The Optimal Public Expenditure Financing Policy: Does the Level of Economic Development Matter

Abstract (Document Summary)
This paper explores how the optimal mode of public finance depends on the level of economic development. The theoretical analysis suggests that in the presence of capital market imperfection and liquidity shocks, the detrimental effect of inflation on growth is stronger (weaker) at lower (higher) levels of economic development. Consequently, income taxation (seigniorage) is a relatively less distortionary way of financing public expenditure for low-income (high-income) countries. We provide empirical support for our model's predictions using a panel of 21 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries and 40 developing countries observed over the period 1972-1999. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

From Economic Inquiry,  January 7,2007 
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Myths about the Sovereign Menace to Treasuries

Terence Keeley
As long US yields recently rose to levels not seen for a half decade, pundits rushed to fit causal theories to facts. Chief among the accused are central bankers said to have abandoned their historical sponsorship of US bonds. The fate of US yields and other markets now largely rests on two preoccupations: are foreign central bankers abandoning US Treasuries for other asset classes and are they abandoning the US dollar for other currencies?

The single-word answer to these interrelated questions is a resounding "No". The Bank for International Settlements recently estimated that total reserve accumulation by sovereign investors in 2007 could exceed by 100 per cent the net, new issuance of the US Treasury, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, all euro-area federal issuance, all UK federal issuance and all European Investment Bank and KfW, the German state development bank, issuance combined. With some Dollars 800bn (Pounds 400bn) to be added this year to the Dollars 8,000bn already managed by central banks, ministries of finance and the newer, federally sponsored stabilisation funds, there is simply not enough new, high-quality debt in the world to sate sovereign demand.

As central banks and stabilisation funds will be a critical part of the financial landscape indefinitely, it is essential to dispel some myths about how they operate.

Myth one: the US dollar is in decline as a reserve currency. The US dollar is extraordinarily stable in relative terms as a reserve currency and growing massively in absolute terms; fluctuating between 62 per cent and 72 per cent for most of the past three decades, it has now stabilised around 67 per cent of total reserves. No other currency provides access to such a wide pool of liquid, high-quality assets, the chief preoccupation of reserve managers.

Many countries - particularly in the Middle East and Asia - believe the euro has debilitating, longer-term demographic and political challenges. UBS surveys show Asian currencies are likely to displace the euro as the second most popular reserve currency in time, but the US dollar will stay king.

Myth two: central banks are abandoning bonds for riskier assets. The recent announcement that Chinese authorities plan to take a Dollars 3bn stake in Blackstone made thrilling headlines - but Dollars 3bn amounts to less than two days of reserve accumulation by current Chinese standards. Some 70 per cent of the total accumulations of central banks and other sovereign wealth managers this year will end up in US dollars, and the bulk of this ultimately in US fixed-income assets. Reserve managers are moving more money into so-called "spread products" (mortgage backed securities, corporate bonds, etc) - but equities, private equity and hedge funds have not yet seen much benefit.

Myth three: sovereign wealth funds are "Masters of the Universe". The Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and other sovereign wealth funds are unquestionably sophisticated and growing factors in the markets. With some Dollars 2,500bn under management, growing at 16 per cent per annum, the composite effect of these funds on markets is also on the rise. Collectively, however, these funds still own less than 2 per cent of the globe's financial assets, or less than a third of that managed by insurance companies. The asset allocation approach of these institutions still broadly reflects that of conservative pension funds (60 per cent fixed income, 40 per cent in equity/ alternatives).

Myth four: central banks are sound investors. Central banks are banks - that is to say, against all of their assets they maintain liabilities. A sound banker minimises currency mismatches on his/ her balance sheets - something few central banks actually do. Potential foreign currency trans-action losses that certain Asian and Latin American central banks now face could be as high as 3, 6 or 9 per cent of their country's gross domestic product. How might markets react if the Federal Reserve were to announce it had lost Dollars 1,000bn in foreign currency trans-lations, the relative equivalent that some nations are now facing?

Net-net, investors should expectsovereign investors will continue to distort yield curves in the years ahead. Along with trying to find enough high-quality bonds to invest in, however, sovereign investors need to ask themselves an even tougher question: how can they be dominant players in the foreign exchange and fixed-income markets and guardians of financial market stability at the same time?

The writer is managing director forGlobal Central Bank Services at UBS

From Financial Times,  June 29,2007 
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Why China Thrives Despite Corruption

IT IS COMMONLY believed the allocation of resources by diverting much-needed capital from economic development into corrupt officials' pockets. Thus high-level corruption in a country is considered detrimental to its economic growth. However, some countries such as China have achieved rapid economic growth in spite of rampant corruption.

Both public-opinion polls in China and surveys by international organizations confirm that the level of corruption in China is deeply rooted and widespread. However, in spite of this endemic corruption, the Chinese economy has been growing rapidly, with an average annual growth rate of approximately 10% over the last 20 years. China is not alone; there are other countries that show similar patterns, mostly in East Asia.

This poses a puzzle: Is corruption really detrimental to economic growth? More specifically, why does corruption seems to be more harmful to some countries and less harmful to others in terms of economic growth?

Some researchers have made the "efficiency enhancing" corruption argument. Under a political and economic environment where regulations are extremely rigid and antibusiness, bribery may serve as lubricant to circumvent stifling regulations and thus help economic performance. But the researchers have failed to further specify why some countries tend to enjoy this "efficiency enhancing" effect while others do not.

Our study sheds light on this issue. We argue that a major factor that may systematically distinguish countries with predominantly "efficiency-enhancing" corruption from countries with predominantly "predatory" corruption is the level of public trust in a society, namely, trust between strangers. In a society with a high level of public trust, corruption tends to be efficiency-enhancing, or less harmful to economic growth, whereas in a society that lacks public trust, corruption tends to be more predatory and more harmful to economic growth.

This seems to violate common sense, since trust is viewed as one aspect of moral behavior, while corruption is the antithesis of morality. So why would trust be important in corruption?

Trusting Souls

CORRUPTION IS ILLEGAL in all societies, at least on paper. Thus an important factor in taking bribes is the risk of being caught. Trust is important in bribery-corruption relationship because of the time lag and geographic separation between the bribe payment to the corrupt official and the delivery of the public good to the briber. This is especially true in large-scale corruption involving government contracts or market access worth hundreds of millions of dollars, as opposed to petty corruption that can be accomplished on the spot, such as paying a police officer to cancel a traffic ticket.

Should the briber pay first, or should the official deliver the goods first? If there exists a high level of trust between the briber and the official, timing is less of a concern. Otherwise, the deal cannot be done since there is very little legal protection for bribery-corruption relationships. Furthermore, without trust, there is a high risk that the briber may turn the official in or blackmail him.

Suppose there are two types of societies in terms of the level of public trust: Society A has a very high level of public trust, whereas society B has virtually no public trust. In society A, where strangers tend to trust each other, corrupt officials would feel comfortable taking bribes from almost anyone, because the likelihood of being turned in by the briber is very low. Furthermore, whether the briber pays first or the official delivers first is not a major issue, since they trust each other. Thus it can be logically argued that in society A, there is an extensive and efficient bribe-taking corruption market; corrupt officials sell the public goods-contracts, profitable information, or market access-to the highest bidder who has the most efficient business operation. Bribers pay and officials deliver, creating "efficiency-enhancing" corruption.

In society B, people are highly suspicious of each other, and therefore corrupt officials will only accept bribes from people they know well, such as their relatives and longtime friends. In these close relationships, the time lag between payment and delivery is not a big problem. But such transactions are limited to only a small number of people, meaning that the corruption is likely to distort the allocation of resources away from those people who could make the most efficient use of them.

Moreover, if corruption is rampant in society B, it implies that corrupt officials must extract bribes from strangers. But with strangers, the time lag and geographic separation (such as paying bribers in one city and delivering the goods in another city) becomes a difficult issue. Since there is little trust and thus no guarantee that the official will deliver, the potential bribers are not willing to pay up front.

Likewise, the official will not deliver without payment first. The likelihood of bribe-taking is further reduced because there is a risk of being turned in by the briber. If corruption is rampant in such a society, then it implies that officials control most resources and have absolute authority to extract payment from ordinary citizens and businesses. Such corruption is predatory, a pure extortion that does not deliver.

What countries tend to have higher levels of public trust? Research suggests that public trust is built during a long history of informal networks between people in social, economic, and political exchanges.

Based on the above analysis, in countries with a more expansive and thicker social network, as reflected in the higher level of public trust, bribery-corruption relations tend to be more extensive (more people participating) and efficient in the sense that the briber pays and the corrupt official delivers what the briber wants, facilitating business activities and thus economic growth.

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[Photograph]
Corruption allowed the late President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and his pals to pocket between $3 billion to $6 billion.


