E-Cards

Traditionally, when developing eGovernment, countries tend to focus most of their efforts and resources on digitalising the front end of government and public sector operations – solutions that are most visible to the general public and provide a quick result, such as services and portals. Such a fragmented approach carries a lack of focus on the
fundamentals of digital government, namely digitalisation of data, interoperability, electronic identity, access, legislation, governance, and the harmonisation of standards, both nationally and cross-border. This fragmented approach eventually leads to complex and expensive maintenance and management of the ‘front’ (e.g. services and portals), while investment processes become more complicated and with less return. As a result, the lack
of understanding of digital development priorities at government decision-making level creates a “death valley” between strategic priorities and their actual realisation.

The strategic, long-term, and systematic initiatives in public administration will be supported by the eGovernance framework by highlighting the causal development path in digital government activities – i.e. what fundamentals have to be established first so that other eGovernance aspects – such as portals and services – can succeed. Leveraging such a framework can become a steering mechanism for governments for the timely and systematic development of digital government fundamentals that society can experience – efficiency in public sector, digital services, data-driven decisions and participation in e-society.

The eGovernance framework will provide a basis to evaluate the current state of government digital maturity and identify problematic areas that are not established or should be improved. It will also assist public administrations in understanding the impact of eGovernance fundamentals on digitalisation priorities, as well as integrating developments of eGovernance fundamentals into the digital transformation agenda.