National e-Governance Stakeholders' Forum

It has been strongly felt and understood by now that with many states in India already in the middle of their programs having implemented some successful initiatives and experienced pitfalls, it is now time to assess the programs made so far, and validate the success of the projects against citizen feedback and stated deliverables. The e-Government programs can be ideal for achieving development goals such as ‘education for all’, sustainable agriculture practices, e-health, poverty eradication and social inclusion besides helping reduce corruption and enhance public integrity.  It is therefore apt for the civil society organizations, industry, academia and the development agencies to coordinate with the government and provide feedback on the existing programs. This will help providing the development orientation to the e-Governance programs as well as help initiatives have a user driven approach.

 The Society for Promotion of e-Governance (SpeG) along with its associate organizations has carried out wide ranging consultations with the government agencies, academia and other stakeholder groups through workshops, round table meetings and online discussion lists regarding the framework for such a consultation. In order implement one of the key recommendations of e-GovWorld 2007 (participated by DIT- Government of India, The World Bank, UN Solution Exchange Program, Airtel, IBM, 3i-Infotech, IL&FS and members from Civil Society organizations from across the country) and subsequent discussion with civil society organizations during the Annual Meeting of the ICTD community of Solution Exchange (UNESCO) in Pondicherry , we are pleased to initiate the process of creating a National e-Government Stakeholders’ Forum (NeGF)

The aim of NeGF is to help the government agencies and citizen representatives take stock of the programs under NeGP and build on the achievements so far, to accelerate further developments and set directions for next phase of efforts. The forum will be a platform for high level consultative meeting among the stakeholder communities including representatives from government agencies, multilateral development agencies, civil society organizations, academia and media.  In addition to online participation, the forum will organize face to face interactions among the government agencies responsible for deployment of e-Government projects and the representatives from the community.

Proposed initiatives under NeGF

The NeGF would like to carry out the following activities to ensure citizen enhanced national e-Governance Program (NeGP)

•  Creation of a repository of e-Governance projects in India and categorizing  them under  various Mission Mode Projects of National e-Governance Plan

• Mapping of the civil society organizations as per their geographical location and work areas related to various MMPs
• Publishing Reports on the key e-Governance Projects based upon the feedback from citizens
• Creating a framework for regular interaction among the implementing agencies and user communities (Through internet, mobile channels and face to face meetings)
• Running advocacy campaigns for inclusion of citizen driven e-Governance policies
• Collation of good practice models (global and national ) for each of the MMPs mentioned under NeGP
• Social auditing of the projects implemented by central and state government agencies.