Presentation to Minister

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e-Sri Lanka An Integrated Approach to
e-Government Shoban Rainford, ICT Agency of Sri
Lanka
e-Sri Lanka An Integrated Approach to
e-Government Shoban Rainford
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Sri Lanka is predominantly rural

• 70 of Sri Lankas poor live in rural areas
  (38,000 villages)
• Per capita GDP US 1000 but 45.4 of the
  population live on less than 2 a day
• (Central Bank Annual report 2004)

• Can ICT make a significant difference in lives of
  such people?

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Why e-Sri Lanka?

• Can ICT make a difference?

• Grow the ICT Sector and use ICT as an enabler for
  socio-economic development

• Take growth in Colombo and South West to other
  parts of the country

rural access
entrepreneurship
Current Concentration of Growth
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Challenges in Sri Lanka

• Lack of infrastructure (electricity,
  connectivity) and affordability
• Lack of awareness about ICT for Development
• Low levels of ICT literacy (less than 10)
• Inefficient and inaccessible government services
• Inadequate cyber laws and policies in place
• Poor coordination across sectors
• Local language computing facilities
• Marginalized groups differently-abled, women,
  elderly

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e-Government Strategy in Sri Lanka

• The need for a pan-country, holistic approach
• Beyond a sector wide approach
• e-government is part of a larger puzzle
• Institutional framework and integrated programmes
• National vision and strategy
• Not isolated piecemeal projects
• Flexible approach
• Cannot be prescriptive upfront
• In-built flexibilty to make in-flight changes
• Participation of all groups
• Stakeholder led public sector, private sector
  and civil society
• Provision for bottom up flow of ideas

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Integrated Model for Development
Design of e-Sri Lanka

• Improve public services and governance using ICT
• Improve ICT infrastructure and provide
  affordable access and opportunities
• Build a strong ICT industry enhance
  competitiveness through ICT
• Enhance quality of education and learning
  through use of ICT
• Proliferate access to ICT in rural areas and use
  of ICT applications for rural socio-economic
  development

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PEACE
An Integrated eDevelopment Model
EQUITY
GROWTH
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Objectives of e-Sri Lanka

• More effective, citizen-centric and business
  friendly government
• Empowerment of the rural poor, disadvantaged
  groups, women and youth through increased and
  affordable access to information and
  communication
• Developed leadership and skills in ICT
• Employment in the ICT and IT Enabled Services
  (ITES) industry
• Enhanced competitiveness of user industries and
  services

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Impact of Key Rural Initiatives

• Nenasala Project
• extensive preparation and planning
• engagement of communities
• various models of ownership
• 200 centres already operational (1000 by 2007)
• high level sponsorship and leadership

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Impact of Key Rural Initiatives

• e-Society Fund
• bottom up approach
• capacity building at the community level
• over 240 applications received in the first round
• managed by private sector / NGO partnership

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Critical Success Factors (to date)

• National initiative
• home grown
• leadership from the President
• stakeholder driven
• Building the institutional capacity
• national body
• engagement of all sectors
• participatory monitoring and evaluation
• Implementation approach
• capable agency - catalyst
• engaging public sector, private sector and NGOs /
  civil society

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Challenges Ahead

• Improving community participation
• building awareness
• capacity building at all levels
• community ownership
• participatory monitoring and evaluation
• Keeping the citizen focus
• citizen centric not politically driven
• development not ICT for ICTs sake
• Building partnerships
• engaging public, private sector and NGO / civil
  society
• partnering winners

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• ICT can impact lives provided there is a big
  enough Vision behind it

Our Vision To take the dividends of ICT to every
village, every citizen and every business and to
re-engineer the way Government thinks and works