World Bank e-Development Thematic Group/GICT

Present a Lunch Panel Discussion on

Wednesday, 20 February 2008; 12:30 to 2:00 pm ET
Location: MC 12th Floor Galleria, Washington DC

Opening Remarks

• Kathy Sierra, Vice President, Sustainable Development Network

Speakers

• Mohsen Khalil, Director, Global ICT Department
• Mark Forman, Former Administrator, Office of e-Government & IT, USA - keynote address

Discussants

• John Roome, Operations Director, SARVP
• Randeep Sudan, Lead ICT Policy Specialist and Head of e-Government and ITES Practices, GICT (TBC)
• David Molchany, Deputy Executive, Fairfax County, VA (TBC)

Program Description

ICT can be a powerful enabler of development results in many sectors. In this age of information revolution, governments can no longer design programs without taking advantage of technology. In poor countries where transportation of goods is costly due to constraints in infrastructure, introduction of cheap mobile phones has eliminated information asymmetries and  transformed the way goods are produced, marketed and sold. For rural inhabitants, access to information and ability to communicate is causing significant improvements in business opportunities, household income, quality of life,  time saving as well as general access to sources of information and knowledge.

In addition to discussing opportunities created by ICT and possible strategies for Sustainable Development  programs - from infrastructure to rural and social development and environment - the panel will also discuss the need to address quality issues in ICT components of World Bank-financed operations.  The 2006 QAG review of ICT components identified a large volume of ICT components in the Bank portfolio (est. at over $7 Billion), with quality ratings lower than Bank's portfolio average.
 
While all will agree that the use of ICT can potentially make a big impact, a challenge is to help sector specialists and sector clients who are not familiar with ICT options to take a different approach to program design and implementation, and to ensure quality of ICT components.. How can ICT specialists be well integrated within project teams? What kind of skills are needed? What internal  incentives are needed to make sure these dimensions are properly resourced and quality gets assured?

Mark Forman's Biography

Mr. Forman  was the first US Administrator for the Office of E-Government and Information Technology. Previously Mr. Forman was Associate Director for IT and E-Government at OMB. Under his leadership, the U.S. federal government  received broad recognition for its successful use of technology and E-Government. He was charged with managing over $58 Billion in IT investments and leading the President's E-Government Initiative to create a more productive, citizen-centric government. He also lead the development and implementation of federal information technology policy. Mr. Forman also oversees Executive branch CIOs and directs the activities of the federal CIO Council, as well as chairing or being a member of several key IT-related boards including the President's Critical Infrastructure Board. To improve results from federal IT spending, Mr. Forman created a framework that couples cross-agency teamwork and leadership with a government-wide IT budget decision process built around a results-driven modernization blueprint. Mr. Forman also led the successful definition and development of about 30 multi-agency E-Government and e-Business initiatives such as:

• Simplifying the Firstgov.gov portal using a "three-clicks to service" model that led to Yahoo's recognizing Firstgov.gov as one of the 50 most incredibly useful websites;
• Creation of the first IRS free filing website, using a unique private-public partnership
• Regulations.gov, the world's first government sponsored e-democracy initiative that allows citizens to easily find, read and comment on proposed regulations;
• Definition and deployment of a rigorous cybersecurity improvement process;
• Consolidation of Federal payroll processing centers to save over $1 billion; and
• Restructuring federal training through the Golearn.gov website, which has trained tens of thousands of federal workers at pennies per course.

In his position, Mr. Forman made about 100 keynote speeches at major government and industry conferences. Prior to joining OMB, Mr. Forman was a Vice President of e-business in Unisys Global Industries, where he was responsible for global public sector e-business and e-government initiatives. In particular, he guided the strategy, definition, and deployment of e-government solutions for U.S. Federal and Unisys Global Public Sector clients. Prior to joining Unisys, Mr. Forman was a Principal in IBM Global Services where he was responsible for definition and deployment of the global public sector e-business strategy. He was responsible for defining strategic e-government offerings and providing business development at strategic accounts. Prior to assuming this position, Mr. Forman created and led IBM's Americas Public Sector e-business Consulting Services. Mr. Forman's consulting practice assisted government clients in understanding how to leverage e-business and web-based technologies to achieve order of magnitude performance improvements. His areas of expertise include: Web-based service delivery approaches, e-commerce, computer security policy, government operations, and knowledge management, clients. performance improvement, related business transformation services, I/T investment planning, major systems acquisition programs, and strategic use of e-business technologies. He has over 18 years of experience in government and industry developing improvements in government effectiveness and efficiency.