ICT Strategy and eGovernment workshop, Rarotonga, Cook Islands

Government, Private sector and community participants at the ICT Strategy and eGovernment workshop

Event : ICT Strategy and EGovernment Workshop
Venue: USP, Takamoa, Rarotonga, Cook Islands
Date: 31 January, 2019

Team Leaders:
Pua Hunter — ICT Director, Office of the Prime Minister, Cook Islands
Maureen Hilyard — Consultant, Cook Islands
Kamal Mukherjee — Kitksoo, ADB eGovernment Consultant
Tunde Fafunwa — Kitksoo, ADB Consultant

Participants: (20)
3 x Airport Authority
2 x Bank of the Cook Islands
1 x Infrastructure Cook Islands
1 x Ministry of Cultural Development (Secretary)
4 x Ministry of Finance and Economic Management (incl. Secretary)
1 x Ministry of Health
2 x Ministry of Justice
1 x Ministry of Marine Resources
1 x Office of the Public Service Commissioner
2 x Ports Authority (incl. Secretary)
1 x Community Participant
1 x Private Sector (CITC)

1. Presentation by Maureen Hilyard
   * Introduction to the development of the National ICT Strategy
   * Global trends
   * Report on the mobile survey and community feedback
2. Working group activity related to NSDP
   * Choose one of the NSDP goals — what agencies are associated with that goal; what information or services should you be able to access from each agency to achieve what the government aims to provide the people of the Cook Islands? Group Feedback

Heads of Ministries joined in the working group activities (Finance, Culture & Ports Authority)

1. Presentation by Kamal Mukherjee
   * Goals of eGovernment: citizen-centric service delivery; internal effectiveness and efficiency; participation by citizens in the processes of governance
   * Stages of eGovernment development: (1) single websites (2) different agencies have their own websites (3) agencies add services as well as information (4) services are integrated across agencies (whole of government approach).
   * 60/193 countries with whole of government approach, have a National/Government Communications and Information Officer (CIO)
   * ICT Development for establishing eGovernment: (1) manual inputs → (2) inputs are automated — to shrink time and space — things are done faster → (3) processes can be incorporated to improve efficiency → (4) standardisation of different processes at sector level to create and “on demand world”(can require re-engineering)
   * Benefits of eGovernment: (1) save time (2) save costs (3) for governments provides wider reach for its services; for citizens it offers convenience.
   * eGov Building blocks: At the most basic level there are some very important components that must be in place for successful eGov. (1) Administrative reform — government buy-in — has to start at OPSC (2) Policy — we have a national policy but it has no influence (3) Strategy — eGov must be incorporated into the ICT Strategy and given its own agency and staff (led by the CIO). (4) Laws — legislation is important to support internet development and ensure that protections are in place — cybersecurity, data protection etc (5) Monitoring and Evaluation — to regularly assess effectiveness of systems and processes.
2. Working group activity related to eGoverment
   * What are the top 5 services you would expect from eGovernment. Group feedback

Active engagement and discussion by all workshop participants.