E-Governance for All

Governments around the world are embracing the need for e-government: from providing the most basic informational website to deploying sophisticated tools for managing interactions within government agencies and beyond, e-government is already demonstrating its potential to streamline bureaucracy, improve good government, act as a tool for global development and expand the public’s access to government information and officials.

Universal Accessibility is important and a government website in particular should be designed in such a way that it is accessible to all of its users. In other words, support has to be provided for users with physical, environmental and / or technical limitations. Physical limitations include varying degree of vision, hearing, mobility or cognitive impairment. Environmental limitations include poor lighting and a noisy work place, and technical limitations stem from lower version (or text only) browsers, low display resolutions and low settings for number of colours displayed etc.

Website accessibility for the disabled reoccurred as a major discussion theme throughout the globe. E-government for all depends fundamentally on equitable access to information and services, without discrimination because of one’s physical abilities. Overall, participants concluded that providing access to information and services could be a pivotal step in creating and maintaining effective e-government initiatives.

An E-Government will be successful when it will accesses by all types of disabled user, elderly citizen as well as users having slow internet connection or lowest configuration of PC.An E-Government for all will not only provide access to all but it will also enhance USABILITY.

The most common obstacles to achieving e-government for all; the other addressing opportunities for achieving it:

Obstacles	Opportunities
A Disconnect in E-Government and Digital Divide Policies	Educating Government Officials
Unnecessary “Bells and Whistles”	Establishing Cross-Agency E-Government for All Working Groups
Non-Enforcement (or Lack) of Accessibility Standards	Employing Public Input to Improve Understanding of Audience
Insensitivity to Readability Levels	Enforcing Web Accessibility and Readability Standards
Linguistic Barriers	Creating “E-Government for All” Ombudsmen
E-Government User Unfriendliness	Know Thy Audience – Development of User “Personas”
“Out with the Old, In with the New” – Shutting Down Offline Services as E-Gov is Deployed	Engagement with Private Sector and Civil Society
Funding Challenges	Addressing the Cost of E-Government for All Prior to Deployment
Non-Engagement of the Private Sector and Civil Society	Establishing standards for Digital Divide-Related Research
Lack of Public Engagement	Maintaining Alternative Channels to Information and Services

Source :The EDC Center for Media & Community

In much the same way the governments use multi-stage models like Gartner’s Four Stages of E-Government to map out their e-government goals, they should integrate the notion of “e-government for all” throughout the entire process of planning and implementing e-government. One possible example of this process might look like the following chart.

Four Stages of E-Government (Gartner Group, 2001)	Four Stages of E-Government for All (EDC Center for Media & Community, 2004)
Presence Basic government information made available online; resources available passively, not actively, e.g. “brochureware”	Initiation Basic online documents made available in multiple formats to suit all users’ needs; users provided access to free translation tools; Internet access provided to the public via schools and libraries, telecenters and other public institutions; promotion of volunteer programs for addressing ICT (information and communications technologies) literacy; preservation of existing offline channels for constituents to access government information and services.
Interaction Constituents can manipulate online services to download documents, data, access other resources. Interactions are relatively simple and straightforward: user defines basic request and e-government resource identifies the closest match to that request.	Engagement Governments engage constituents to develop user-friendly, accessible interactive government services; promote opportunities for constituents to gain Internet access, improve literacy and ICT skills; partner with the private sector, civil society and academia to coordinate strategies regarding ICT literacy and the digital divide; adopt technical standards for accessibility, readability, etc; develop policy prototypes to address equity concerns; partner with the private sector to invest in advanced translation tools.
Transaction Constituents can complete entire transactions with government entities (licenses, tax payments, contracting, etc) virtually. Ability for e-government resource to complete transaction based on common, predictable requests of constituents.	Integration Broader adoption of successful policies and practices for expanding ICT equity; long-term strategy for addressing equity in the appropriations/budgeting process; Government agencies and officials accountable for providing equitable e-government.
Transformation ICTs are fully integrated into how governments do business within itself and between its constituents, businesses, other governments; users can complete all interactions with government online, tailored to their exact needs.	Equity All people have equal access to government information and services, both online and offline, no matter their education level, language spoken, income or disability; universal basic literacy; successful implementation of sustainable universal service policies for ubiquitous Internet access and ICT literacy.

Source :The EDC Center for Media & Community

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