To be successful, e-government projects must build trust within agencies, between agencies, across governments, and with businesses, NGOs and citizens.
When conceptualizing e-government, developers often do not realize the many boundaries, both physical and administrative, that the proposed project will cross. Yet, the success of e-government often comes down to building trust and common understanding with the variety of players early in the process. The biggest concern for most parties is that change brought about by a new system will negatively impact them.
Almost every successful e-government project is a case example in building trust.
The issue of trust also involves two issues of special concern to any online service:
- Privacy -- protecting personal information the government collects about individuals.
- Security -- protecting e-government sites from attack and misuse.
Privacy and security issues have received extensive international attention, discussed in the following two sections.
Vietnam: Using the Internet to offer one stop shopping for businesses and investors seeking to obtain government licenses.
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City each launched Web sites for business service agencies in 2000. The two websites (Hanoi Ministry of Planning and Investment and Ho Chi Minh Department of Planning & Investment) are designed to serve as the first point of contact for potential investors, especially foreign investors. The sites provide detailed information including recent news, related laws and regulations, and travel information.
The cities ran into trouble in various areas along the way. At first, the building of Web sites was viewed as the purview of the information services department and the business services group was reluctant to take on what it saw as added responsibility. Leaders solved the resulting inertia by bringing together lower-level managers to gain buy-in. Then, private companies were very reluctant to share information. After much discussion, the agency agreed to some commercial recognition in exchange for a large amount of information from the private sector. Hanoi Ministry of Planning and Investing: http://www.invest.mpi.gov.vn
Ho Chi Minh Department of Planning and Investment: http://www.http://www.hcminvest.gov.vn
Case-study: http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/egov/vietnam2cities_cs.htm
