens and groups articulate their interests, mediate their differences, and exercise their legal rights and obligations (UNDP, 1997).

The concept of governance defined by OECD denotes the use of political authority and exercise of control in a society in relation to the management of its resources for social and economic development (OECD, 1995). This broad definition encompasses the role of public authorities in establishing the environment in which economic operators function and in determining the distribution of benefits as well as the nature of the relationship between the ruler and the ruled.

In general terms, indeed, governance is the process of decision making and the process by which decisions are implemented, and an analysis of governance focuses on the formal and informal actors involved in decision-making and implementing the decisions made and the formal and informal structures that have been set in place to arrive at and implement the decision. Government is one of the actors in governance. Other actors involved in governance vary depending on the level of government that is under discussion¹.