Measuring impacts of e-government support in least developed countries: a case study of the vehicle registration service in Bhutan

Abstract

e-Government initiatives are increasingly mainstreamed in the development agenda, as means through which developing countries can achieve development objectives faster and, as experience from the developed world suggests, for less cost. However, little research has been carried out on the impact of such initiatives in the developing world, especially the least developed countries, and little attention has been placed on cost aspects. This research studies one such initiative, the computerization of vehicle registration, in one such country, Bhutan. After assessing impact on both efficiency and governance, it finds that improvements in governance and quality aspects greatly outweigh cost-aspects. Using activity-based costing method for internal costs, and assessing quality aspects through staff interviews and customer surveys, significant improvements were found in lead time and adherence to rules felt by citizen users. However, little benefit was found in terms of cost reduction.

B.J. Reed is the accepting Associate Editor for this article.

Keywords:

• least developed countries
• e-government
• public sector reform
• ICT for development
• government performance evaluation

Acknowledgements

This research would not have been possible without the support of the Ministry of Information and Communication of Bhutan. The author would like to thank officials of the ministry, as well as Dr Hiroyuki Matsui, Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University, and Mr Chris Whitehouse, former UNV Programme Officer in Bhutan, for their advice and guidance. The views expressed in this paper are that of the author alone.

Notes

B.J. Reed is the accepting Associate Editor for this article.

Recent statistics revealed that Bhutan's GDP per capita surpassed USD 1414 in 2006, making it no longer categorized as LDC. Bhutan had USD 834 as GDP per capita in 2003 and was categorized as LDC at the time of this study (GNH Commission, 2009; RGOB, 2005a).

A list of e-government reports with measured impacts is provided in eGEP (2006a, pp. 26–29) report.

Although this study did not consider the framework provided by the World Bank study, eGEP or Heeks at the time of research design, as it had not been published, the research design deployed for this study follows a similar logic, in a limited scope.

The average labor cost per month is the average pay scale for civil servants in Bhutan at the time (RCSC, 2002, Annexure 14/1).

The difference was tested statistically using Z-test.

The report of this committee has not been released, but this information was provided by Joint Director of RSTA and confirmed by the chairman, Director of DIT.