Taking governance to next new level

The Himalayan Times - English Daily in its Sunday "Perspective" published today (April 15, 2007) an article by Rabindra Pokhrel based on the discussions with me (www.rajeshshakya.com) and Dr. Shailendra Sigdel on e-Governance in Nepal. Here is the full story. To view the article in the Himalayan Times Click Here.


Even as governance in Nepal goes off beam under grinding polarisation, IT experts and e-governance specialists have now taken up the cudgels to take governance to the next new level. While the world has moved on from e-governance to M-governance (mobile governance) to Ubiquitous government, these experts dream of delivering government services and information to public using electronic means to help governance evolve from the grassroots.

E-governance facilitates government an efficient, speedy and transparent process to disseminate information to the public and other agencies, and to perform government administration activities. Though Nepal is yet to take stock of the vast opportunities the use of Internet has opened up, Electronic Transaction Act, 2063 has taken Nepal further in the field of information and communication technology. A lot of initiatives have already been taken in the area, but specialists clamour for things to be implemented. A lot of measures are still to be taken for authenticity and confidence in online transactions.
Explains Rajesh Shakya, Chairman of Hi-Tech Valley, “Farmers in Mustang with access to Internet can sell their apples to dealers in Manhattan. Job opportunity available in Malaysia can be applied to from Bhojpur. Businesses and individuals can submit their income tax to the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) from their computers at home. A young entrepreneur can register him/herself a new
company through the Small and Cottage Industries Department without any harassment by unwanted brokers. A software freelancer in Pokhara can work for a buyer in Australia... and innumerable other possibilities are possible for anybody and everybody through the Internet.”
Shakya informs that the House of Representatives (HoR) of the government of Nepal approved the Electronic Transaction Act, 2063 on December 4, 2006, while the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (MoEST) formulated the regulations. The new legislation has not only legalised all forms of electronic transactions and digital signatures, but has also clearly spelled out ways to regulate various computer-based activities and punish cyber crimes. The new legislation has set forth a legal framework, administrative and application mechanism for electronic transactions and digital signatures. Besides legal validity of electronic records and digital signatures, the Act has made a provision for Comptroller of Certification Authority (CCA).

“Electronic transactions and digital signatures is valid not only for the private sector but also for government agencies, which allows government offices to use electronic medium regarding tender notices, vacancy announcements and others. It also validates public procurement and acceptance of electronic applications. Even corporates could avail of the benefits of the new legislation, after ICT tools such as telephone, Internet connectivity is made accessible in all areas. ICT also has a vital role to play in all transactions that the government undertakes. It helps the government cut red-tapism, avoid corruption, and reach citizens directly,” says Dr Shailendra Sigdel, institutional and governance specialist.
But the legislation still suffers from a few setbacks.
“The current Electronic Transaction Act is limited in asymmetric cryptography with key pairs for digital authentication, whereas there are already several other promising authentication technology and algorithms popular and established in the world. Key pair concept is not wrong, but the Act should have opened up scope for possible future developments as well,” says Dr Sigdel.
Shakya points out another big issue — online payment method. He complains the absence of any Act, law or regulations or government directives, which allow conducting legal online financial transaction.
“I cannot imagine reaping the full benefits of Internet technology without online payment possibilities. The Electronic Transaction Act without a word on online payment is only half-done,” he opines.
He also emphasises on the need for government employees to change their mindset from “knowledge hiding” to “knowledge sharing”. Each component of e-governance, including “transparency”, has to be initiated as a mission and such initiations should be complemented by the appropriate legal infrastructure. Simply implementing software applications alone doesn’t bring a transparent system; it requires a whole lot of training and exercises for the government employees. On the other side of the coin, citizens should be aware enough to demand their ‘right to information’.
So what will be the suitable e-governance framework for our country?
Shakya answers, “We have to have a National Citizens database, in the real sense, which will be essential for all e-governance applications, vertical or horizontal. We should have acceptable standards for exchanging information securely with non-repudiation throughout the network, between citizens to government, and among government departments seamlessly. We have to establish data centres at the centre and regional centres to handle the administrative workflow automation, collaboration, interaction, authenticated exchange of information. We should have our administrative processes rightly empowered and reengineered, which can accelerate decision-making. Only then will the entire administrative agencies be able to contribute more for the national development, rather than being entangled in piles of files.”
Adds Dr Sigdel, “To make e-governance more comprehensive, it has to be developed into an institutional framework. Good governance, being an important goal of countries across the globe, has taken up initiatives for open and participatory governments. Freedom of information is being redefined and the Internet revolution has proved to be a powerful tool for good governance initiatives.”
“An important dimension of the Internet potential is the possibility of providing services anytime, anywhere. Along with this, there is a conscious effort to put the citizen as the centre of focus of the governance. Citizens are being perceived as customers and clients. E-governance has to be citizen friendly and based on the demand of citizens. Delivery of services to citizens is considered as a primary function of the government. Particularly in a country like Nepal, where the citizens are out of reach of government services because of diversity in many ways, e-governance should enable seamless access to information and seamless flow of information in any type of political state setup,” says Shakya.

