A detailed summary of presentations, Q&A sessions and resources are presented by the The eDevelopment Thematic Group of the World Bank based on the recent global dialogue seminar on Mobile Government in India.
The Global Dialogue on “m-Government: The New Frontier in Public Service Delivery” brought together over 280 participants from 11 countries (India, Russia, Ukraine, Philippines, Rwanda, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Estonia, U.K. and USA) via videoconference and from many other countries via live webcast and online discussion. The conference was centered on the emerging trend in public service delivery known as Mobile Government or mGovernment. The near ubiquitous use of mobile telephony (with over 3 billion mobile users worldwide and over 70% of world’s population covered by mobile networks) gives this technology the potential to make government services more accessible to citizens. Mobiles can reach areas where there are infrastructure constraints for internet service or where wired phone service is not a viable option. In addition, the lower cost of mobile telephony permits the expansion of mobile government services to the poorer segments of population in developing countries.
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The event featured several inspiring speakers and discussants, who gave overviews of country experiences and issues. We heard the experts and practitioners from Estonia, UK, India. We also heard from private sector operators and their outlook on mobile government services for both new revenue-generation models, and their contribution to sustainable development, transparency, and accountability.
The issue of how a public administration can structure a public private partnership with competing mobile operators, the issue of content and its immediate utility to citizens, that of access and availability of broadband, as well as that of pricing of mobile government services was raised. Perhaps the most fundamental question remains, in our view, how complementary mobile government services will be to the more established type of offerings categorized under "e-government'. This event also generated online and blog discussions on capacity and skills needed to setup mGovernment content and services, PPPs, role of private sector operators, as well as role of donors.
Mr. R. Chandrasekhar, Additional Secretary, DIT, Government of India, in his keynote presentation shared that in India, with 1 billion population, many living in one of 600,000 villages, the government has a program to create 100,000 Service Access Points. Although this is only one per six villages, it is one of the most extensive access programs in the world. According to Mr. Chandrashekhar, mobile is the only technology growing fast enough to address India's scale of demand.
The presentation by Dr. Ibrahim Kushchu, Director, Mobile Government Consortium International in the U.K. provided a global overview and emphasized the benefits to the parties involved including citizens, businesses and government units. It was set forth that mGovernment is about solving real problems and improving the way people live. mGovernment has a positive effect on the economy through infrastructure development, better business practices, improvements in public sector and contributions to collective welfare of the individuals via social responsibility. Challenges to mGovernment were explored such as those related to interoperability (roaming, variety of platforms, etc); usability (mobile devices limitations); privacy protection, etc. The presentation concluded that mGovernment is inevitable and growing fast. Hence, the parties involved must create a natural fit so as to have responsive public organizations and an “able society” that can benefit.
Hannes Astok, former Vice-Mayor of Tartu, Estonia contributed to the Global Dialogue with a description of the mTartu project that was formally launched in 2004 (although the city of Tartu first introduced mobile parking payment capability as early as 2000). The city of Tartu was selected for the project given its mobile penetration which is close to 100%, and the pervasive point of view that computers are tied to a place, but mobile devices are always with the user. The project has launched 3-4 new mobile services each year. Mobile services in Tartu with widespread use include mobile parking payments, mobile bus-ticketing, mobile micro payments, M-teacher in all schools, M-Police, M-Library, and tourist services. The presentation submitted that the key success factors for the project have been a) political will; b) cooperation between mobile operators, government, regulators and business entities; and c) dynamic planning.
The dialogue concluded with a vigorous Comments, questions and answers session. Not all comments made have been captured in the following summary and questions which were repeated by multiple participants have only been recorded once. The questions have been summarized and passed to the major speakers and to World Bank Group experts for response. The Questions, and any responses, can be viewed here where an inter-active forum has been established to continue the dialog.
Philippines: Made observations about the limitations of the mobile device and stated that they thought a blending of e-government and m-government was needed.
India: Asked what could be developed in terms of a PPP ownership model. Asked if there could be a Village Phone program for India. Requested guidance on how people could approach government or industry for development ideas.
Russia: Commented that there was disagreement amongst themselves about the desirability of enabling m-government. Asked if Estonia had considered creating m-services for people with disabilities.
Ukraine: Asked for more detail about the public services already implemented and under development in the UK.
Rwanda: Asked for any information about successful examples of PPP. Asked how affordable mobile phones were in India. Asked if anyone could tell them how much useful information could be sent via mobile, given the small screen size.
Ghana: Wanted more information on financial aspects. Asked if it wasn't necessary to make government services more efficient first, before trying to make them available over mobile. Asked if there was any information available about how literacy issues could be overcome. Wanted more information on the kinds of initiatives and any success stories.
Tanzania: Wanted to know about implementation challenges for PPP in this area, especially with regard to the consequences on ownership of infrastructure, data and the transactions themselves. Asked how to ensure governments don't feel threatened by such services (picking up on the theme from Russia) and thus seek to delay them instead of gaining a sense of urgency about the value of creating and delivering m-gov services. Asked about costs and what policy measures were taken to ensure that ordinary people could afford the services, while distinguishing between costs in terms of: acquisition of mobile devices; access to connectivity; access to power supplies; in addition to the intrinsic cost of each m-service. Asked how records of transactions are made and kept, especially for purposes of authenticating and auditing payments. Asked if there was information on what revenues were generated/increased for government, as well as for GDP in view of economic productivity gains facilitated by m-govGovt services. Asked for any information on interim measures that might be put in place to ensure that people without access to such services don't fall behind even further and faster.
