Public Technologies for the Public Good (F-7)
Description
Governments all over the world are being empowered by the reach and efficiency afforded through modern information and communications technologies (ICTs). Today communication between governments and those who they serve is greater than ever before. Not only are governments at every level better able to disseminate information across the citizenry about the goods and services they provide and how to access them, their policy decision makers can also promote and increase citizen engagement. Dialogue of this kind serves to keep public administrators informed about social needs and expectations, and contributes to legitimizing public policy design and implementation, and to governments’ overall responsiveness.
The use of public technologies for the common good has other essential benefits, primarily allowing people to pursue their interests within a wide range of resources that are globally accessible. This has enormous potential for continuous learning, knowledge building and networking among public service professionals and the interested public in general. Some of the main challenges to realizing the potential impact of ICTs are problems with access. Many scholars with an interest in ICTs first described this as a “digital divide” that separated those who had access to the information highway and those who had not. The issue of making ICTs accessible was centered on economic factors and affordability. The costs of setting ICT infrastructures in place nationally has been a major item in the annual budgets of many countries.
Today the discussion about access to ICTs and closing the digital divide focusses on making public technologies accessible by the disabled, available in more languages, and with larger numbers and types of transactions being catered and expedited for the common good. Mobile phones have played a major role in these achievements especially in developing and less developed countries.
Competence in the use of ICTs continues to be a major requirement in public employee recruiting.