National Identification (NID) Card

Can you imagine how many times you may need to produce your personal profile during your life? How many times you get frustrated when your credentials are not correct? Just imagine, your personal and family informations are important from the day you born - Birth certificate, School admission application, Citizenship certificate, College admission form. Similar information required for starting your business, getting driving license for riding your first motorbike, acquiring and transferring properties, registering your marriage, migrating from district to district, casting vote for your favorite leader, getting passport for traveling abroad, applying for the job and so many events and in so many situations you will have to disclose your personal identification. So your personal information is scattered everywhere. Besides that the agencies which deal with you on such situations, each one of those should process, store, retain your information separately and definitely waste of resources, time, money. On top of that, you can not expect consistency on the information of the same person in each agency. When we are planning for the e-governance implementation in Nepal, its a high time to think about an appropriate solution for this. Many countries in our region and many countries in the world have come up with the card based identity solution. Why not we go for the similar option?

Modern ID cards bear little resemblance to the traditional "photograph on piece of cardboard" and are often hi-tech smart cards capable of being swiped and read by computer. ID card is a identity document in the form of a small standard-sized card (most of the banks in urban areas issue debit and credit cards with similar card technology). Unlike other forms of documentation, which only have a single purpose such as authorizing bank transfers or proving membership of a library, an ID card should assert the bearer's identity. The ID card, which may be issued by the government should assert a unique single civil identity for a person, thus defining that person's identity purely in relation to the country. New technologies allow ID cards to contain biometric information, such as photographs, face, hand or iris measurements, or fingerprints, and other supporting database - including full name, parents' names, address, profession, nationality, medical information like blood type, Rhesus factor(Rh factor) and many other information. In addition to that it may include the transactional information like driving license information, property ownership information, passport information etc.

It is obvious that the primary data requirement for the effective e-Governance is the Citizen database and identifying citizen may be the National ID (NID) Card. It should be a multipurpose secured and authentic ID card. Nepal government should be able to provide such card to the citizens at a cost effective basis, may be for free. Hence there is a need to select the right technology for the preparation of the card and online issue of the card also needs to be determined. This challenge must be taken up by the consortium of public and private industries, academic institutions with the Government. I would suggest introducing Single multipurpose National ID card (NID) containing all personal and family information, photo, finger print of the person and other transactional information for different purposes.

NID would be a useful administrative tool that will increase government efficiency and cut down on crime. If the government doesn't issue ID cards, private companies will require equivalent documents, such as a driver license, which are not properly suited for identity purposes. crimes such as identity theft would be drastically reduced, and are indeed unknown in countries where ID cards are required to open a bank accounts. To make the NID work, it should be a citizen-driven movement. It is a political issue. Cards for everything from passport and visa, voter ID, drivers license, vehicle registration, weapon permit, health care and welfare and secured services should come under its umbrella of NID. From 2010 you need Electronic Machine Readable Passport to travel abroad according to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) requirements. Some of the countries already use biometric passports.