In contrast, in countries with a weak social network, as evidenced by a low level of public trust, bribery-corruption relations tend to be limited to a small number of related people (family members or friends), who may not necessarily be the most efficient users of the public goods they receive as a result of their bribes. Under a low level of public trust, the bribe payment by strangers will degenerate into extortion, producing a net loss to the briber and no efficiency gain for the economy.

The case of China and the Philippines will illustrate our argument. As shown in the table nearby, both countries have similar scores in terms of the perception of corruption, but display wide differences in the level of public trust and economic growth rate. China had a much higher rate of GDP growth than the Philippines in the 1990s, and the Chinese public expresses a massively greater degree of trust than is found in the Philippines. What can explain this?

Unwritten Rules

CHINA is BEST known for its culture and practice of guanxi. Guanxi refers to the informal social networks based on the private relationships among people. It functions as a relation-based governance system that provides a private means to facilitate and protect economic transactions.

Game theorists show that without initial trust, even repeated games may not work well since each party may be afraid that the other party may take advantage of his trust. In a relation-based society with a high-level of public trust, the likelihood of cooperation between strangers is high so that a potential briber and a prospective corrupt official can make a deal quite quickly.

The bribery-corruption relationship in China closely resembles such conditions of high public trust. In China, due to the monopoly of most economic resources by the government, corruption is rampant. The widely accepted view in China is that "power cannot be deposited in a bank, so you had better profit from it while you can." Furthermore, the strong and thick social network allows the bribery-corruption relationship to extend beyond family and friends.

In China it is common that a businessman may need special help from a government department. He would likely go around asking all his friends if they might know someone in that department. Very likely, one of the friends would say, "I don't know anyone there directly, but my sister-in-law has a co-worker who knows someone who has a student who is the son of a senior official in that department." In a society with low trust, such an indirect relationship would be deemed too risky to discuss bribes. But in China, many bribery-corruption relationships can be established in just this way, due to its strong guanxi culture.

This high trust can be seen even from the behavior of foreigners in China. Ethan Gutmann's book Losing the New China quotes a multinational executive explaining how his firm would give a large "slush fund" to a consultant to pay bribes in China: "The terms of the deal was...a $10 million discretionary fund. Hands off, no questions asked. Don't ask [the consultant] where the money goes....We know exactly what he was up to, and exactly how successful he would be...."

According to Takungpao, a Chinese government newspaper, bribers and corrupt officials in China have taken the art of corruption to the next level. One of the new features can be called the "globalization" of bribery. Bribes are paid not in China, but outside of China, in the form of luxury homes, bank accounts, or gambling trips. Obviously these activities and assets are exchanged outside of China to reduce the risk of being caught. But the geographic and temporal separation of payment and delivery also means that there has to be a high level of trust between the briber and the official.

Perhaps the most innovative feature of corruption in China is that it has taken the form of futures options: The briber and the official often develop a mutual understanding that the incumbent official will help the briber now but will not be paid immediately. Years later, when the official is retired, the briber will pay him in some way. Obviously, this arrangement substantially reduces the risk of being caught. Again, without such a high level of trust, the corrupt official will not choose this option.

Corruption in the Philippines

THE CASE OF the Philippines is very different from that of China. A major type of corruption in the Philippines, at least historically, was that the state head would control entry into an industry or simply monopolize it, and impose a tax or surcharge on all the products of the industry or extract a fee for entering the industry. The state head would appoint one of his cronies to be in charge of the industry and steal all the collections from the state coffers. To the private sector payers, these taxes, surcharges or fees, are nothing more than robbery, a deadweight loss in the economic sense. The collecting officials simply impose the fees on the payers, without facilitating or helping any business activities. Furthermore, the victim of the corruption, the payers, would have no evidence with which to turn in the official collector, because the latter is simply carrying out a state order.

Several cases of major industries in the Philippines demonstrate such a corruption pattern. In the coconut sector during the 1970s (accounting for roughly 25% of Philippines' export income), former President Ferdinand Marcos imposed a tax on all sales of coconuts and copra. The agency in charge of collecting this tax was headed by his close friend Manuel Cojuangco. Mr. Cojuangco then used the extorted money to buy banks, which in turn funded his acquisition of many coconut-oil pressing mills. Then he put all the tax money into a fund and used the fund to subsidize the mills he and Marcos controlled.

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A QUESTION OF TRUST


There is a similar corruption pattern in the cigarette industry. In 1975, President Marcos imposed a 100% import duty on cigarette filters, but gave a special 90% import-duty reduction to the Philippine Tobacco Filters Corporation, a company owned by one of his close friends, Herminio Disini. Mr. Disini in turn supplied the filter at below-market prices to Fortune Tobacco, a major cigarette maker owned by another Marcos ally, Lucio Tan. Together they drove the competition out of market and monopolized the cigarette industry.

In the sugar industry in 1974, Marcos ordered that all sugar exports be monopolized by the Philippine Exchange Company, which was controlled by his college friend Robert Benidicto. With the blessing of Marcos and subsidies from state funds, Mr. Benidicto manipulated sugar prices for his own profits at the expense of Philippine sugar farmers and producers.

In all these corruption cases, there was little cooperation between the briber (the payer of the surcharges, entry fees, and other types of extortions) and the corrupt official. The briber was forced to pay, and the official did not enhance the efficiency of the briber's business. It is estimated that through these extortions, Marcos and his associates amassed assets valued at between $3 billion to $6 billion.

A statistical test using cross-sectional data from 42 countries supports our view: The negative effect of corruption on economic growth is mitigated by a higher level of pubic trust in a country. In general, a one percent increase in the trust level will decrease the negative effect of corruption by 0.23%.

What can the reader take away from this study? First, we are not saying that corruption is good. Corruption has a negative effect on economic growth in all countries. However, this negative effect maybe reduced when corruption interacts with a higher level of social trust. second, since the briber and the corrupt official both benefit, the briber has little incentive to turn in the corrupt official, making corruption difficult to detect.

In general, the high level of trust in societies with predominantly "efficiency enhancing" corruption implies that cleaning up corruption is very difficult. A strong and thick social network makes it very hard to encourage "whistle blowing." If this logical conjecture is true, then the prospects for eradicating corruption in highly relation-based countries like China are not good.

[Sidebar]
In China, practicing corruption is like investing in futures options-repayment is not immediate.

[Author Affiliation]
Mr. Li is professor of international business at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Ms. Wu is a doctoral student in management at Old Dominion University. The authors wish to thank David Selover for his comments and suggestions.

From Far Eastern Economic Review,  January 4,2007 
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China Targets Bribe Takers, but What About Givers?; Zeal to Prosecute Those Who Instigate Graft Appears to Be Lacking

HONG KONG -- China's hardening stance against graft became clear when the country's former head of the food-and-drug watchdog was sentenced to death in May for accepting bribes from drug companies. On Friday, another senior official from the same agency reportedly received a suspended death sentence for similar charges.

But what is less certain is China's commitment to addressing the possibly more-widespread practice of offering bribes, not just the high-profile government officials who take them.

The bribery prosecutions follow a string of food- and drug-safety lapses in pet food, toothpaste and tires. China has reacted by closing 180 food manufacturers and pledging to crack down on corruption and shoddy safety standards. International concern over the safety of Chinese exports has increased, with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration most recently issuing a safety alert for farm-raised seafood imported from China that may contain unsafe chemicals and antibiotics.

The Chinese government generally responds to corruption scandals by announcing a crackdown, rounding up senior officials and encouraging the state-controlled domestic news media to cover their trials. Beijing stresses that corruption within its own ranks is the greatest threat to the Communist Party. But it is unclear whether the government pursues the bribers with the same zeal as the bribed.

"As a policy, the Chinese prosecution -- they normally don't go after the people who bribe. It's been very consistent," says Fu Hualing, an associate professor on the faculty of law at the University of Hong Kong. "It doesn't matter if it's the lawyers bribing the judges or the companies bribing the officials."

Dr. Fu says bribery is a part of Chinese society and that the public and the government look at those who bribe with more sympathy than the government officials who accept bribes. "If you talk to people on the street, they will think that it's the government officials who should be prosecuted, not the people who bribe," Dr. Fu says.

Despite the high-profile trial and sentencing of Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of China's State Food and Drug Administration, the government hasn't made any public announcement about which companies bribed him or which company officials were involved in the graft.

But two documents posted on the Web site of the law firm that represents Mr. Zheng name some of the Chinese pharmaceutical companies that allegedly gave bribes to Mr. Zheng, according to defense documents that cite the prosecution. One of the Chinese companies has a business deal with a Texas company to manufacture syringes that are sold in the U.S. Another one of the Chinese companies has a deal with a drug company in New Jersey to develop drugs for sale in the U.S. A concern, observers say, is that corrupt government officials could be allowing unsafe products on the market, either in China or overseas.

