Investigating challenges in the implementation of e-government services: A case of Rwanda

An electronic government (e-government), can be simply defined as an effort of employing information and communication technology (ICT) tools to provide services to citizens. Regardless of the synergies, it creates and the remarkable benefits it offers to governments and societies, e-government faces several challenges and obstacles. Therefore, this study highlights some of these obstacles and challenges; it critically investigates the key factors that influence the adoption of e-government services. This study aims to identify the key factors that affect the adoption of e-government in developing countries, particularly in Rwanda. Furthermore, it assesses the barriers and challenges that such countries should be able to overcome to implement e-government successfully. To gather data, the study utilized semi-structured in-depth interviews. Besides, a Design-Reality gap model was applied as a framework to thoroughly understand the nature and origin of the challenges. The outcome of this study indicates that the most prominent challenges and factors influencing the implementation of e-government in Rwanda are related to budget and financial constraints, skills and human expertise, social issues, technical issues, lack of awareness, resistance of public employees, data privacy and security, the appropriate technology, lack of leadership skills, and trust or belief in e-government. At the end of the paper, conclusions, recommendations, and future work are proposed