Government Administrative Process Reengineering

How e-Government should be started is a question of debate. There are different best practices from different countries. There is absolutely not a single answer. The draft e-Government Master Plan (eGMP) has been prepared by the government of Nepal with the technical assistance from the Korean Government. It has identified spectrum of prospective government applications ranging from government internal process automation to online citizen services and Government procurement portals. Project for investment plan preparation is under going under the technical assistance from Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Planning should be the holistic manner but the implementation of each project should be taken case to case basis. Important thing is the Common e-Government Application Framework and standard common e-government architecture that all applications should base upon facilitating interoperability.

Government should decide what is the strategy for prioritizing the applications for implementation. And needs an extensive exercise to find out how much reengineering we want in the government process based on the application identified. Reengineering can not be done for the whole organization itself. It should be targeted to the processes only for specific administrative or public service functions (applications).

Starting small is a success factor for e-Governance in its all branches: Administration, Civil Services, Parliament and Judiciary functions. The manner of reengineering implementation and sequencing of the reengineering are key issues. Reengineering should be aimed at adapting administration to the further increasing flow of information: simplifying the work process, accelerating the process of decision making by optimizing resources, and making the mechanism for decision making self-regulating. e-Government is justified if it enhances the capacity of public administration to increase the supply of public value - the outcome of a high quality of life. It is essential that the government process reengineering should be done before any computerization. It should not be a mere automation, but the transformation through process reengineering.

While setting the priority for the e-Government applications implementation, government should be clear in its strategy of priority, whether it should give priority to "Economic Benefits" or priority to "Social Benefits" or priority to "Benefits of Government" or the proportionately from all. Going through any government Process reengineering effort is difficult given the various contending forces, which push and pull all the public sector. It is indeed important for the countries like us undergoing reforms to learn from the successes and failures of others and study their best practices. The literature on reforms undertaken in other countries provides lessons to those who are still in the process of formulating a reform agenda. But one should always keep in mind the importance of contextual perspective, the diversity of country problems, evaluation of the cultural values, strength of the country managing resources for reform, commitment of the top level bureaucratic, political and social leaders and taking up the reform as national priority agenda and the responsibility of the countries themselves, which are best placed to do so, to decide where to place their emphasis.

The major objective of this governance should be to support and simplify governance for all parties - government, citizens, and businesses.

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