The documents, dated May 16 and June 18, offer details into Mr. Zheng's legal defense, which is being handled by Beijing New Era Law Firm. Chinese government prosecutors identify within the documents most of the eight drug companies that allegedly gave a total of $850,000 in bribes to Mr. Zheng and some of his family members.

"Is he being made to pay for the wrongdoing of many?" says Robert W. Pollard, director in China for the health-care arm of Synovate, a global market-research firm. "That would appear to be the case."

It isn't clear whether these eight companies will themselves be charged with bribery. Some of the companies say they haven't received any notice from prosecutors. The documents are stored on the law firm's Web site but aren't easily accessible to the public. A who answered the phone at Beijing New Era said Mr. Zheng's lawyers weren't available for comment, and Beijing New Era Law Firm declined to answer questions about the documents.

A person from the first branch of the Beijing People's Procuratorate, the government office involved in prosecuting Mr. Zheng's case, said she didn't know whether the people accused of bribing Mr. Zheng were being charged.

The government could be pursuing a case against the companies without making their investigation public. "High-profile cases against officials tend to receive more publicity, but authorities also pursue other cases which may go unreported, such as cases against those offering bribes to officials," says Susan Munro, a lawyer with O'Melveny & Myers LLP in Shanghai.

On May 29, the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Mr. Zheng for receiving bribes of cash and gifts during his tenure at the helm of the State Food and Drug Administration. The court justified the death sentence by citing the large bribes and damage to the country.

The companies or people who gave Mr. Zheng the bribes weren't identified at the time. But, on June 20, the 21st Century Business Herald, a national newspaper in China, published an article based on documents it said it had found on Beijing New Era's Web site that detailed some of the companies allegedly involved in the bribery. The article prompted a columnist for the China Youth Daily, a state-run newspaper published nationwide, to call for the government to punish not only those who receive bribes but also those who give them.

China's Central Propaganda Department, which controls the country's media, was unhappy about the 21st Century Business Herald report, a person familiar with the matter said. Officials with the propaganda department asked Sina Corp.'s Sina.com and Sohu.com Inc.'s Sohu.com, two of China's largest Internet portals, to remove the article from their sites the same day it was published, according to this person. The report was removed.

Neither Sina nor Sohu was available for comment.

In addition, a reporter at China Business News, a Shanghai-based newspaper that published a similar article detailing the bribes, was suspended from work for a month, along with the paper's assistant chief editor, according to another person familiar with the matter.

Hainan Poly Pharm Co., a private pharmaceutical company in Hainan province cited by the documents, has a pharmaceutical-development deal with Cura Pharmaceutical Co., a drug company in Eatontown, N.J. One of the documents mentions that a witness in the court case against Mr. Zheng "requested to speed the approval of an application for three drugs" made by Hainan Poly Pharm.

Cura, which says its deal requires that Hainan Poly be in U.S. compliance, says it is unaware of any bribery at Hainan Poly. Yin Fei, head of the legal-affairs department of Hainan Poly, declined to comment.

Hainan Poly has also registered one of its products, injections of ascorbic acid, or vitamin C, with the U.S. FDA, according to an FDA spokeswoman, who added that registration is purely an administrative step and doesn't mean that the company is allowed to sell the product in the U.S.

A second Chinese company cited by the documents, Double-Dove Group Co., in Zhejiang province, has a supply agreement with Retractable Technologies Inc., a U.S. syringe company based in Little Elm, Texas, and traded on the American Stock Exchange.

Double-Dove officials weren't available for comment. A spokesman for Retractable Technologies says Double-Dove's products "meet or exceed" Retractable's standards as well as U.S. and international requirements.

Also within the documents, Mr. Zheng's lawyers contest several of the bribery charges, including the accusation that Mr. Zheng's wife took money from the president of Double-Dove.

Among the other companies cited in the two documents is Beijing Guangming Chinese Medicine Institute for Burns, Wounds, and Ulcers. According to the documents, the government accused Mr. Zheng of taking $20,000 in 2004 from Xu Rongxiang, the institute's director, to help the institute obtain an approval for a burn treatment. Mr. Zheng admitted taking that bribe, according to the documents. He also admitted receiving a bribe of $10,000 from Zhao Buchang, president of Xianyang Buchang Pharmaceutical Co., a private drug company in Xianyang, in Shaanxi province, the documents say.

Mr. Xu of the Beijing Guangming Chinese Medicine Institute was unavailable for comment. One of the directors of the institute says he doesn't know anything about the bribery accusations.

Yang Qian, an assistant to Mr. Zhao, of Xianyang Buchang, says the report "is groundless, and it harmed our company's reputation."

---

Kersten Zhang in Beijing contributed to this article.

---

China's Bribery Crackdown

Three top officials of China's State Food and Drug Administration were

sentenced for bribery:

-- Zheng Xiaoyu

Title: Former head of China's SFDA.

Charges: Charged with receiving a total of $850,000 in bribes from eight

drug companies. The bribes were either given to him directly or through his

wife and son.

Sentence: To death on May 29, 2007.

-- Cao Wenzhuang

Title: Former director of the drug-registration department at the SFDA.

Charges: Charged with accepting $307,000 in bribes from two medical

companies that were seeking approval to sell their products.

Sentence: To death, with a two-year reprieve, on July 6, 2007.

-- Hao Heping

Title: Former director of the medical-equipment department of the SFDA.

Charges: Charged with taking bribes of about $100,000 from four companies

between 2002 and 2004, as well as illegal possession of firearms.

Sentence: To 15 years in prison on Nov. 28, 2006.

Source: Real Capital Analystics

From Wall Street Journal,  September 7,2007 
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Local corruption level still high

So, you might ask, what else is new? Well… it is just that our fears have been confirmed by two recent studies: one from SWS and the other from the World Bank. In its 2007 Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), the World Bank measured six components of good governance—voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption. Overall, we didn’t do that well.

Yet, countries around the world, including some of the poorest in Africa, have made “significant progress” in improving governance and fighting corruption over the decade, the new “Worldwide Governance Indicators” (WGI) study by the World Bank Institute shows. In our case, the study noted the Philippines has yet to post marked improvements in the six indicators when compared to other East Asian countries like Singapore and now, Indonesia.

But if we are looking for something in the study to make us feel a little better, study co-author Daniel Kaufmann, Director of Global Governance at the WBI said “on average, there is no evidence that governance in the world at large has improved markedly over the past decade.” In other words, we are not too bad. Just don’t compare us with our neighbors in the region because our progress pales in comparison. Indonesia, in particular, was cited for remarkable improvement under its current President Yudhoyono.

Kaufmann said “many countries have stayed behind or even deteriorated.” But even “some of the poorest ones in Africa, are deciding to move forward, and are showing to the world that it is possible to make substantial inroads in improving governance over a relatively short period of time — in less than a decade.”

Good governance, the study emphasized, matters. “Policy makers and academics agree that good governance matters for economic development. Scholars have discovered that high-quality institutions have the power, over the long run, to raise per capita incomes and promote growth in all parts of the world. And the ‘development dividend’ paid by good governance is large.”

In other words, “good governance and corruption control are fundamental for long-term growth and reducing poverty. Improving governance helps fight poverty and improves standards of living. Ten years of research show that improved standards of living are largely the result of improved governance, and not the other way around.” Citing specifics, the study found out that “when governance is improved by one standard deviation, infant mortality declines by two-thirds and incomes rise about three-fold in the long run.”

There is another dimension to good governance and this has to do with democracy. Data from the same World Bank study show that democratic accountability and clean government go hand in hand. “Countries such as Chile, Botswana, and Canada all are vibrant democracies with very little corruption, while countries with voice and accountability challenges such as China and the Russian Federation, or, more extremely, Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea, tend to have much more corruption.”

That makes sense. Consider how our government has ignored public opinion in the matters of political killings and corruption, negating the value of a free press, a revered democratic institution. Doing so breeds the perception of increased instability, a factor political risk analysts take into account in grading our investment worthiness.

So, now we know why we are what we are. It is no surprise the WB study noted that perceptions of the country’s political stability have deteriorated over the last 10 years. Political stability is measured by the likelihood of violent threats to, or changes, in government, including terrorism. In two other indicators—voice and accountability and fighting corruption—the study noted the perception that Philippine performance lagged behind that of most of the countries surveyed.

This brings me to a recent SWS survey that concluded: “corruption is still a problem”. The survey found out that local businessmen still think the level of corruption in the country remains high. The good news, though, is that 17 of 29 government agencies improved in their sincerity ratings to fight corruption over the last two years.

On the positive side, the 7th annual SWS Business Survey on Corruption, conducted in partnership with Makati Business Club and the Asia Foundation, also point to declining incidence of bribery for government contracts in Metro Manila. However, the survey also revealed that three of five managers were still asked for a bribe in 2006 on at least one government transaction.

