Mobile-government (m-Government) services adoption is being advanced as an alternative solution for addressing challenges faced by electronic-government (e-Government) adoption in marginalised communities. However, factors of m-Government need to be understood if it is to be adopted by marginalised communities. There are suggestions that many contextual factors affect to the adoption of m-Government services. In this study, factors of m-Government in Oniipa, a marginalised rural community in Namibia are researched. Results show that security, technology trust, ICT supporting infrastructure, usage experience, costs, awareness, skills for accessing m-Government, language literacy, training, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, social influence, perceived empathy and compatibility are critical factors of m-Government services adoption. The study findings shall be used to propel m-Government adoption in a Fusion Grid project that aims to address infrastructural challenges faced by marginal communities when adopting e-Government. Similarly, policy makers can draw lessons on m-Government adoption from this study.
The low adoption and use of e-Government has motivated interest in researching citizen centric e-Government. This is important to developing countries where e-Government is seen as promoting social exclusion due to differences in income, access to ICTs and literacy rates across the populace. This study used a prototype m-Government application to investigate factors of citizen centric e-Government. The study targeted one of the Ministries in Namibia and investigated challenges faced by citizens when accessing government service. While m-Government and e-Government could play a key role in addressing some of the challenges faced, it was noted that the government need to strategically implement e-Government given a number of contextual factors. For instance, while an urban-based citizen could afford a smart phone and operate one, the case is different with a citizen living in rural communities; rural populace, characterised by the aged cannot afford smart phones nor operate ones without assistance. This is mainly down to the fact that part of the rural populace cannot read and write in English or their native language. Hence, this study suggests understanding ICTs accessible to the populace, ICT skills, attitude towards technology, ICT infrastructure, costs, security and using a communitybased partnership approach as key factors of e-Government in Namibia.
A community network is highly regarded as an alternative method for extending services to marginalized communities. However, the success of community networks remains low as the host community often fails to take the ownership of such projects in a sustainable way. The literature recommends the use of baseline surveys and needs assessment to identify fundamental roles that could be played by a community network within a given society. It is argued that aligning community networks to the needs of the community could potentially contribute to their success. This study conducts a baseline survey with the aims of understanding key roles that a proposed community network could play within the context of e-Government and m-Government services provision. Community in Oniipa Town in Namibia was selected as a case study. It was found that the identified community had a poor electricity infrastructure, but an encouraging growth of mobile phone adoption, even though mobile phone credit is considered expensive. Despite these challenges, the community showed a keen interest in m-Government and e-Government services. Accordingly, the proposed community network shall engage the community through a human-centered design methodology in an effort to develop e-Government services suitable for the community. The community network shall rely on solar energy and the use of e-Government and m-Government is expected to reduce population mobility in search of government services something that could reflect positively on climate.
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