The Global e-Government Forum: Smart e-Government for a Better Future

Seoul, Republic of Korea 18 to 19 October 2012

E-Government Development Trends and Challenges in Latin America

Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)

Presentation by Alejandra Naser

E- Government in Latin America and the Caribbean

1. Overview
2. Trends 3. Challenges 4. ECLAC contribution

1. Overview
The current situation in Latin America and the Caribbean

Some statistics
Internet use worldwide, by region (2011)
Internet use (% of total users world wide) Internet penetration rates (% of population)

Source: Internet World Stats http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm Penetration rates are based on a world population of 6,930,055,154 and 2,267,233,742 estimated internet users on December 31, 2011.

Broadband penetration rate in Latin America (2010)

(%) Broadband penetration (per 100 hab.) Chile Argentina Uruguay Mexico Brazil Costa Rica Colombia Venezuela Panam Dominican Rep. 10,66 10,56 10,0 9,1 6,34 6,0 5,26 5,23 5,01 3,4

Bolivia
Peru El Salvador Paraguay Ecuador Guatemala Nicaragua Cuba

2,8
2,7 2,4 2,2 2,1 0,8 0,8 0,02

Source: Cisco Systems http://www.cisco.com/

United Nations E-Government Survey 2012

Shows the status of the 193 UN member states according to their readiness for e-government, which includes 33 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean:
Central America (8) South America (12) Caribbean (13)

E-government development in LAC

Between 2010 and 2012, 31 of the 33 countries in LAC improved their scores.
World average 2012: 0.49 22 LAC countries above the world average

Chile Colombia Barbados Antigua and Barbuda Uruguay Mexico Argentina Brazil Bahamas Panama Trinidad and Tobago Venezuela Dominica El Salvador Grenada Costa Rica Saint Kits and Nevis Peru St Vincent & Grenadines Dominican Republic Saint Lucia Ecuador Paraguay Bolivia Jamaica Guyana Cuba Guatemala Suriname Honduras Belize Nicaragua Haiti 0.00

0.68 0.66 0.66 0.63 0.63 0.62 0.62 0.62 0.58 0.57 0.57 0.56 0.56 0.55 0.55 0.54 0.53 0.52 0.52 0.51 0.51 0.49 0.48 0.47 0.46 0.45 0.45 0.44 0.43 0.43 2010 0.39 2012 0.36 0.15 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00

Online service index

LAC average: 0.44 South America: 0.53 Central America: 0.39 Caribbean: 0.38 World average: 0.43

North America: 0.87

(includes Mexico)

Europe: 0.62 Asia: 0.49 Oceania: 0.28 Africa: 0.26

Index above the world average Index above the European average

Index of ICT development

The index includes 25 countries from the LAC region (152 countries in total). The world average is 4.08 The index average for LAC is 3.72 Nine LAC countries are above the world average: Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Barbados Brazil Chile Panama Trinidad and Tobago Uruguay Venezuela

2. Trends in Latin America and the Caribbean

Nowadays, the countries of the Region are developing and implementing e-government strategic plans at the national and local level in order to improve efficiency, effectiveness, accessibility and transparency.

Trends

How are they doing?

Working in four aspects:

People Process Technology Resources

In particular the Region countries are working in:

Modernizing IT legislations
Building Institution Reforming and re-engineering administrative processes Managing changes and services levels Improving internal efficiency

 Training public organizations and citizens Introducing standards and interoperability

Reinforcing security and privacy policies Using social networks, Georeferencing tools

In countries whose e-government development is more sophisticated, the focus is on:

Coordinating between central and local governments

Generating citizen participation

Generating laws and transparency portals

Development Open Government Data

Some transparency laws in LA

Argentina: Law N 25326 data protection and Law N 3.764 official data access. Brasil: Lei N 9.507 Regula o Direito de Acesso a Informaes e Disciplina o Rito Processual do habeas data. Chile: Law N 20285 Transparency and Access to Public Information.

Panama: Law N 6 Transparency norm.

Paraguay: Law N 1728 Administrative Transparency. Peru: Law N 27806 Transparency and Access to Public Information.

Open data web portals

Chile: http://datos.gob.cl/

Uruguay: http://datos.gub.uy/

3. Challenges for LAC countries

 Extending the benefits of the Information Society to every citizen in the country and reducing the digital gap.
Adopting policies to foster investment in broadband backbone infrastructure within and between countries in the region and with the rest of world. Developing more and better e-government initiatives to improve and increase the level of sophistication of their online services.

 Reducing costs through increased use of Cloud Computing G-Cloud service providers.
Creating a public sector commitment to Open Data. Applying the use of ICTs to areas of critical public importance, such as reducing consecuences of natural disaster.

4. ECLAC contribution

About ECLAC
ECLAC, headquartered in Santiago, Chile, is one of the five regional commissions of the United Nations. Their mission is contribute to the economic and social development of Latin America and the Caribbean.

ECLAC actions
Promoting dialogue about experiences regarding the information society in Latin America. Monitoring and analyzing the progress of the regional countries towards the development of egovernment strategies. Strengthening the partnership with other regions on e-government issues. Promoting greater investment in ICTs and e-gov development

ECLAC contribution to e-government development

ECLAC provides technical assistance to regional countries on e-government development through: Training courses Research and technical documents Advisory services Seminars, conferences and expert workshops

Training courses
ECLAC, offers courses on various economic and social issues to participants from the countries in the region, mainly from the public sector. These courses provide a combination of theory and practice, and systematize the experiences of the countries in the region.

In 2012 ECLAC offered the first course on e-government. Participants came from 12 Latin American countries
(2013 will be the second version you can see details in: http://www.ilpes.cl)

Research and technical documents

ECLAC experts are constantly researching and publishing documents on e-government, open government and open data topics.

Advisory services
At the request of Governments, ECLAC conducts cooperation missions at the national and local levels, in order to assist member countries in developing their e-government strategies.

Organization of seminars, conferences and expert workshops

ECLAC organizes Seminars, Forums and Workshops on e-government issues. ECLAC also sponsors high level meetings in which ECLAC experts have a leading participation.

Ministerial meeting in Ecuador

(October, 2012)

ECLAC Launched Subsidiary Body for Science, Innovation and Information and Communications Technologies

The meeting brought together 35 delegates responsible for digital policymaking from 17 of the region's countries.

Despite progress made by LAC governments and our efforts to support them, there is still a long road ahead.

Many Thanks Muchas Gracias

alejandra.naser@cepal.org