Specifically, around 61percent of managers have been asked for a bribe on at least one of seven index transactions: getting local government permits and licenses (40 percent); getting national permits and licenses (37 percent); paying income taxes (33 percent); complying with import regulations (25 percent); supplying goods/services (22 percent); collecting receivables (20 percent); and availing of incentives (13 percent).

But we just grin and bear it. Few bother to report bribery. Only six percent of managers reported to authorities that they had been asked for a bribe. Sixty-nine percent of managers believe that “nothing will be done”; 49 percent were afraid of reprisal; and 48 percent believe it is “standard practice.”

Still, the ratings of almost all agencies for sincerity in fighting corruption are up in 2007, except for the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG). Of 29 agencies rated, 12 are positive ratings and 17 are negative ratings. Eight rated Moderate, Good or Very Good [+11 to +50] (DTI, SSS, SC, DOH, City/Mun. gov’t, COA, Sandiganbayan, GSIS); 9 are Mediocre [-10 to +10] (DepEd, Trial Courts, Ombudsman, DBM, OP, Senate, PAGC, DA, AFP); and 12 are Poor, Bad or Very Bad [-50 to –11] (DOTC, DILG, DOJ, PCGG, DENR, PNP, LTO, House of Rep., Comelec, BIR, DPWH, BoC).

There are also “institutionalized” forms of corruption. For instance, one out of four (23 percent) said that a typical company in their sector would donate to the 2007 election campaign. The average estimated donation was P245,000. We need to be serious about electoral reform.

Filipino managers are enthusiastic about the idea of establishing a Transparency Information Bureau. It is “like a Credit Information Bureau, except that, instead of Credit Ratings, it will make Transparency Ratings on the reputation of individuals, companies, and agencies regarding honest and ethics in business.” The survey found 82 percent of the managers saying that their company would be willing, if asked by such a bureau, to give information about other people or companies regarding honesty and ethics in business.

It is obvious that there is still a lot of work to do in the area of governance. But then again, leadership by example is the most effective means for making everyone in the bureaucracy toe the line on good governance. If they see apparently overpriced multi-million dollar projects like the National Broadband getting through, the small bureaucrats are able to justify the petty graft and corruption in their own little world.

It is worrisome, though, and a matter of national honor that the World Bank has found much poorer countries in Africa starting to show remarkable improvement in governance and we are still just where we have always been. In a sense, expectations are higher for us, a middle income country that was among the first to free itself from colonialism after WW2 and is even a charter member of the United Nations. We can’t be seen as doing worse than those newly emerging countries whose problems with poverty are worse than us too.

From http://www.abs-cbnnews.com,  July 15,2007 
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B.C. Takes Innovative Approach to Forestry, Land Management; South Korea an E-government Giant

South Korea is one of the world's most technologically advanced countries, with the second highest number of broadband Internet connections per capita on the planet. Half of its population lives in or near the capital, Seoul, which is the 23rd largest urban area in the world. In 2003, its e-government roadmap became a national agenda, to be rolled out in five phases between 2003 and 2007

South Korea set up a common e-government infrastructure in 2004 and started full-scale development of its e-government system in 2005. As a result of this work, the country was recognized as the fifth best in the world by the United Nations on e-government readiness.

The government's three main goals are to innovate service delivery, enhance efficiency and transparency of administration and enable the sovereignty of the people, according to Sungwook Moon, commercial attaché with the Korean Embassy to Canada.

Each year, some 440 million copies of civil documents are issued, resulting from a lack of information sharing among administrative agencies. As part of its e-government strategy, an information-sharing project has been initiated to reduce redundancy and provide more citizen-centric government services. By 2007, 74 types of administrative information will be shared among ministries and agencies.

The Online Citizen Participation Portal allows citizens to submit civil complaints and propose suggestions regarding government policies. The portal was launched last year with online processing of public proposals, e-hearings, e-voting, forums, surveys and real-time discussions. The government is also coming up with M-Gov and T-Gov services to take advantage of the widespread use of mobile devices and service access through TVs.

Next steps include coming up with more diverse methods to encourage public participation and to establish e-government at a local level, as well as narrowing the digital divide among rural and urban areas.

From http://www.itbusiness.ca,  December 14,2006 
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De Villepin Under Investigation for Alleged Smear of Sarkozy

Judges presiding over the so-called Clearstream affair put Dominique de Villepin, the former French prime minister, under formal investigation yesterday for "slanderous defamation" of the current president, raising the likelihood of his standing trial on criminal charges.

After returning from a holiday in Tahiti, Mr de Villepin was summoned to see the two investigating magistrates to answer allegations that he had orchestrated a smear campaign against Nicolas Sarkozy, while still his ministerial colleague and rival in 2004.

The judges placed Mr de Villepin under judicial supervision, and told him not to meet Jacques Chirac, the former president, who has also been named in connection with Clearstream.

Mr de Villepin, who served as Mr Chirac's last prime minister between 2005 and 2007, has denied involvement in any such "political manoeuvre". Yesterday, he welcomed the opportunity to study the evidence collected against him. "I do not hide from you the fact that being placed under investigation is painful for me and my family, but I will fight so that the truth can finally appear during the course of the investigation," he said.

The magistrates would also like to question Mr Chirac as a witness, but he has refused to meet them, citing legal immunity covering his 12 years in office.

Mr Chirac was, however, questioned earlier this month by magistrates investigating a separate case dating from his time as mayor of Paris.

Alain Juppe, who worked closely with Mr Chirac at that time and subsequently became his first prime minister, was convicted in 2004 of his involvement in this "fictitious jobs" affair, in which public money was used to fund political appointments in Paris city hall.

The Clearstream case also dates from 2004, when the names of Mr Sarkozy - and several other prominent politicians and business figures - appeared on a false list of account-holders at Clear- stream, a Luxembourg-based finance house.

Rumours at the time, which subsequently proved to be false, suggested that Mr Sarkozy held illicitly acquired money in the Clearstream account.

When the affair broke into the public domain in 2006, Mr Sarkozy launched a civil case against unnamed parties who had slandered him by including his name on this false list.

Francois Hollande, leader of the opposition Socialist party, said the affair had serious political implications as well as legal consequences. "If, at the core of the (ruling centre-right) UMP, at the core of the state, people were capable of using procedures like that, then one must ask oneself whether we are still living in an impartial and transparent republic," he said.

Since leaving office in June, Mr de Villepin has been writing a second book about Napoleon. Jean-Pierre Grand, a parliamentary deputy close to him, said the case had "all the ingredients of a new Dreyfus affair". The Dreyfus affair, involving a Jewish army officer falsely accused of spying for Germany, is considered one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in French history.

From Financial Times,  July 28,2007 
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Audits could Curb Graft in Developing Countries

It is unfortunate that economists must debate whether natural resources are a blessing or a curse for a developing nation. Minerals, diamonds or oil may appear to represent automatic wealth, but resource-rich countries usually become mired in corruption. High oil revenues, for instance, allow a government to maintain power and reward political supporters without doing much for its people.

The government of Nigeria has taken in billions from high oil prices, yet the average person was probably better off 40 years ago. The easy-to-reach wealth of a resource also encourages coups, and thus political stability is problematic.

The solution is to make these governments more accountable in spending their money, but how can that be done? Paul Collier, an economics professor at Oxford University, has a new and potentially powerful idea. In his recently published book, "The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It," published by Oxford University Press, Collier favors an international charter - some widely publicized guidelines that countries can voluntarily adopt - to give transparency in spending wealth from natural resources. A country would pledge to have formal audits of its revenues and their disposition. Imagine PricewaterhouseCoopers auditing the copper revenues of Zambia and issuing a public report.

Collier's proposal at first glance seems toothless; a truly corrupt country probably would not follow the provisions of the charter, which, after all, is voluntary. Yet citizens could pressure their government to follow such a charter, and the idea of the charter would create a focus for political opposition and signify international support for concrete reform.

Foreign corporations would bring further pressures to heed the charter. Multinational companies that are active in corrupt countries might receive bad domestic publicity. Eventually the companies might push for adherence to the charter, even if the charter limited their ability to bribe. In another context, De Beers has been stung by bad publicity about "blood diamonds," and the company is now a force for positive change where it operates.

In the optimistic case, a few poor countries start abiding by the charter. Those countries prosper and attract more investment and status in the international community. The pressure to adopt the charter would then spread. Of course, promoting the charter costs relatively little and the potential benefits are significant.

International pressures did eventually force a change in South African apartheid. So maybe they can improve other countries as well.

Revenue audits would limit politicians's ability to rake off funds for personal use or take bribes to give foreign companies a sweetheart deal. As it stands now, citizens of poor countries usually have no idea how much natural resource wealth is being generated or where that money is going.

Accounting for natural resource revenues would also help poor countries plan for the future. Many poor exporting nations ride their fortunes up and down with the price of oil or other resources.

