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Samia Melhem from the World Bank in the final part of her two part series explores the recently published e-readiness index and highlights examples of how Governments around the globe are using mobile technologies to connect with citizens.

The index looks at the availability of Government services on line (personal tax car registrations, business permits, passport applications, e-procurement applications etc.). These services are based on the traditional web-based delivery platform for egovernment services, but several of them are now being migrated to the mobile platform under different agreements between the government and the mobile operators.

Examples of such services offered by government in partnership with cellular providers are (1) one-stop access to government services via mobile citizen service centers in Sao Paulo and Bahia, Brazil; (2) security alerts sent out by London’s Metropolitan police; (3) disaster recovery relief for British tourists in Sri Lanka being located and saved after Tsunami; (4) Singaporeans receiving SMS alerts for passport renewal notifications, and season parking reminders; (5) the Hong Kong government using SMS for emergency announcements; (6) in China, the mobile phone owners able to send SMS to the 2,987 deputies of the National People's Congress; (7) in Fairfax county, VA SMS based weather and traffic updates sent to subscribers (8) in Estonia paying or parking (9) In Ireland, 48% of mobile phone users use their mobile phones to get reminders for appointments with public health agencies.

At the moment, most of the initiatives are fairly small-scale and to varying extents experimental, but experts in the field suggest that the rate of innovation means that the system will soon be in routine use almost everywhere

Mobile services in Tartu, Estonia: Tartu, with its population of 100,000 inhabitants,  is one of the leading cities in Estonia to introduce municipal m-government services, from mBanking, to MPositioning to MEducation, mLibrary, mHospital .  Citizens can send SMS to the government officials on issues related to security, law and order, utilities, weather conditions and disaster management. They can make appointments with government officials by SMS and get notified or reminded of exact time of dental or medical appointment. Singapore is also a leader in the mobile government based services.

(http://www.ecitizen.gov.sg/mobile/index.html). Singapore's mobile penetration rate has reached a high of 98%. Today, the mobile phone can be used to pay fines, vehicle registration, and driver license, get traffic and weather information as well as vote via SMS on various issues, surveys, elections, etc.

In South Africa SMS messaging is used to report domestic violence incidents against women and children in rural areas. The operator, Clickatell, donates free SMS credits so that relevant information on human rights is propagated to its subscribers, and allows as well the subscribers to access agricultural extension information. The project is managed by Fahamu, an African organization whose newsletter was votes in 2005 and 2006 as one of the top 10 websites changing the world of politics. The initiative is funded by a Dutch NGO, HIVOS.

There are many innovations governments could lead in partnership with mobile operators to transform its delivery of services. Government payroll management usually costly and very difficult to maintain, and often the object of controversy, corruption or inaccurate record management (duplication of records, erroneous payroll figures, erroneous entities listed) could for instance be outsourced to the mobile operators content developers, and could become a much more improved “mbanking” application, as most government officials have mobile phones and are registered with mobile operators. The biggest challenge for governments and operators is to work together and provide the same service across different competing mobile operators and technologies. Today the service provided itself, and its cost,  differentiates one operator from another,  and is a motivation for users in mobile provider selection.

This type of work has been done before in the broadcasting sector. One day with more content , the mobile phone providers will operate like cable companies , broadcasting different channels and content sources based on subscription plans. The big difference though is the two-way communication possibility, and the requirement that the mobile phone user can enter data or requests into government systems and then follow-through. This is the tricky part where technology, security, inter-operability, human resources and legislation have to be transformed to deliver the aspired features, functions and capabilities. It can be done, and when and if this happens (just like the examples mentioned above) both citizens and governments will enjoy improved, quality interactions, and build-up of trust, loyalty and a culture of citizenry and services that will greatly benefit the economy, growth, foreign investments and competitiveness.

Disclaimer: Opinions in this article are that of its author and do not represent the opinion of the World Bank group, nor of its board of Executive directors.