E-Government Policy and Health Information Systems Implementation in Andhra Pradesh, India: Need for Articulation of Linkages Between the Macro and the Micro

Abstract

In recent years, many different types of e-government projects have been implemented across the developing world. One important application area, especially following the Millennium Development Goals, is the introduction of health information systems to improve the management of health care for development. Despite significant investments in these projects, experience reveals a disjuncture between macro-level policy priorities and micro-level implementation of these programmes. We use a broad conceptualization of evaluation to synthesize priorities at different levels during the implementation of an e-government project—the Health Information Systems Project (HISP) in Andhra Pradesh, India. This enables us to identify important enabling processes and conditions which serve to connect policy and implementation priorities. Our findings suggest that evaluation does help us to understand the disjuncture between policy at the macro level and implementation at the micro level and to identify linkages between the two. Finally, we discuss some of the key institutional issues that need to be addressed to translate the learning derived from the field into policy actions.

Keywords:

• Andhra Pradesh
• e-government
• evaluation
• Health Information Systems Project

Acknowledgments

Randeep Sudan was formerly Special Secretary to the Chief Minister and Ex-Officio Secretary of Information Technology and Communications, Government of Andhra Pradesh, India.

The findings, interpretations, and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries that they represent.

Notes

1. See www.hispindia.org for more details.

2. The Act can be accessed at http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/non_protectversion/cgi-bin/cgi_retrieve.pl?actno=REVED-137A&doctitle=protectINFO-COMMUNICATIONS%20DEVELOPMENT%20AUTHOR-protectITY%20SINGAPORE%20ACT%0A&date=latest&method=part.

3. Taken from an interview held by one of the authors with Ian Watmore in March 2005. Available from the British Computer Society web site at http://archive.bcs.org/BCS/Products/publishing/protectitnow/OnlineArchive/mar05/interview.htm.