Ideally, these countries should be setting funds aside when the price of their resource is high. But, of course, no one will save money that will be stolen by others. Secure and audited funds can enable better planning for hard times.

The British government has already made one start toward a natural resources charter with its Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, begun in 2002. The World Bank has supported this idea and we need only imagine further waves of publicity, more active involvement from the International Monetary Fund and stronger interest from aid organizations and other nongovernmental organizations.

Even more promising is that Nigeria, one of the most corrupt countries, enacted a revenue transparency provision into law, as of May 28. The new Nigerian law relies too heavily on the national government to monitor revenues, thereby reminding us of the old adage about the fox and the henhouse. Nonetheless, state governors opposed the measure strongly, which is a sign it may prove to have teeth.

Furthermore, Nigeria allowed an audit by a private company in 2006, and it allowed the significant discrepancies to be publicized. The country may or may not turn the corner, but there are pressures building for greater rule of law.

In general, transparency can improve governance. A World Bank working paper written in 1999 by Christos Kostopoulos, "Progress in Public Expenditure Management in Africa," found that many African countries improved their management of public spending in the 1990s.

Openness can, in fact, break the links among corruption, secrecy and lack of accountability.

Workable development ideas are hard to find, but Collier may have identified the next frontier for positive change.

*

Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University.

Credit: The New York Times Media Group

From International Herald Tribune,  July 13,2007 
[top]

Kenya invests in ICT project

The Kenyan government has launched a KES7.8 billion (around EUR85 million) initiative aimed at improving the country's ICT infrastructure and accelerating the rollout of e-government services, reports Kenyan newspaper The Standard. With funding from the World Bank, the Kenya Transparency and Communication Infrastructure Project (KTCIP) plans to address digital divide issues, as well as make government processes more efficient and transparent, over a three-year period commencing in July 2007. Part of the project's budget has been allocated to bumping up broadband and telecoms connectivity for government staff, universities and rural-dwelling citizens. Some KES2.4 billion has been set aside to support e-government initiatives, including the digitisation of processes such as pensions administration, driver's licence registration and company registration, along with the development of SMS services and Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) technologies.

From enn.ie,  May 7,2007 
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Gambia: Taiwan Bridging the Digital Divide

Eleven staff from the Department of State for Communication and Information Technology (DoSCIT), the Department of State for Agriculture, Gamtel, GRTS and a student, have completed a training on computer repairs and maintenance at the new Computer Maintenance and Repairs Centre of DoSCIT, under the tutorship of River Huang, an IT expert from the International Cooperation Development Fund (ICDF) of Taiwan.

The centre - started operation in April this year - is an addendum to the list of computer centres established by Taiwan in Sapu in Central River Region, the Gambia Multimedia Training Institute and the Department of State for Education. It also came after a team of IT experts from Taipei implemented the e-government programme which included the installation of e-mail and web server, besides holding training on the use of the facility.


Confirming this in an interview with the Daily Observer, Dr Patrick Chang, Taiwanese Ambassador to The Gambia, said these strides complements government's effort towards transforming the country into the silicon valley of Africa. Dr Chang said the e-government programme is now being managed by Ebrahima Jobe, who is also responsible for the portal page.

Relevant Links

West Africa
Gambia
ICT and Telecom
Asia, Australia, and Africa
Education



Confirming that the Computer Repairs and Maintenance Centre has been equipped with a broadband internet access and training materials, Ambassador Chang disclosed that the centre successfully repaired 20 computers. "The embassy is looking forward to more efforts for the creation of information society," he added. "Under this programme, we would like to strengthen cooperation for creating digital opportunity centres to bridge the digital divide. We would like to reinforce the e-government programme," he assured.

Ambassador Chang then renewed Taipei's commitment to the silicon valley vision, saying "we shall continue to dispatch technical experts for a feasibility study and formulate work plan to enhance governmental effectiveness and national competitiveness. We would like to nurture IT human resources. We shall train more teachers and nurture high level of information development talent and quality manpower for local information industry".

The Taiwanese diplomacy chief in Banjul affirmed Taipei's commitment to provide training on computer hardware maintenance and website management. He then announced that 25 Gambian students will be dispatched in August, this year to undergo an IT programme at the National Taipei University of Technology.

From http://allafrica.com,  April 7,2007 
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African countries adopt e-government policies

Several African countries are implementing e-government programs as a means to improve efficiency in their respective administrations.

Nigeria is starting to roll out its e-government initiative this month, while others are building up programs that are already in place. South Africa, for instance, is working on enhancements such as local-language translation. Egypt is replicating successful pilot projects, and a component of Mauritius' e-government program -- the Government Online Centre (GOC) -- is expected to be operational this year.

Although governments are using different approaches to implement their programs, one goal remains central to all -- to provide citizens with a one-stop-shop online delivery service that is accessible at all times. Egypt has one of the leading e-government programs on the continent. It is in its fourth year and the government is now rolling out the second and third levels of its four-level model approach.

"Pilots that succeeded are being replicated. New pilots are being tested. It started with pilots and quick wins for proof of concept," Ahmed M. Darwish, Egypt's minister of state for administrative development, said via e-mail.

Proponents of Egypt's e-government program say that by 2007, most government services will be Web-enabled, with different service delivery channels and a variety of remote payment methods.

The Egyptian government expects to make direct and indirect savings by implementing its e-government program. "Better efficiency of administration will allow capital to revolve much fluidly and faster in the national economy, and also attract direct foreign investment," Darwish said.

Nigeria also envisages that it will reap financial rewards when the program is on-stream.

"We cannot say at this time, but saving from higher degree of compliance in tax payments is estimated at a conservative 400 percent increase within the first 24 months," said Mohammed Agbali, of Nigeria's National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), via e-mail.

Nigeria's e-government program operates under the aegis of Public Private Partnership (PPP), a joint venture between the Government of Nigeria, represented by NITDA, and strategic partners including technology vendors and various investors.

This PPP has set up a so-called Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), registered as National eGovernment Strategies Ltd. (NeGSt) and chartered to move the e-government process forward. The basic framework and agenda for implementation of the e-government program have also been completed and will roll out this month.

The roll-out will feature eNigeria.com.ng, an online portal, acting as an electronic gateway to Nigeria, complete with "eNaira" as an online payment tool and site features such as eMarketplace, eLearning, and links to existing government and other important sites.

One of the central components of Mauritius' e-government program is the GOC, the focal point through which citizens and businesses will interact electronically with the government.

Other components are being implemented parallel to the GOC. These include the Government Intranet System (GINS), which aims at connecting individual government departmental networks into a secure intranet, and the e-government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF), which sets out the government's technical policies and specifications for achieving interoperability and information systems coherence across the public sector. The heart of South Africa's e-government plan is the e-Government Gateway program. Proponents of the program envisage that citizens will access government services via this gateway.

"The gateway is a government brand of better service delivery to citizenry," said Pumza Tuswa, of the South African State Information Technology Agency (SITA) Gateway Project.

South Africa is working in five correlating phases over a period of 10 years (2012) to implement its e-government program.

One of the benefits of the program will be the savings that the government will make.

"This Gateway Program is envisaged to save the government a huge amount of money (millions) when it is in its full capacity. Currently we cannot exactly quantify the savings," said Tuswa via e-mail.

"Governments in both developed and developing nations are using ICT (information communications technology) to streamline their functions according to the needs of the citizens. At the same time, they are striving to improve their productivity by improving the quality of governance while reducing costs," Tuswa wrote.

"South Africa finds itself faced with typical ICT challenges of the developing world, but unlike others, has additional challenges of extending and improving services to previously neglected communities," he explained.

From www.intergovworld.com,  October 7,2007 
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Dial M for Money; Mobile Payments

Beating banks at their own game

IT HAS already changed most people's lives, but there is more work ahead for the mobile phone. The trusty SIM card can also act as a debit and credit card. That means it may only be a matter of time before mobile phones are used to deposit, transfer and withdraw cash.

In the developed world, one of the barriers hindering the switch to mobile cash has been the costly infrastructure developed by banks and credit-card companies. With cash machines and bank branches at every street corner there is less call for an alternative payment system.

But out in the African bush, progress is marching to a different drumbeat. In Kenya, where bank branches are few and far between, M-PESA, a mobile-payment scheme run by Vodafone, a telecoms firm, and Safaricom, a Kenyan operator, with the backing of the British government's Department for International Development, has created an alternative to banks. Most M-PESA customers have no bank account, but they withdraw cash and make payments or send money using their mobile phones. Their cash points are a network of airtime sellers dotted around the country--Safaricom shops, petrol stations, or any other shop used to handling cash. Once they have verified a customer's identity via their telephone number, the agents will facilitate a transaction. M-PESA keeps tabs on all the money and the float is held in a single account at the Commercial Bank of Africa in Nairobi.

