Enhancing government basic service delivery and performance effectiveness in sub-Saharan Africa through e-governance

E-government has been credited for enhancing effectiveness in management and providing superior quality of basic government service delivery. While governments around the world have implemented a wide range of ICT applications that are considered to be essential for, and enablers of, e-governance, many sub-Saharan Africa countries are still grappling with the issue of the digital divide. This paper explores the role of e-government as a mechanism for supporting efficient governance, performance effectiveness and improved delivery of basic government services in sub-Saharan Africa. E-governance promotes transparency and efficient service delivery, and exposes the rampant inadequacies, loopholes and secrets that many governments would like to conceal. It is instructive that e-government tools are technology-oriented, and are not available in sub-Saharan Africa. Other factors that militate against the implementation of e-governance in the sub-Saharan region include: lack of political goodwill, bureaucracy in the civil service, absence of knowledge friendly environments, absence of initiative, and the crippling poverty and illiteracy levels in civil society. A content analysis of published statistical reports and other documents was used as the main method of obtaining data for this paper. A Google search was conducted to establish which of the 48 sub-Saharan African countries have government websites. It was found that 33 of the sub-Saharan African countries have web addresses. Some governments in sub-Saharan Africa are striving to create environments that can support the integration of information and knowledge management (KM) in mainstream government operations. Hopefully, the NEPAD peer review mechanism will be successful in unclogging some of the bottlenecks. Introduction of e-government in sub-Saharan Africa can unlock competitive intelligence and raise collective intelligence, thus propelling economies forward. However, it will be necessary to balance the benefits of increased openness with issues of national security.