Electronic cards are used increasingly by various governments, million passports are in electronic format. Smart Cards based IDs seem to be part of life in those countries. E-passports mean automated entry and exit at airports, all the while enhancing two mutually exclusive elements-security and management of passenger flows. Not only Singapore, Japan, Korea, USA, UK, but there are several developing countries that are expanding their use of smart cards as well. Take the example of multipurpose card (myKad) in Malaysia, vehicle registration and driver licenses' in El Salvador, ID cards in Oman, health care cards in Slovenia and vehicle registration in India. Government security in the US, UK, - there are whole range of areas where smart card usage is applicable and beneficial.

During my interactions with different agencies while preparing investment plan for the e-governance, I found a greater enthusiasm for putting driving licenses, vehicle registration, Citizenship certificate, passports etc., on the card. If national broadband network can be started and made available in cities and to the last village, East to west, Himalayan region to plain Terai, a number of e-services can be delivered, which would provide a government-citizen interface of tremendous value. The National ID card is the foundation of trust for e-governance. A large number of services can be listed, which could make all the difference in creating a efficient government-citizen integration.

The scale and range of the National ID card business is so vast that multi-stakeholder partnership (may be the Public Private Partnership) is the only perceived way it could be successfully implemented for all the citizens of Nepal. For all these services however, the cards need to be secure against fraud and tampering. It should be a strong identification, with no threat to customer privacy, providing a better service to the clients and an easy to deploy system. Visit www.rajeshshakya.com for other details.

E-Governance Framework for implementation and impact measurement

I am trying to seek convincing answers for the questions I put forward in my last post by asking another set of questions? What will be the suitable e-Governance framework for our country? Do we have a National Citizen database, in real sense, which will be essential for all e-governance applications, vertical or horizontal? Do we have acceptable standards for exchanging information securely with non-repudiation, through out the network, between citizen to government and among government departments seamlessly? Are we planning to establish a secure delivery framework connecting ministries and departments of our government? Can we establish data centers in center and regions to handle the administrative workflow automation, collaboration, interaction, authenticated exchange of information? We should have our administrative processes rightly empowered and reengineered which can accelerate the decision making? When will the entire administrative agencies be able to contribute more for the national development rather than being entangled in the piles of files? I have just visualized the scenario. Let us try to find an answer to each of the above questions towards providing good and smart governance to our citizens.

I have been advocating the use of technology and especially Information Technology for the betterment of our society. E-Governance implementation is one such opportunity, which I see can uplift the chaos administrative system in our country to the well organized and accessible service-system to everyone. Definitely one should not forget that the technology should be used with wisdom. If we don't have an implementation plan upfront from concept to delivery, in less than TWO to FIVE years, even shorter period of time, the technology will become expensive in many ways and we will not be able to get the real benefits out of it. So e-governance implementation process should be fast enough to stay on top of the technology. Along with the e-Governance implementation process, independent monitoring and study should be carried out so that the impact of e-governance implementation to the live of citizens can be measured.

What government services may impact the citizens life? What are the major government services you think should the first be prioritized as e-Governance project?
Visit www.rajeshshakya.com for other details.

e-Governance scenarios

I had an opportunity to attend and present my paper in the 8th UNeGov.net Network-Building Workshop on Electronic Governance and the 4th School on Foundations of Electronic Governance organized by United Nations University, International Institute for Software Technology (UN IIST) and National Information Technology Center (NITC), Kathmandu from Feb 12 to 15, 2007. I am happy to see enthusiastic participation from many government agencies, private business and development organizations. I greet all the national and international delegates and participants, who are contributing substantially to bring the change and innovation in the form of governance electronically. I was thinking what topic I can share with you. Today I will further continue to discuss about Citizen Centric e-Governance: Technology and its management.