Thus M-PESA has created its own financial system, including clearing and settlement. Kenya's central bank tolerates it, as long as M-PESA does not pay interest or invest the float. After a full roll-out in March, it already has around 500 agents and 150,000 customers, says Nick Hughes of Vodafone. The system could easily operate across borders. Even now, a pilot scheme enables people to send expatriate remittances to Kenya via the M-PESA system.

The beauty of M-PESA, for those who would like to see competition with bank-sponsored payment systems, is that no bank is involved except as a holder of the float. In theory, the European Commission is encouraging similar competition with its new payment-services directive (PSD), due to come into force in 2009. The PSD foresees the development of non-bank "payment institutions" which need no banking licence if their activities are restricted, though of course they would be subject to anti-money-laundering controls.

However, a European version of M-PESA might be thwarted by other moves to facilitate cross-border payments, according to Ivan Mortimer-Schutts of the Paris-based Groupe d'Economie Mondiale, a think-tank. In his view (admittedly, his research was commissioned by Vodafone) the prospect of a bank-dominated Single Euro Payments Area, over which there has been much foot-dragging, may have dissuaded mobile-phone companies and other non-banks from innovating in the payments arena. It may be time to call Kenya for a word of advice.

From The Economist,  June 30,2007 
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South Africa: ICTs Key to Service Delivery, Economic Growth

Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been identified as key to service delivery and one of the essential factors in promoting economic growth in the South African economy.

The National Government Research Report, identifying various key trends in South Africa's ICT development, was released on Tuesday at a media briefing in Johannesburg by ForgeAhead, a leading ICT Research and Consulting House.


The report focused on ICT development, management skills, convergence in cyberspace, cyberspace security and e-Government.

Research manager for National Government at ForgeAhead Nicky Pope told media "national government departments are moving to citizen centred service provision and not bureaucracy centred governance."

"The departments are gearing towards results and attempting to be more service delivery orientated."

Ms Pope added the country's ICT development was focussed on using technology for economic and social development.

In line with this, South Africa's IT Strategy Project (SAITIS) was established jointly by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Communications in order to promote a robust ICT sector, increase population usage of ICTs for economic and social growth, foster a knowledgeable ICT workforce and create a culture of ICT innovation, said Ms Pope.

The establishment of SAITIS has resulted in increasing internet services to schools, creating an academy for software development, providing community internet access points and installing public information terminals allowing for access to government services.

ForgeAhead research found future investment in technology focused on increasing internet connectivity, adding "there will be heavy investment in information security software especially in anti-virus, firewall and spam protection software," she said.

E-Government is the integration and use of ICTs within departments to fast track service delivery to the public through providing e-services in spheres such as education, health and administration.

A survey was also conducted by ForgeAhead from February to April 2007 in different government clusters namely, the Governance and Administration Cluster, the Social Cluster, the Economic Cluster, the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security Cluster (JCPS) and the International Relations, Peace and Security Cluster.

The survey involved two questionnaires given to both Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and information technology technicians within the five clusters; yielding a 91 percent response reported the research house.

The CIO questionnaire focussed on ICT strategies and polices, whilst the second questionnaire looked at the design involved in systems, software and hardware audits.

In terms of personal computers (PCs) with access to the internet within the various clusters, research found the Economic Cluster led with 90 percent, the Governance Cluster had 83 percent, the JCPS Cluster registered 75 percent PC internet usage followed by the Social Cluster with 65 percent.

The report included factors which inhibited ICT growth and development in government departments and found "skills, staff capacities and budgets allocated for human resources" to be the greatest inhibitors.

Relevant Links

Southern Africa
South Africa
ICT and Telecom



Head of Consulting at ForgeAhead Edwin Schofield added "the skills which are needed are just not thick enough on the ground."

President Thabo Mbeki in his State of the Nation Address earlier this year also stressed that government is planning to improve competition in the economy, lower the cost of doing business and promote investment, and further develop high-speed national and international broadband capacity.

ForgeAhead announced the current trend is government will "promote broadband [and ICT usage] not only for economic gains but also to achieve good governance." - Buanews

From http://allafrica.com,  April 7,2007 
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Technology and economic best practices to drive Africa's growth

The role that technology can play in helping the private sector and civil society operate more efficiently was elevated significantly at the ICT best practices forum West Africa which held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
BILL OKONEDO
The Forum was sponsored and organized by the government of Burkina Faso, the African Development Bank, the United Nations Commission for Africa (UNECA) and software company, Microsoft, via its Africa Chairman, Cheick Modibo Diarra. Similar fora for other sub-regions of the continent are being planned.

The forum brought together governments, donors and experts from across Africa to share specific experiences of technology solutions in education, agriculture, healthcare and governmental operations, among other things. It also presented an opportunity for countries to learn from these experiences and allow for these solutions to be replicated in other countries. This is an important fact, given limited skills and experience in the region, and should encourage an overall increase in technology investment.

The world has entered an era in which access to the sources of information and knowledge has become a decisive factor in competitiveness and economic growth," said, Blaise Compaore, the president of Burkina Faso.

‘In the face of the digital divide that threatens to increase the marginalization of developing countries, we must step up the introduction of electronic communication infrastructures to seize the opportunities offered by new technologies. I would like this forum to be an occasion for African governments, their advisory institutions and ICT experts to share their experiences, so that we can build an inclusive information society to serve the sustainable development of our countries."

The African Development Bank - which is discussing partnership arrangements with Microsoft on alleviating poverty through education, technology access and training initiatives - agrees. Over the last three decades, the bank has spent over US $1billion to finance telecommunication projects, $500m in master plan studies, and $200m in institutional development.

"We are all aware of the potential that ICT has to enable our countries to 'leapfrog' in certain aspects of development. The dissemination of good practices is a good first step in raising awareness. I strongly support the forum," said Donald Kaberuka, the president of the African Development Bank.

For its part, the UNECA - which recently launched the First Technology in Government in Africa awards with support from the government of Canada - believes that access to information and knowledge is a prerequisite to achieving the millennium development goals (MDGs) reducing poverty and promoting economic growth - all of which are core drivers of the forum.

"Our approach must therefore be inclusive. By showcasing ICT at work through the forum, we can help west and central African countries and stakeholders [to] dialogue, brainstorm and learn how to practically accelerate socioeconomic development," said Abdoulie Janneh, the Executive Secretary of the UNECA.

The forum integrates well with Microsoft's Unlimited potential programme - a long-term commitment to use technology, training and partnerships to transform education, foster local innovation, and enable jobs and opportunities, added the company's Diarra.

" Microsoft aims to sustain social and economic growth for the estimated five billion people around the world who are not yet realizing the benefits of technology. And we will have direction, inspiration and a roadmap for making this work in Africa," he said.

Following the activities at the forum, the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) is expected to partner with Microsoft to establish a government learning academy, increase digital literacy training, and help formulate national ICT policies for African countries.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and Microsoft are expanding their dynamic partnership to build a sustainable business model for refurbished computers in Africa. The objectives is to provide access to affordable, quality hardware to small and medium-size enterprises. As part of this new initiative, UNIDO and Microsoft will promote the creation of a regional e-waste recycling facility for east Africa.

Microsoft has also signed a strategic partnership agreement with the Government of Burkina Faso. In terms of this agreement, Microsoft will invest in ICT capacity-building and support for broader e-Government initiatives to strengthen Burkina Faso's knowledge-driven economy.

From www.businessdayonline.com,  February 7,2007 
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Philippines On Top 25 Countries Using E-government Tools

The United Nations has identified the Philippines as one of the top 25 countries around the world that employs technology or e-government tools to the fullest.

The distinction has cited the country for the pioneering ways its government is using technology to advance public administration, the Philippines news agency (PNA) reports Thursday.

A panel at the 7th Global Forum on Reinventing Government at the UN Headquarters in Vienna cited the partnerships between the Philippine government and the private sector to monitor polluters through the Bantay-Usok and Bantay-Kalikasan programs as a model of how technology enables citizens to participate actively in governance.

The said observation affirmed a UN report issued in 2006 which identified the Philippines as one of the top 25 countries in the world that are employing technology or e-government tools to the fullest.

The UN survey ranked the Philippines 17th (sharing the place with Austria) among 191 countries using a web-measure index that assessed the quality of government websites and the level of utilization of information and communications technology (ICT) tools in government, either to provide information and establish internet-based interactive and transactional services.

At the top of the survey were the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, Republic of Korea and Denmark, the news agency stated.

The Philippines also ranked 4th in e-government readiness among countries in Asia, next only to Singapore, Republic of Korea and Japan.

E-government readiness takes into account the web-measure index and the level of telecommunications infrastructure and human capital development.

Quoting the UN survey, PNA reported that the Philippines integrated portal www.gov.ph is on a par with the best of the world and could be considered a good practice.

It also pointed out that it is one of the few national sites in the world that offer a wireless access alternative for users, either through Short Message Service, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) or through a Pocket PC section.

