Implementing e-government in Sri Lanka: Lessons from the UK

Abstract

With the advancement of information and communication technologies (ICTs), e-government has emerged as an effective means of delivering government services to citizens. In the recent past, e-government has become popular in many economically developing countries, yet there are numerous attempts to reinvent the wheel. This article argues that e-government initiatives in developing countries can be effectively implemented if experiences acquired by developed countries are shared proficiently. In this context, research was carried out to identify and compare issues pertaining to implementing e-government initiatives in a developed country (UK) and an economically developing country (Sri Lanka). This research identified a number of challenges common to the UK and Sri Lanka that can be classified into the broad themes of political, organizational, and technical contexts. Conversely, a number of e-government adoption challenges such as lack of ICT literacy, inadequate ICT infrastructure, and inability to access e-government services using local languages were also identified that were more specific for the Sri Lankan context. To address these e-government adoption challenges, ICT training coupled with multilingual e-services was recognized as the key enabler in a developing country context.