e-Championing Sri Lanka’s e-Government
“e-Champions” is an innovative programme created to equip a core group of thirty [30] Chief Innovation Officers (CIO) with the knowledge and skills necessary to drive the implementation of an effective e-government in Sri Lanka. This key initiative is being undertaken by the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), in a strategic partnership with the World Bank Institute (WBI), Global Development Learning Network (GDLN), and the Distance Learning Centre (DLC) in Sri Lanka.
The programme, which commenced in May 2006, saw a combination of Knowledge Sharing Sessions, Face-to-Face Workshops and even International Study Tours.
Eight knowledge sharing sessions were conducted with renowned international experts via video conference, thus allowing participants to gain a unique insight into e-government implementation in other countries, exchange and share knowledge with their peers and discuss best practice and lessons learned. Lessons Learned, Critical Success & Failure Factors in e-Government Projects, e-Government Champions/CIOs: Roles, Skills and Success Factors, Project Management for e-Government and e-Government Strategy: Process & Framework Key implementation issues were some of the topics that the sessions focused on. The highly interactive sessions brought in overseas experience as well as local expertise, thus contextualizing international experience in Sri Lankan realities.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for government ICT champions to learn from international expertise as well as share their experiences. e-Government is all about a citizen-centric governance in the light of public sector modernization and administrative reform in the Internet age and which views the government primarily as a service provider to citizens, businesses and state employees. This is just one area we focus on, under the eSri Lanka programme; making the government people-friendly and more accessible, efficient and easy to work with,” said Mr. Wasantha Deshapriya, Programme Director, Re-engineering Government, ICTA.
Face-to-face workshops for the CIOs, conducted by local and international experts in e-government concentrated on giving practical knowledge to e-government projects, which are currently not available in standard training courses. Two workshops which were completed were based on understanding the CIO roles & responsibilities in implementing e-government and Designing and implementing e-Government Strategies. Ten participants meanwhile will be chosen for the study tour to 2-3 selected destinations to witness the development of e-government applications.
Mr. Reshan Dewapura, COO, ICTA said, “We need interactive programmes like this to improve the capacity of our employees. The learning, the exposure and experiences they gain will go a long way towards their abilities to take the eSri Lanka vision forward. The need to put a “human face” to all government services is imperative, and currently, we have done that with a few projects like for instance, the Government Information Centre.”
The culmination of the programme saw twenty one participants successfully completing it, and certificates of participation were awarded to them from the World Bank Institute in June this year.
Category: Knowledge for Development, Press Release
e-Administration is an e-Platform for e-Governance, developed using Open Source Tools.
More details can be seen at http://ll2b.blogspot.com.