The Philippines was also ranked 15th in the e-participation index, among countries which provide access and opportunity to the citizen through development of participatory initiatives via ICT.

The UN survey underscored the need for the Philippines to continue to further improve the level of telecommunications infrastructure to fully implement E-governance.

In the general survey of e-government readiness, the Philippines ranked 41st among 179 countries.

From www.bernama.com.my,  May 7,2007 
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Service for the citizen

The deputy head of Hong Kong's government IT arm tells MIS that service-oriented architecture cannot work without making sure that stakeholders know they are getting as much out of it as they put in.


Singapore's public sector IT may be in the news today for its US$1 billion programme to standardise IT platforms. But in Hong Kong, they have been at it for some years now.

In 2002, the government codified a framework of technical and data standards to help agencies define application interfaces.

Not only did the framework have to address problems such as the duplication of citizen databases-government data is collected and maintained under the ordinances of respective agencies-it had to set limits on what could be exchanged. Laws, privacy rights and data security rules had to be followed.

Stephen Mak, deputy government CIO, Office of the Govern-ment Chief Information Officer, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, shares with MIS Asia his department's SOA plans.

What is your definition of SOA?

I define SOA from two angles. First, from the business angle, SOA is an approach that we use to try to turn around the mindset of developers.

By that I mean, as an approach we expect them to put the customer, meaning the quality and timeliness of service delivery, at the heart of all the technical considerations. So that will set the guiding principles of the services.

Secondly, from a technical perspective, SOA is a principle that involves the coupling of applications and services. We want a coherent set of services.

Thus we need a software architecture that is able to incorporate common services with minimal effort, while achieving interoperability within the overall government architecture.

What are some examples of these coherent services?

An example is a citizen's change of address. There are probably two dozens or more government departments that will need to know this. In the absence of a service-oriented principle, the citizen may have to inform these departments individually.

So having an architecture that handles change requests centrally is putting the citizen service at the forefront.

More technically, authentication may be another form of service that the government needs to consider. Different government departments will recognise the same citizen with different roles and identities.

For example, a citizen will be seen by the education bureau as a parent, but for the inland revenue department that individual is a business owner. For the trade and industry department, the citizen might be recognised as an exporter applying for licences. So identity recognition and authentication are very common processes for all government departments. Having a customer-centric and service-oriented architecture is key to bring-ing more efficiency in this business process.

In traditional software development, each application is a silo. Is SOA about breaking the silos?

You can imagine the centralised citizen services [mentioned earlier] involving many departments, which are adopting different technologies and application interfaces they had developed over the years.

SOA compels us, in many cases, to have maximum transparency in business processes by achieving more understanding and co-operation between various departments. So it helps us solve the silo problem.

A second problem that the SOA environment could solve is that it brings an evolutionary approach to introduce the e-government service delivery, instead of taking a big-bang approach.






Transparent and long-term view

In other words, once we get the architecture right, we can develop new services by increments, so the government, the citizens as well as the businesses will be able to have a transparent and long-term view of the e-service strategy.

SOA is a blueprint that provides the roadmap to solve the third problem, which is the inconsistency as a result of application silos. What I mean by consistency is not about using the same technology, but a standardisation on data usage and formats. This is essential for any service that involves multiple departments.

How difficult was it to break down those walls or business process silos between divisions?

It is not easy. But that does not mean it can't be done. A good example is that we broke the silos and legacies for citizens to report change of address, settle payments or file complaints.

With the second wave of e-government strategy launched recently, we are able to achieve a lot of breakthroughs and useful dialogue among the parties. In this second wave, we have set up a governance board and service transformation committee. Involving the senior officials, like head or deputy head of departments in various departments, the board and committee aim to address common issues and steer the alignment and provision of e-government services.

In support of the initiatives, our office also facilitates the departments in adopting the SOA principle and implementing appropriate technical solutions.

In a huge project like this, how do you achieve small wins to keep the project going?

We plan big, but we implement by increments, as our principle. By small wins, you probably refer to the incremental gains.

For example, we have set up the e-government infrastructure service platform, called EGIS. It is the technical foundation for us to provide common services like authentication and payment. These are pockets of services that are commonly used, and we save the effort of multiple departments repeating the same. So the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer sits at the centre to define and implement certain components and services that are applicable to many departments.

Along this line, we also put into place a common service to approve the validity of digital certificates. All departments will potentially need this process, rather than have them develop their own verification processes, and probably end up with different forms and interfaces. We have developed a common service for that purpose.

Similarly, for electronic payment, we recognise that there are different forms, for example, by credit cards, debit cards, electronic cash, etc.

We know that citizens would appreciate a set of common payment methods when dealing with different departments. So again we are developing an electronic payment gateway that handles all these.

Why not just use EAI?

Enterprise application integration is founded upon existing applications but these tend to be legacies. So we are bound by existing pluses and minuses of the applications that have been developed over the past 10 to 20 years.

The traditional EAI approach is a streamlining exercise of whatever we had and it is only as good as achieving the status quo. People have new expectations of dealings with the government, so we need to take that into consideration.

A lot of times, traditional EAI solutions lead to integrating what we already have. In contrast, by taking a citizen-centric approach, SOA will bring a breath of fresh air into the scene, so that even existing application developers have to look at the interfaces and the data alignment in a new light.

While the underlying substance of SOA is very much IT-related, we must elevate our application of the architecture to a high level that will meet the needs of the end customers who should be able to readily appreciate the benefits.

From www.misweb.com,  July 20,2007 
[top]

Singapore at Bottom of List for Growth in Public Sector IT Spending in Asia-Pac

Spending on information technology by Singapore's public sector is expected to continue growing over the next five years.

According to an industry survey, the compounded annual growth is estimated to be 2.6%. That is lower than the average 7.9% pace across Asia Pacific economies.

But market watchers say the slower growth is due to the relative maturity of IT adoption in Singapore.

From intelligent classrooms to wireless hot spots, Singapore's public sector has been in the forefront of technology spending.

Such expenditure is forecast to increase from US$900 million this year to US$957 million in 2011.

But the figure is dwarfed by that seen for emerging economies like India, Indonesia, Vietnam and China.

China alone is expected to spend almost US$12 billion in five years' time, and Australia US$6.1b.

Raphael Phang, Director of Government Insights, said: "The largest IT spenders are actually Australia and China... From a Singapore perspective, the amounts we spend are considered moderate. But if you look at the population size of Australia and China, of course, the numbers get skewed because of the relatively small size of Singapore's population versus the expenditure."

Having already invested in hardware, Singapore will be spending more on software and IT services, including a key S$1.5 billion project for a standard operating infocomm system.

Phang said: "There is a movement towards consolidating the IT infrastructure as well as the services. So, some of the projects that the Singapore government has recently called for include common services... where you find that the services or the systems that are provided for common functions - like the HR financial functions - are being developed for several statutory boards or ministries."

The standardisation and sharing of services and data may have resulted in cost savings, hence reduced spending.

What will continue to drive public sector IT spending in Singapore will be the demand for even better services from citizens who are more IT-savvy and who become increasingly accustomed to e-government services like the e-filing of taxes. - CNA/ir

From http://www.channelnewsasia.com,  December 7,2007 
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Partial E-governance to Be Launched in December

After successful testing of backbone connectivity of the wide area network, Tamil Nadu’s Information Technology Department is set to launch tools of e-governance in certain sectors of government by December this year.

It will enable citizens to access information on land records, transport facilities, encumbrance certificate, municipal services and food and civil supplies any time from any part of the State.

Talking to The Hindu here on Wednesday, IT Secretary C. Chandramouli said: “We have taken the first step towards e-governance by initiation and testing successfully the Tamil Nadu State Wide Area Network (TNSWAN), the backbone connectivity of network that establishes connectivity up to the taluk level. We are the only State to have all districts and taluks to have interconnected successfully, though Gujarat has done it in a limited way and Andhra Pradesh in a different format. We are happy with the result.”

“TCS is the operating agency for the network on BOOT basis, and BSNL the bandwidth provider. After testing BSNL links in districts and 204 taluk offices through 700 Point of Presence, we are ready to offer Voice over Internet Protocol in the first stage, followed by data services and then video streaming, videoconferencing and video-beaming. Within the next 45 days, we will go in for a state-of-the-art data centre in Chennai,” he said.

The third phase calls for setting up of Common Services Centre in rural and urban centres.

Tenders have been invited. The private players will be selected next month. As per the programme, 5,440 centres will be set up through public-private partnership. The State will give financial assistance for private players for setting up kiosks.

Mr. Chandramouli said 15 mission mode projects had been selected under the National e-Governance Programme. These departments had written to the Line of Ministry to get funds. As it would take considerable time to get funds, the IT Department decide to start the e-governance programme with the land records, registration, transport, municipalities and food and civil supplies departments.

