Opening Remarks
Philippe Dongier, Sector Manager, CITPO, GICT, World Bank

Speakers
Mark Forman, Partner, KPMG (Former Administrator, Office of e-Government & IT, USA)
Dave Thompson, Director, Canada On-Line Services, Service Canada

Discussants
Andrew Ciafardini, Government-to-Citizen e-Government Portfolio Manager, Office of Management and Budget, USA

Moderator
Oleg Petrov, Coordinator, e-Development Thematic Group,
Global ICT Department, World Bank

Program Description

Leading governments of the world have embraced the paradigm of citizen-centric governance. The quintessential approach to ensure customer-oriented service is a single window delivery. E-Government is a powerful instrument to provide citizen-centric one-stop delivery of services through a variety of channels, including Web portals, assisted citizen service centers, call centers, automated self-service kiosks, digital television and mobile portals etc. Web portals are multi-functional information systems which provide a single point of access to relevant information and services via the Web-enabled interface.

Government Internet portals are an increasingly important element of public administration reform programs across the world. Such portals provide a one stop online access to many government services, and can serve as a catalyst for the development of new electronic services. They represent the tip of the iceberg since a lot of work needs to be done in the background before the portals can become fully functional, including comprehensive process re-engineering and inter-agency integration. At the same time they can also provide a practical and very visible entry point for citizen-centric transformation of government. An e-Government portal is potentially a powerful tool for administrative reform and anti-corruption, which enables more client-oriented, transparent, accountable, effective, efficient, and empowering government. The latest trend is to provide integrated delivery of public and private services on the same portal platform. This event will focus on the best practices and lessons learned from some of the world’s leading portals. The event will also present ideas on how government portals need to respond to developments taking place around Web 2.0.

The e-Government Portal implementation can pass through several stages, starting from a user-friendly cataloguing of all information services offered by various agencies to citizens and businesses, then providing one-stop access to the most important interactive and transactional e-services, and ultimately leading to integrated delivery of all government services for citizens, businesses, state employees and visitors organized around “life events”, topics or customer groups and based on the back-office integration of information systems and business processes through the shared e-government infrastructure.

Are the one-stop national e-government portals really necessary? Is there any solid evidence of socio-economic impact and return on investment? Have they really played the role of catalyst of administrative reform (a "Trojan Horse" analogy) and citizen-centric transformation and integration of government? What are the pros and cons of using an integrated portal platform for delivery of both public and private services? How relevant are these portals in the future, given the increasingly innovative ways in which the private sector is packaging diverse information using mashups and Web 2.0 technologies?

The e-Development Services Thematic Group is powered by GICT and ISG in collaboration with WBI, PREM and other partners. Visit us at http://www.worldbank.org/edevelopmentto download materials for this and all previous e-development seminars (over 85 since Sept 2003).