E-Governance: E-State in Iran: Administrative Reform Plan

Ashrafologhalaei A¹*

1 Management and Planning Organization (MP), Bureau for Economic Studies and International Cooperation, Tehran, Iran

This paper aims to review Iran’s plans and practices in the field of E-Government as well as various related developments in some chosen developed and developing countries.

E-Government is the delivery of government services and information to the public using electronic means. In other words, it is the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ITCs) to promote more efficient government by allowing better access to information and making government more accountable to citizens. The main goals of E-Government include (1) offering effective delivery of public goods and services to citizens via quick response government, (2) strengthening good governance mainly promoting a transparent and accountable government, (3) broadening public participation, (4) improving the productivity and efficiency to cut red tape and minimize the expenses, (5) promoting priority economic sectors.

However, we prefer use the term, “E-State” which covers the meaning of an E-Country in a better way, since all three branches, i.e. Executive, Judiciary and Legislative, ought to be actively involved in the process of electronic delivery of services in an E-Country.

A study in Iran estimates that over 70 percent of intra- and inter-city trips made by the people is for the purpose of obtaining information, NOT SERVICES! Therefore, developing an E-Government and distance-delivery of services will assuredly cut many kinds of expenses and save time and energy to an unbelievable extent. Iranian Majlis (Parliament) approved allocating over 100 million dollars for the development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to the public organizations in the year 1382 (March 21, 2003-March21, 2004). Henceforth, the Cabinet ratified a detailed program for implementing several National Information and Communication Projects. The program included projects in the fields of e-government, e-commerce, e-banking, e-learning, and e-health. Management and Planning Organization (MPO) prepared an action plan for accomplishing the e-government project to be fulfilled by different organizations. The e-government action plan was approved by the Supreme Administrative Council in May 2002.

Meanwhile, utilizing the experiences gained by other countries in the field of e-government will surely help each and every country to lessen expenses, to avoid previous mistakes, and to accelerate the procedures. Hence, in this paper, we take a look at some chosen world countries to use their successful strategies, policies, practices and results on one hand, and to preplan for the problems and obstacles.

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