Abstract
This chapter explores trends in the development of e-governance in Africa, issues, challenges, opportunities, and innovative practices, as well as the impacts that such process is likely to have in the progress of Urban e-Planning in the continent, namely in the five Lusophone African countries: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Sao Tome and Principe. The first part is focused on e-governance development in Africa. The second section deals with the case of the Lusophone African countries. The level of Urban e-Planning development in African cities is in general far behind cities in developed countries. Besides sharing a common colonial history, administrative tradition, and official language, these five African countries have in common similar urban planning cultures. Despite the overall negative picture of e-governance development in Africa that emerges from this overview and the huge barriers it is confronted with, there are signs that it is possible to have a rapid and sustained progress in the field of Urban e-Planning in the near future.
TopIntroduction1
The increasingly generalized use of information and communication technologies in local government associated with the rapid diffusion of the Internet is one of the main changes experienced by municipalities and other tiers of sub-national government in recent years. This has been described as the move from government to e-government in sub-national tiers of government. This transformation in the way government works and relates with citizens and other stakeholders has multiple aims. Among other objectives, the implementation of e-government seeks to improve citizens’ access to government information; to increase dialogue between government and citizens and other stakeholders; to share knowledge within the community; to allow more efficient service provision; to increase transparency and effectiveness in all tiers of government, and in the limit to facilitate the accountability procedures (Fountain, 2001, 2005; Millard, 2008; Carter & Weerakkody, 2008; Borja & Castells, 1996). A similar change has been experienced in the field of urban planning, described as the move from urban planning to Urban e-Planning (Silva, 2010, 2010a, 2013; Wallin, Horelli, & Saad-Sulonen, 2011; Horelli, 2013), which is increasingly seen as a catalyst for a sustainable urban policy. In addition to this shift from government to e-government, the organization and the way government works is also being impacted by another process: the move from the traditional hierarchical model of public administration towards networked modes of public service organization and delivery (Silva, 2004) taking advantage of networked forms of organization (Powell, 1990). This process is described as the shift from government to governance (Kooiman, 1993; Castells, 2000, 2007; Castells & Cardoso, 2005; Hooghe & Marks, 2003; Silva, 2004), which has important consequences in the way urban planning is organized (Silva, 2010). Despite the huge progresses made within the framework of the Millennium Development Goals in the last decade such progress has been uneven worldwide. And as we move to the Post 2015 Development Agenda, the linkages of e-government and sustainable development became more obvious.