Earticle

Zambia has recently jumped on the bandwagon of implementing e-government to achieve efficient and effective public service delivery. To this end, some interventions have been, to ensure requisite information technology systems and strategies to provide the majority of public ser-vices online. These interventions (such as the procurement and set-up of e-government systems) cost a fortune and the opportunity expenditure in-curred, especially in the developing world context, is very high. Therefore, it is important that continuous independent audits are done to ensure that e-government systems are employed for their intended purpose. This would allow individuals, regardless of social status, to get global access to a vari-ety of e- government applications. This research intends to gauge whether most citizens are aware of e-government applications and whether global e-participation in governance value chains is being achieved. The paper outlines the awareness, adoption, and usage of e-government applications by citizens and businesses. This paper concludes by highlighting prospects for successful, sustainable e-government development in areas characteris-tically similar to Zambia.

With the growing use of information and communication technology (ICT), the evolution of knowledge-based societies is palpable, and thus, provides greater avenues for the masses to participate in the development process. To help open avenues for direct participation by citizens in the governance process, the concept of a Government to Citizen to Government model is under progressive development in India and has been gaining wide ac-ceptance. The Indian Government has placed a strong emphasis on good governance, adoption of best practices, and integrated delivery of infor-mation and services. The Government of India proposes to address the above issues with the development of the Right to Information Act, Na-tional Portal, Data Portal India, and the Indian Open Data Initiative. These platforms facilitate implementation of various e- governance initiatives as well as citizen participation initiatives to achieve good governance. The principle of public participation holds that those who are affected by a de-cision have a right to be involved in the respective decision-making pro-cess. It may also be regarded as a way of empowerment, as well as an es-sential part of democratic governance.

Electronic health, commonly described as the health sector use of infor-mation and communication technology, has rapidly spread around the world. Increased use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is stimulating technology inclusion in the health sector and is enabling the effective functioning of public health systems. In its report for the 12th Plan (2012-2017), a steering committee on health constituted by the Plan-ning Commission suggested that all the district hospitals, primary health centers, and sub-centers should be linked to leading tertiary care centers through telemedicine, Skype, and similar audiovisual media. The commit-tee also urged to give utmost importance to M-health (i.e., use of mobile phones as a communication tool) for health development. The study in-tends to discuss the promotion of increased use of information and com-munication technologies in healthcare systems to improve efficiency, ac-cess, and accountability of healthcare services in India. The study deals with some references from India that underscore the developments of ICT-based health governance and discuss the policies, at both national and re-gional levels, that shed light on the potential of e-health in managing the delivery of healthcare services at the domestic level. The purpose of this study is to relay that the effective implementation of information and communication technologies can make healthcare services more accessible to all sections of society. This will also help the government and other stakeholders in health services align their services with the increasing needs of good health.

The use of information and communication technologies in the public sec-tor has continued to grow and develop over the past several years. Now, many governments have developed sophisticated e-government platforms that provide rich and vital information to the public. While there appears to be an evolution of e-government, using technology to enhance citizen en-gagement has yet to follow. Furthermore, it is unclear whether e-government has been utilized to create online deliberative democracies within local government. This study addresses three key issues regarding e-government and deliberation. Local government websites should be de-signed to enhance government-to-citizen (G2C) communication. After achieving G2C communication, e-government can then be used as a tool to facilitate deliberative democracy. Finally, public managers are likely to be more interested in implementing online deliberative democracies. The re-sults of this study consider limitations, challenges, and possibilities to uti-lizing e-government to facilitate online deliberation.

The manuscript explains the significance of e-government applications in enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of public administration in Italy. The recent decade has witnessed a phase of intense transformation and profound change in the Italian public administration system and this paper examines the potential of e-government in enabling such transformation. The paper also intends to illustrate the comprehensive framework of the public administration system in Italy and of the main tendencies in pro-gress, paying particular attention to the development of new management logic, considering e-government not only as a merely technological phe-nomenon, but also analyzing it in its full meaning with regards to the pro-cess of change and modernization of public administration.