Initial Issue Paper

Citizens, civic groups and parliaments in eGovernance.
An analysis of eGov programming in Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania

E-government has generally developed in a diverse manner. Broadly speaking, having begun with an emphasis on improving the efficiency of government procedures, it is now being recast to include a transition towards participatory and collaborative government. My research seeks to examine and deepen that trend in the cases of Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania.

The Problem
During the past few years most government agencies in Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania have established a public face online, and developed e-government related programs: e-Belarus (2002), e-Ukraine (2003), and in Lithuanian, the Strategic Plan for Information Society Development (2001) and the Concept of eGovernmnet (2002). Governments in these three countries are reconfiguring their activities and services in order to make use of the opportunities provided by the Internet and new information and communication technologies (ICTs).

But many decision-makers and researchers still concentrate onesidedly on the provision of electronic services and regard participation as an unnecessary complexity cost factor [Suh, 2005]. They treat people as customers rather than as citizens who are responsible for taking initiative to solve problems; officials do not grasp the potential of CSOs for their work, and programmes focus on improving delivery of government services to citizens, business and other stakeholders.

At the same time, in Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine civil society organizations (CSOs) - from NGOs to business owners - have tended to devote their attention and resources to questions of connectivity, access and community development rather than to the matter of participation in eGov programming. As a result, 1) they lack information about the development of e-government strategies and about who exactly is and could be involved at the planning stages; 2) bureaucratic procedures and special interest legislative processes have come to deprive citizens of the practical arts of deliberating and collaborating together [Naidoo, 2003].

The upshot is that new ICTs do not effectively serve their purpose - to improve communication among government, citizens, and parliament.

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