Kenya: Asked for details of the hurdles overcome by Estonia. Asked what security issues arose and how they were dealt with. Asked how to create a good environment for e-gov to flourish. Asked how Estonia managed the change process. Asked for information on the ownership model for the Indian Service Access Points. Also, how to manage the roll out of the SAPs. Suggested that handsets might cost too much to handle m-gov apps and asked for comments/responses. Asked how India managed the localization of content.
US/Washington DC: Given that Estonia developed its suite of services over 7 years, is incremental development inevitable or can they identify key success factors that would enable other countries to proceed more quickly and more efficiently?
Key Messages from the M-Government Conference.
1. With over 3 billion mobile users worldwide, mobile-enabled development and mobile government (m-Development and M-Government) are the new frontiers of the development agenda which need to be prioritized by the development community at large
2. Governments and donors agencies should take a closer look at the potential of mobile technologies to enable better access to public information and services for the masses and adjust their current strategies, programs and processes accordingly
3. Leadership from the private sector, as well as academia and NGOs is essential to make this m-transformation possible. Public-private and multi-stakeholder partnerships will be critical for successful and cost-effective delivery of m-services.
4. A priority list of several high-impact m-services and a larger list of “quick wins” needs to be developed for rapid implementation by each government (especially at the municipal level).
5. M-Government needs to be implemented as integral part of e-government and government reform initiatives.
6. Capacity building and knowledge sharing initiatives like this Global Dialogue need to be given much higher priority to make e-government and m-government programs more effective
A special web coverage of this event was prepared jointly with several partners (eGovWorld, eGovMonitor, DGF) consisting of interviews with speakers and other experts and a host of other background materials. All the materials; including the video, slides, agenda, bios, blog link etc; can be accessed from the event webpage here:
The recorded videoclip is available at GoogleVideo:
Annex. Answers to some of the questions.
From Ibrahim Kushchu:
I would like to address Ukraine's question on applications and services of m-Gov in the UK. The numbers and the variety are very big. However, most of the significant developments are by the project Nomad – a government initiative. There are various cases as well. This can be accessed via www.projectnomad.org.uk
At the Mobile government Consortium we have a resource page which
contains publications and all previous proceedings of the m-Gov
conferences. These resources might be useful in finding out various
applications from all over the world. Please visit resources page here:
From Rain Rainu:
Rwanda: Asked if anyone could tell them how much useful information could be sent via mobile, given the small screen size.
Most m-gov info services are using SMS as means to transfer info, which are limited to 160 characters and text only. This does not seem much, but in practice, it has proven to be more than enough. You don't need more characters to let the citizen know that his new drivers license is ready to be picked up or that there is a flood alert in his town and he should take some precautions or stay at home.
In rare cases, where longer messages are needed, they have been:
a) Using multiple consequential messages to deliver the info
b) Sent an SMS to direct the user to an additional channel where they can find more info: TV, radio, internet, their e-mail
c) Instructed them to call back to the same phone number where the SMS came from
d) Provided a link to a longer mobile internet (WAP) page with more info.
Ghana: Wanted more information on financial aspects. Asked if it wasn't necessary to make government services more efficient first, before trying to make them available over mobile.
Great point but in some cases they both go together: making a government service mobile also makes it more efficient. A good example is a service in Estonia where national exam results are delivered to high-school students via SMS. It was first launched in 2005 and now, in 2007, more than 2/3 of all the exam results were delivered this way.
This service is a good example because before that, exam results were delivered to schools on paper and students had to come to school (in the summer-time) to see the results. But the tricky part was that no-one knew exactly when the results would arrive. And students - whose university access and future was to be determined by these results - were impatient, and called uo the schools up all the time. So during the results period, school secretaries could not do much else than answer the calls from the students. SMS-notifications changed that. Now the results arrive via SMS 2 days earlier than on paper. And schools have far less calls from students. The government service of delivering exam results as such is now more efficient.
Asked if there was any information available about how literacy issues could be overcome. Wanted more information on the kinds of initiatives and any success stories.
Info on Tartu initiatives and success stories can be found here:
In the follow up email exchange, David Sawe of Tanzania made the following remarks:
“(i) The issue of mobile technologies having their limitations is, in my view, a very dangerous and misleading misconception that permits
decision-makers to say "Then let's wait until the technology is perfected" -- something which techies recognize as an unattainable utopia -- instead of asking about what is the most appropriate and highest priority potential usage.
(ii) And it is also dangerous to perceive m-Govt as a panacea for anything that e-Govt has or hasn't yet achieved, as the mobile device is merely one among several other possible conduits for delivering services. We should not forget also that by empowering the public servants (and especially the "extension workers") to use G2G m-services in their day-to-day activities when serving the public, we can create a whole team of more productive intermediaries and agents who deliver face-to-face services to people who need not have direct ownership or even access to any form of devices.
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Disclaimer: The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Board of executive directors of the World Bank or the governments it represents. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work"
