The Forum served a kick-off meeting for ADB¡¯s ¡°Proposed Regional Capacity Development Technical Assistance (R-CDTA)for Supporting Public Management through e-Government CapacityDevelopment¡± Project. The key development issues to be addressed in this Project include the recognition that ICTs can be used to promote good governance by transforming internal bureaucratic processes, promoting transparency within and amongorganizations, and supporting the delivery of public services through modern ICTs. However, the organizational capacity of government agencies in developing countries, in terms of ICT adoption, has been limited. Therefore, to address this, ADB began to implement a regional capacity development technical assistance (RETA 7351) in 2009, which developed an e-Government capability maturity model (e-Gov CMM)-atool for assessing the maturity of an organization based on a set of criteria vis-a-vis the requirements of a particulare-Government project. The model was applied to five sectors and three ICT agencies in select ADB member countries including Mongolia, the Philippines and Vietnam. As a result, concerned government officials have expressed a strong interest in participating in a further capacity initiative by ADB.
ADB recognizes the importance of ICT for development in its ICT strategy published (2003) and since has developed a long-term strategic framework 2008-2020 (Strategy 2020). ADB has responded to increasing demands from member countries and this project will provide technical assistance that will contribute to national ICT and e-Government development in a total of 4 countries (Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Tajikistan and Brunei) over the next 1 year time period.
The e-Governance Knowledge Forum that served as the kick-off meeting brought together officials from the Korean government, and officials from the 4 countries that will take part in the project as well as experts from academia and the private sector as well. Opening the Forum was Mr. Seochong Hwang, Director General, Informatization Planning Bureau at MOPAS who gave the Opening Remarks. The first session then covered general e-government trend and strategy before later sessions focused on country-specific e-government services such as; Business Registration Systems, Customs Automation, Financial Management Information System, Government Data Center, Tax Administration and Fiscal Management, Government Procurement and Social Security Reform.
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