The adoption of e-Government programmes in Africa have been occasioned by the desire to improve public service delivery and to further enhance the government-citizen relationship through provision of access to information. Key to e-Government is information- its creation, management, and uploading onto a defined platform; its consistent updating and archiving; and its access by citizens irrespective of their level of education, social standing, or geographical location. The main outcome of e-Government is enhanced accountability of the governance process. Accountability in e-Government is a value-add to the government-citizen relationship in that citizens become assured that government will account to them as collaborators in the governance process. The reality in Africa is that the adoption of e-Government on its own is unlikely to yield the needed accountability mechanism. This chapter argues that an e-Government programme in Africa, supported by Freedom of Information and records management will result in governance which is both accountable and integral.
Purpose Technology has influenced the implementation of electronic records management systems (ERMS) in government agencies. The high incidence of poor service delivery in government agencies is a key factor that has put pressure on the government to implement ERMS. Despite the potential benefits of implementing ERMS, the adoption and use of these programs has been slow and some systems have failed. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to assess how Tlokweng land board (TLB) implemented its electronic records management program using Kotter’s model and awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement change model. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted a pragmatic paradigm and used a case study research design to collect data at TLB. The research made use of mixed methods approach to collect data using questionnaires, interviews and document reviews. Purposeful sampling was used to solicit data from 53 participants in the land board. Findings The findings of the study revealed that communication has been used as the most effective tool for managing change at TLB. However, TLB has not yet managed to reinforce the change implemented because of the lack of adequate training and motivation of change champions. Moreover, the change management team has little training on the change management framework produced by the Ministry of Lands and Housing. Research limitations/implications The study was limited to one land board in Botswana. Therefore, the findings may not be generalized to all land boards. Originality/value This is the first study to be conducted in Botswana that has assessed change management practices in the implementation of records management systems. This study therefore recommends adoption of the change management lens/framework by a records professional when implementing ERMS.
Purpose This paper aims to investigate the role of public libraries in the dissemination of health information in the southern part of Botswana, namely, Kgatleng and Kweneng districts. It also explored how these libraries market health information services to the community they serve. The study also used health information acquisition model to get an understanding on how public library users seek health information. Design/methodology/approach The survey research design was chosen for the study and purposive sampling procedure was used to obtain the sample size of the population. The sample size consisted of 120 respondents and six interviewees. Data were collected from both library staff and users using questionnaires and interviews. Findings The results of the study showed that public libraries are striving to provide accurate and useful health information to members of the community by collecting and availing both print and electronic health information sources. The findings further indicated that public libraries have marketing programmes that they use on raising awareness of health information to their clientele. The marketing programmes include outreach, library brochures/leaflets, newsletters and library exhibitions. The results of the study also showed that there were some challenges that hindered the library users to access and use health information (e.g. lack of appropriateness of information resources and limited number of health information sources). Originality/value For a better dissemination of health information, public libraries should establish working relationships with health agencies and communication organisations or media houses with the objective of cooperative developments of collections, referrals and shared training.
Governments in Africa have made huge ICT investments which have been intended to improve the governance process hence their uptake of e-government. One of the benefits derived from all this has been the open data initiative through which some countries in Africa have empowered citizens to better inform themselves and others through access, harnessing and reusing government held data. Another of the benefits has been enhanced open government which has an array of access to information platforms. While indications are that open data can lead to improvements among lives in the Continent arising from availability and access to healthcare data, this chapter advances that a critical element of open data which is often overlooked and little regarded most times, is records management. Arising from the fundamental role of records management in open data, the Republic of Ireland through the Programmable City Working Paper 3 avers that open data must among others be seen as a component part of records management (Lauriault, 2014). The chapter argues that the key elements of open data notably: availability of data, in other words information content in the form of data must be available on platforms which are easily accessible and easy to manipulate for purposes of use and reuse; transparency of the open data process; information security; information privacy, and finally trust which could lead to acceptance, reuse of data and also emerging encouragement among citizens that data is worth accessing, using and reusing, are all made possible by good public sector records management. Records management, this chapter shows, is a clear means through which effective open data especially in healthcare may be achieved. While the chapter draws out lessons which Botswana could learn from and makes recommendations for workable open data in the country's public health sector, these are nonetheless applicable to many African countries and others in the developing world.
The chapter assesses the state of e-Government projects to anchor Botswana’s drive towards attainment of the goals of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Data for the study was obtained through a survey research design, which employed desk research and interviews with strategic respondents in the ICT sector in Botswana. Botswana’s e-Government projects are then benchmarked against the WSIS Declaration of Principles and a Plan of Action and other international and regional strategic frameworks for ICTs. The findings reveal that while Botswana, through its various e-Government projects, has made some progress towards laying the foundation for meeting the goals of the WSIS and has reached other international milestones for ICTs, a lot remains to be done as the e-Government projects have yet to positively impact the lives of the majority of citizens. This is due to a number of factors that have to be addressed, including inadequate infrastructure, low citizen capacity in terms of skills, accessibility, and affordability of ICT systems, and absence of an enabling e-Legislative and policy framework. Among the proposed areas for future studies are measuring the levels of ICT uptake at the citizen (individual) level to determine levels of e-Participation.
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