Browsing through President-elect Barack Obama’s technology platform released during his campaign, I notice zero references to “social media,” “Government 2.0″ or “e-government,” the three most-popular terms given to the civic engagement space that social media-meets-government is all about.
Judging from press releases and blog posts, many nations around the world are saying e-government:
- Ha Noi, Vietnam is hosting its 6th annual e-Gov Symposium next month;
- Astana, Kazakhstan is holding an E-Government Initiatives event this week, which an Azerbaijanian official is attending;
- Yuriy Alkalay, head of a Bulgarian Electronic Government department, is interviewed in this article by Focus Information Agency;
- UNESCO’s blog speaks of an e-government model implemented in Ecuador;
- and the East African Community, an intergovernmental entity of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and Rwanda, published their collective e-government vision last month.
At a time when the World Bank describes the pending Obama Administration as embracing e-government themes, how come the president-elect’s own tech roadmap fails to mention it by name?
Call me curious. How about you?
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“At a time when the World Bank describes the pending Obama Administration as embracing e-government themes, how come the president-elect’s own tech roadmap fails to mention it by name?”
Two non-mutually-exclusive possibilities include:
- The World Bank is just as misguided in their assessment of this as they have been in their monetary policy prescriptions and understanding of free markets and wealth-creation dynamics.
- The Obama was blowing smoke in making such claims; the last thing they want once in power is broad citizen input or transparency.