Good governance is being recognized as an important goal by many countries across the world. They have taken up specific initiatives for open and participatory government. Freedom of information is being redefined and the Internet revolution has proved to be a powerful tool for good governance initiatives. An important dimension of the Internet potential is the possibility of providing services any time anywhere. Along with this there is a conscious effort to put the citizen as the center of focus of the governance. Citizens are being perceived as customers and clients. E-governance has to be citizen friendly and based on the demand of citizens. Delivery of services to citizens is considered as a primary function of the government. Particularly the country like Nepal, where the citizens are out of reach to the government services because of diversity in many ways, e-Governance should enable seamless access to information and seamless flow of information across the country and government in any type of political state setup (system).

Many countries in Asia, Europe, Australia and America have implemented the e-governance and with great success. It is definitely a big challenge before us.

Relevant scenario today:

I visualize an election scenario, where a candidate files his nomination from his/her constituency. Immediately the election officer verifies his/her authenticity from the National Identification (NID) database through multi-factor authentication, through a multipurpose National Identification card (NID Card). All the required identity details arrive at the computer terminal of the election officer within few seconds automatically by the act of e-governance software online service and presents the facts in real-time without any bias. Election officer sitting at the remote area of the country decides on the spot and the election process starts. All the voters vote from their home through virtual polling booths.

Similarly, lets assume we will have a central data center for all the national data and replicated across the regional level data centers. His/her civic consciousness and citizenship behavior comes from the police crime record database. His property record comes from the Land Registration Office database. His income and wealth resources come from the income-tax department database, and other sources. His education credentials come from the university records database. His track record of employment comes from Civil Personnel Records (Nijamati Kitabkhana). His credit history comes from banks database. His legal track records come from the judicial record system database.

Is it just a dream? Is it really possible? If possible, when shall we have it? Can we provide good governance to our all citizens? Can the e-governance speed up the delivery system? Can the e-governance differentiate between genuine transactions and fraudulent transaction? Can the e-governance ensure immediate action for the genuine cases which satisfies the check list for a particular service and pend the action on transactions to be investigated? Can this be done by e-governance at a cost affordable by our country? If not, how much investment we may need to attain this? Will that be justifiable? If we have this system implemented then we call this as a true e-Governance system for the citizen?
Visit www.rajeshshakya.com for other details.

Citizen Centric e-Governance in Nepal

e-Government has been one of the most striking developments of the Internet. As the Internet supported online communities evolve, and assuming that they do indeed grow to incorporate individuals around the country and the world, they present the governments with a number of challenges and opportunities.

Governments in "democratic countries" are primarily a representative mechanism whereby the selected few debate and enact the legislation for and on behalf of their citizens. There are several aspects to this that might prove of importance in the context of e-governance, where citizens can participate in the debates and expresses their opinions and their aspirations heard and addressed properly.

Firstly, those elected representatives need access to information and communication resources. It is necessary for them to inform, interact and listen to their constituents. It is necessary for them to communicate with one another. It is necessary for them to discover and represent the wishes of those who have elected them as their representatives.

At the simplest level, the implementation of e-governance can then support information and communication requirement. E-mail among parties, politicians, parliament members and among ministers, parliament members, politicians and government departments can be easily established. It would have been great if the Prime Minister of the Country sends out monthly bulletins on projects, plans with proper instructions and motivations to the government workers down beneath to local level. Many ministries and government departments have got their web sites on Internet. It will be a good idea that our people's representatives publish their home pages on Internet, to act as constituency interaction center. This then touches on the next aspect, that of communicating with the constituents. In addition to the standard channels and mechanisms, the people's representatives can receive the email messages from those wishing to express their views. There are similarly endless ways to utilize Information and communication technologies (only limited by the imagination of the implementing agency) to provide efficient and transparent solutions to citizens. This will be the most successful participatory governance if we can make it happen.

I will discuss on more other citizen centric government services in my future posts. Write your thoughts and also give suggestions, what e-governance should cover and its scope as well.
Visit www.rajeshshakya.com for other details.