Abstract
New developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) over the past few decades, especially the establishment of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, have created an unprecedented capacity for people to access and retrieve information on the Internet. Such developments have also affected the way public institutions, particularly governments, provide services to their citizens in addressing the challenges of improving government efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability (Allen, Juillet, Pacquet, & Roy, 2001; Allen, Juillet, Miles, Paquet, Roy, & Wilkins, 2004; Holliday, 2002; La Porte, Demchak, de Jong, 2002; UN, 2004). In addressing these challenges, applications of ICTs have been considered as one of key components in the various public sector reforms, and to some extent associated with the coining of “reinventing government” (Heeks, 2001; Ho, 2002). Thus, by the late 1990s many governments were already delivering Web-based services as “an integral and significant part of a new ‘e-government’ ” (Ho, 2002, p. 434). All over the world, therefore, countries and states are at the various stages of implementing e-government or digital government to improve delivery of government services to their citizens and at the same time to provide increased avenues for direct participation of citizens in addressing with their governments the citizens’ development needs. In general, in all respects of implementing e-government strategies, developed countries are far ahead of developing countries (Basu, 2004; La Porte et al., 2002; Nath, 2003; Netchaeva, 2002; Singh & Naidoo, 2005; UN, 2001, 2002, 2004) due to a number of reasons that will be highlighted later in this chapter.