No need to reinvent wheel

Government agencies are trying to become citizen-centred, but each government agency is doing this alone, says Matt Poelmans, director of the e-Citizen Programme (ICTU) in the Netherlands, and international keynote speaker at the ITWeb eGovernment Conference.

"The challenge lies in convincing all institutions involved of the necessity of a standard; making them co-operate in developing it and getting the result generally adopted."

Poelmans believes the Dutch e-Citizen Charter can be used and be beneficial in the South African context in terms of creating an identifiable standard. "In order to prevent civil servants from inventing the wheel time and again, the e-Citizen Charter helped us to focus all energy on defining a common standard, and on co-operation to implement this.

"The charter defines standards for the new relationship between citizen and government in the information society," which he says are applicable in all democratic countries. "By describing citizens' digital rights, they create awareness. By stating corresponding government obligations, they help to boost take up."

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He says implementing a standard is essentially not a technological issue but an organisational problem, or rather an educational challenge. "That's why the charter development process stresses the involvement of capable civil servants who are ready to innovate."

The Dutch e-Citizen Charter defines 10 principles for the new relationship between citizens and government in the information society. The 10 principles deal with three areas of government: information provision, service delivery and interactive participation.

"The implementation of the 10 principles assumes the availability of ICT solutions in four basic areas: portals to provide access, basic registries containing relevant data, secure identity management, and broadband exchange networks."

The ITWeb eGovernment Conference will take place on 7and 8 August at Emperors Palace.