E-Governance - The Case of DistrictNet in Uganda

E-Governance is a powerful tool for bringing about change to government processes in the developing world. E-governance operates at the cross roads between Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and government processes, and can be divided into three overlapping domains: e-administration, e-services and e-society. In order to be successful, egovernance must be firmly embedded in the existing government processes, must be supported, both politically and technically, by the governments, and must provide users with reasons to use these on-line domains. In order to maximize the impact, process change needs to be considered part and parcel of e-governance.

In this report, we present and evaluate an e-governance programme in the East African country of Uganda. The programme, DistrictNet, tries to provide transparency at the local government level and to improve the provision of public information through the implementation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). DistrictNet started in 2002 and is on-going. The achievements of the programme are presented and evaluated according to the criteria of the three domains of e-governance and their impact on government processes. On the basis of this evaluation, we elicit lessons that can be used to guide similar programmes at the local government levels in the developing world.