E-Government Initiatives in Kurdistan Region of Iraq: A Citizen-Centric Approach

Society Inclusion And E-Government

E-government has provided a great drive to move forward with delivery of more efficient and superior quality services, effective financial resource, and enhanced relationship between stakeholders and government (Fang, 2002). The advancement of the Internet as a service channel made many people to believe that the Internet would replace all other service channels such as telephone, letter writing (conventional mail system), face-to-face communication, etc., or render them obsolete. However, all these other channels still exist and the use of Internet in many cases has not led to obstacles in the usage of other service channels; in fact, it has been complementary (Shareef, et al. 2010a; Pieterson and Dijk, 2002). Galal-Edeen et al. (2008) explained the use of multi-channels for service provision, and argues about a gap between a government’s preferred channel of communication and the channels that the citizens prefer. They also discuss the criteria for evaluation of multi-channel delivery from the citizen’s perspective in improving the citizen’s participation in government. The evaluation is based on use of different types of channels which the users prefer and is influenced by their circumstances.