Its never too late Mike, all should feel free to say something for today is the last day of this discussion. walu. --- On Fri, 5/30/08, MEldon@symphony.co.ke <MEldon@symphony.co.ke> wrote:
From: MEldon@symphony.co.ke <MEldon@symphony.co.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Public Sector Roles (activities, motives & challenges) Day 8 of 10 To: jwalu@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>, kictanet-bounces+meldon=symphony.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke Date: Friday, May 30, 2008, 10:46 AM Hope I'm not too late...
Two issues that I have pushed over the years:
1. It's not enough to run general IT literacy programmes for public servants. It's not even enough to train people in how to use specific applications. What is needed beyond that is a sufficient appreciation at senior levels of this thing called 'ICT Strategy' (cost and benefits, RoI... a BUSINESS approach). And as part of this how the ICT strategy must be aligned to overall organisational strategy. (Now that really is a minority sport!)
2. When most organisations look at costs and benefits of introducing ICT systems, they tend merely to do so at the global or departmental or functional levels. What tends to be missing is how the individual at the desktop is affected. What is the benefit to them? Too often none have been built in, and it's just new perceived and/or actual disadvantages - loss of control, just feeding the system without getting information back, need for greater discipline etc.
Mike Eldon
From: bitange@jambo.co.ke
To: meldon@symphony.co.ke
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Date: 05/28/2008 03:20 PM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Public Sector Roles (activities, motives & challenges) Day 8 of 10
Perhaps you can help here because most ordianary civil servants wrongly think that ICTs would replace them. This is where we have greatest resistance to ICTs. There have been numerous training programmes for all cadres in the civil service but until everybody accepts that ICTs are enablers, we shall continue to see sabotage from within. We should learn from Ugandans how they quickly implemented their Intergarted Financial Management Information System. It has taken us more than eight years and still we cannot claim to havinfg implemented the system. Majority of the users only see the negative side.
We require significant social transformation in order to achieve some of these initiatives. A little of benevolent dictatorship may come in handy. The Malaysians and Singaporeans did it and it worked. A democratic approach will not take us anywhere. We cannot do anything logical in terms of procurement of ICT products after implementing a flawed law.
Ndemo.
Hi,
Thanx to Barrack and Ndemo for your comments on Civil Society and Public sector. We still have one more day on the Public Sector role.
My take is thatI think the Govt has kicked off in the right direction with regard to initiatives for ICT4D. However, my feeling is that most of these have remained at a fairly high-level. Am not quite sure that the vision and urgency experienced at the top is shared at the bottom ranks of the Public Service.
More specifically, I am not quite sure that the odinary public servants have the right disposition to embrace ICTs. Finally, I doubt if there are sufficient, if any incentives to socialise the wider public service (teachers, nurses, police, chiefs and others) into the information age. It looks we do have the right strategies but lack an 'implementation strategy' i.e. we know what needs to be done but maybe shallow on how it would be done....i stand to be corrected.
walu.
--- Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack@gmail.com> wrote:
Members Commisioning of the e-government Secretariat, formation of the ICT board and liberization of the ICT sector have all been fantastic initiatives, however we need to strengthen Public private Sector collaborations if we are to realise more gain, key areas that we may focus on are Entrepreneurship training so that we may tap into the benefits of new technologies before they are obsolete, we must stop experimenting with technology and do business using technology, this brings in another aspect POLICY, there is likely to be a paradigm shift in the way businesses are run if we are to fully embrace technology as a matter of fact some businesses might totally disappear as a result of technology whereas new ones will emerge, the problem is that there are lots of boardroom games that stand in the way of enactment of some of this policies which must be dealt with may be we need some online mass action, the future looks bright but it is important to coordinate all ict4d initiatives whether fronted by Government, private or public sector
On 5/27/08, John Walubengo <jwalu@yahoo.com> wrote:
Morning all,
Today we wish to turn our attention to what
(Govt) is doing with regard to ICT4Ds.
From my observation, there has been quite some impetus in the last 5years or so on this regard. What comes to mind in no particular order, is the commissioning of the eGovt Secretariate and the ICT Board, the
sector through the Kenya Comm Act 1999, the gazettement of the the National ICT Policy, the Privatisation of the national Telco Provider and the initiation of
submarine project.
It would be nice for members to share their opinion on
the Public liberalization of ICT the TEAMs, the
activities and challenges surrounding the above and other government initiatives.
The floor is open, we have only today Tue May 27th and tomorrow on this.
walu.
kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke
http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
This message was sent to:
otieno.barrack@gmail.com
Unsubscribe or change your options at
http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/otieno.barrack%40gmail....
-- Barrack O. Otieno ICWE Africa LTD P.o. Box 746 Nairobi 00100 Tel: +254721325277 +254726544442 +254202343960 www.icwe.co.ke http://projectdiscovery.or.ke National Bank Building Harambee Avenue 12th Floor
_______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
This message was sent to: bitange@jambo.co.ke Unsubscribe or change your options at
http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/bitange%40jambo.co.ke
---------------------------------------------- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by Jambo MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. --------------------------------------------- "easy access to the world"
---------------------------------------------- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by Jambo MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. --------------------------------------------- "easy access to the world"
_______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
This message was sent to: meldon@symphony.co.ke Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/meldon%40symphony.co.ke
_______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
This message was sent to: jwalu@yahoo.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/jwalu%40yahoo.com