Toward a roadmap to e-government for a better governance

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have a tremendous potential to improve the quality of people’s livelihood in general and especially in the developing countries. They can boost business, support education and health systems and also enhance the governance that is a major and vital factor in the development process. It is commonly agreed that e-Government systems enhance governance, but, unfortunately, there is a lack of empirical evidence to build upon this hypothesis, which, legitimately, creates reluctance among key decision makers, slows down the dissemination of technology as a decision support tool and as development enabler/infrastructure and contribute to the very dangerous phenomena known as the digital divide. In the context of Fez e-Government Project, that is being led in Morocco, in a close collaboration with the municipality of the Moroccan city of Fez, authors have developed a pilot e-Government system that facilitates citizens’ access to governmental information and services. From the outset of this 30 months project, the goal was to collect and analyze experimental data in order to see how the development/deployment of e-government systems impacted the governance process. This research has set up a methodology that emphasizes good governance at each step of an e-Government project and enables the researchers to continuously assess the outcomes of the resulting e-Gov system on governance. The ultimate goal is to reduce, as much as possible, the reluctance of politicians and decision makers and to contribute in the dissemination of technology for development purposes thru a scientific and proven methodology that systematically links e-Government outcomes to good governance attributes. In this chapter, authors present the main phases of this methodology and lessons learned during the e-Fez Project. This approach may benefit similar projects, especially in developing countries that are willing to create and deploy e-Government systems for the benefit of their citizens