Mobile technologies improve government performance

Adoption of mobile technologies enhances government performance and facilitates various services provided to citizens, according to a recently-issued report by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). "Focus should be indeed on the needs of the public sector and of the end-users, be these citizens or businesses, to ensure that technology is exploited to reorganise the way civil servants work and to meet the needs of citizens through improved service delivery," the report said. Citing experts, the report said. "M-Government is not intended to eliminate existing on-line and off-line modalities of service delivery, but it affords powerful and transformational capacity to the public sector not only by increasing access to existing services, but also by enabling the design and delivery of new services (e.g. through new levels of civic engagement in policy development and democratic decision-making)." Hence, it supports those governments that recognise that they have reached "the limits" with their current approaches to service delivery. Examples include considerable advancements in education and innovative health services. By empowering citizens, m-government is improving the quality of life of many individuals who were previously digitally excluded. Specifically, mobile technologies enable convenient access to public information and services. Citizens in remote areas can, for example, receive improved m-health assistance, notifications, and emergency medical alerts. Mobile technologies also facilitate financial transactions (e.g. process cash transfers, deposits, and withdrawals, payroll credits, international remittances, and similar banking activities) and allow the delivery of educational content to students who would normally have limited access to public education. However, as there are still limits in the capacity of m-government to reach out to certain segments of the population, and in order not to widen the digital gap, governments should avoid enforcing the use of mobile channels, and provide access to new technologies only to those who are willing to use them. The development of mobile communication technologies has not only created a new venue for governments to reach out to a much greater number of people than ever, but it has also brought citizens previously unimaginable opportunities to communicate with each other conveniently, and to access both public and private information and services, with diminishing time and space boundaries and limits. Cheap and ready-for-use mobile devices are removing existing barriers and are empowering citizens to connect to governments to access a wide range of information and services in a number of policy areas, e.g. legal information, health, education, finance, employment, transportation, and public safety. Furthermore, new generation mobile phones, or "smart phones", and the realisation of 3G and 4G networks with new built-in functions and a plethora of mobile applications, are providing unprecedented possibilities in terms of communication, networking, and interactive experiences to actors across the globe.