Affiliations: Center for Advanced Technology Strategy, US.
E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: While many developing country e-Government efforts are national
government focused, rural and municipal initiatives hold great promise as well
for bettering the lives of citizens. Rural and municipal e-Government directly
connect government and citizens and can further efforts to provide services
effectively, promote economic development and foster citizen engagement. The
paper reviews best practices and success stories in rural and municipal
e-Government efforts, and then develops an assessment model, SENSE, determining
the promise of rural and municipal e-Government investments. The paper
concludes with a discussion of Open City Portal – an open source platform for
municipal portals – that enables municipalities with limited budgets and
technology expertise to develop a municipal portal that helps achieve many of
the objectives of e-Government.