“To give these private players some traffic, we will initiate work with land records since most of the data has already been digitalised for the entire State. Certain files have to be updated as they are residing on certain computers.

The PCs will be linked through the Web, so that citizens can have updated information. Similarly, citizens can get encumbrance certificate for 30 years, and guideline value for a particular place, book bus tickets, pay property tax, enquire about ration card and permits.

In every Collectorate, we are going to set up a Modern Citizen Facilitation Centre so that citizen can log on their grievances or suggestions,” Mr. Chandramouli said.

From http://www.hindu.com/ ,  July 14,2007 
[top]

China has Bone to Pick with Skeletons

China's drive to impose social and political "harmony" on the internet has claimed a new set of victims: undead skeletons.

Chinese players of World of Warcraft, a hugely popular online role-playing game, have expressed outrage after their "undead skeleton" characters were suddenly clad in new flesh, apparently in order to comply with a secret government ban on bare bones.

The surprise crackdown on the desiccated dead underscores the scope of the internet controls and censorship imposed in China by the cultural commissars of the ruling Communist party.

President Hu Jintao has called for action to "purify" the internet of anything that might affect "national cultural information security" or undermine his attempt to promote a "harmonious society".

But many players of WoW are angry about the decision to remove skeletons from the game as part of an upgrade implemented by The9, a Nasdaq-listed company that licenses WoW from the US developer Blizzard Entertainment.

As well as changing undead skeletons into fully fleshed zombies, the upgrade has replaced the bare-boned corpses of dead characters with neat graves.

"This modification to undead characters is due to the requirements of Chinese national conditions and policies," The9 said. "These small modifications promote a healthy and harmonious online game environment and will not affect players' enjoyment."

However, in postings to online discussion boards, WoW players denounced The9 and Beijing's ministry of culture for what they said was an unreasonable interference in a game enjoyed by millions around the world.

"I reckon bones are an expression of the individual character of the undead," wrote one commentator on the internet portal Sohu.com.

"These bumptious fellows have completely destroyed the character of the undead - and anyway, how can a reanimated corpse be much more harmonious than a skeleton?"

Such objections reflect growing dissatisfaction in some quarters at government attempts to tighten controls on the internet and traditional media publishing.

The internet is China's least controlled public space, but officials already censor online content, block access to websites overseas, monitor online communications and jail or harass journalists and online authors they consider too outspoken.

Beijing has sought to target censorship more carefully, recently allowing access to the English-language version of the encyclopaedia website Wikipedia, but continuing to block its Chinese version.

Officials of the culture ministry and The9 declined to comment on why the WoW skeletons - which also feature in other online games in China - had been singled out.

However, regulators have targeted bare bones in the past, forcing changes to skeleton images from playing cards sold in China by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of the US games company Hasbro, with artists adding "flesh and muscle to cover their exposed bones".

Some WoW players said officials should focus more on unharmonious social issues such as a recent scandal involving the use of forced labour by hundreds of brick factories.

"Is it social harmony when you can't even buy a house while others are extravagantly corrupt?" wrote another commentator on the Sohu blog. "Will changing a game model bring you harmony? Chinese leaders are truly laughably naive!"

From Financial Times,  June 30,2007 
[top]

Public Sector Must Become Competitive: Rangarajan

Public sector should improve its efficiency and productivity which would enable the government to meet its social obligations, Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council Chairman C Rangarajan said on Saturday.

He said the government does recognise the significance of the public sector as "it is only an efficient public enterprise system that can enable the government to meet its social obligations."

"However, if the public sector is truly to play its role, it needs to improve its efficiency and productivity and generate the necessary surpluses as were originally envisaged," he added.

The former RBI governor said: "The new economic policy of India has not necessarily diminished the role of the state, it has only redefined it. As it has been said...More market does not mean less government but only different government."

Rangarajan, who was addressing a function to celebrate two years of centralisation of Allahabad University, said the economic reforms which gathered momentum after 1991, followed "eroding macro-economic balances in the economy towards the end of the 1980s."

In this scenario, he said, the new economic policy was chalked out to "improve the efficiency of the system" by "creating a more competitive environment in the economy."

To achieve this end, "the private sector is being given a larger space to operate in areas earlier reserved exclusively for the public sector," he said.

From http://www.hindustantimes.com,  July 15,2007 
[top]

Ministry Seeks Public Comments on Revised Cultural Policy Draft

The Ministry of Culture is in the process of introducing a revised cultural policy in consultations with wide array of vital stakeholders. Before finalizating this policy, the ministry has sought public opinion on the draft.

The draft of revised cultural policy has been posted on the website of ministry for comments from general public with emphasis on public-private partnership.

Comments are invited from general public and all stakeholders about this policy on email address: dsculture@culture.gov.pk, while comments can also be sent by post or fax.

The current policy was formulated way back in 1995 in which the ideologies of the Constitution of 1973 were not properly incorporated.

So, the revision follows after a decade. The revised policy would not only cover the missing aspects but also cover the visions of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Muhammad Iqbal to promote cultural diplomacy.

“The revised culture policy would be introduced with certain amendments in view of the changed circumstances”, Minister for Culture Dr G G Jamal told APP Saturday.

With changed circumstances and the amendments in revised policy, the culture and tourism industry in the country will be integrated, which would help improve the socio-economic prosperity of the country, he added.

“The policy will also go a long way for the promotion of Pakistani culture as well as improving the soft image of the country abroad”, the Minister added.

The cultural diplomacy needs articulation and in this connection the draft is put on the website of the ministry for inputs and comments from all stakeholders, he added.

The minister expressed the hope that it would support and strengthen the growth of national identity and pave the way for a positive synthesis between country’s cultural legacy and future aspirations.

The Cultural Policy of Pakistan (draft final) includes the Executive Summary, Historical Evolution of Pakistani Culture, Features of Cultural Policy, Objectives and Policy Guidelines.

The draft considers culture as a dynamic phenomenon and the cultural policy requires periodic review to stay abreast with the developments of culture in the country.

The minister said the policy does not impose any specific frameworks of cultural values but endeavours to facilitate the growth and preservation of progressive indigenous cultural patterns.

Pakistan’s historical experience is a multi-cultural one, whereby its people came in contact with some of the best known civilizations, testifying the capacity of its cultural patterns to absorb new ideas while retaining its peculiar identity and strength.

In addition to it, the policy aims at creating new institutions such as a National Centre for the Performing Arts, a National Film Academy, Cultural Centres at different levels and an Institute of Islamic Art and Architecture.

From http://www.app.com.pk,  July 15,2007 
[top]

Taming Urban Chaos

That India faces an almost complete lack of urban planning is well-known. As India tries to telescope 50 years of economic lethargy into a decade of furious growth, its infrastructure is steadily falling further behind. Signs of it are everywhere — in poorly made roads to financial hubs that often run on generators.

What has made this situation worse are inaccurate urban maps that government departments use to plan civic amenities. So, new suburbs are built without water or electricity, and proposed roads end up uprooting water supply pipes.

Applications using GIS (geographic information system) technology can help urban planners avoid such expensive mistakes and do a better job overall. GIS allows urban areas to be mapped out on a number of levels. Layered maps for water pipes, roads, property, electoral areas, etcetera, give planners easy-to-access information, a better idea of what needs to be done and the fastest, least-damaging way to do it. GIS data can also benefit urban processes by easing co-operation between various civic agencies.

Janaagraha, a Bangalore-based NGO, is a consultant to the Karnataka government on implementations of GIS for urban planning. Its co-founders, Swati and Ramesh Ramanathan, talk to CIO about GIS, their ideas on governance, and how they made the Bangalore Municipal Corporation more accountable to citizens.

CIO: For years, Janaagraha has campaigned for better governance and the introduction of e-governance. How exactly does IT establish better governance standards?
Swati: To put this conversation in perspective, GIS is relevant to us. GIS for governance is about using the power of maps to allow different agencies to start integrating their efforts. Using this, one can not only manage current infrastructure better, but also plan for the infrastructure of the future. It is a management tool that can provide intelligent integration between the GIS and the IT, with govern projects.

Ramesh : However, every agency today wants to implement its own GIS, which is exactly the wrong way to go about it. What they need is an integrated spatial planning center. The focus should be on managing this in a coordinated way. The question should be: how to put together all the pieces that will allow intelligent data to be introduced in layers? That is the critical part.

From http://www.cio.in/ ,  July 14,2007 
[top]

SREI Infrastructure Subsidiary SREI Sahaj E-Village Ltd kick-starts Communication Network in West Bengal

SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd has announced that SREI Sahaj e-Village Ltd, a subsidiary of the Company is kick - starting its communication network for the Common Service Centres (CSCs) on July 18, 2007, under the National e-Governance Plan in West Bengal.

The Company will manage about 5000 CSCs in collaboration with Wipro Infotech. While Wipro will be responsible for the technological inputs, the Company will chalk out the various services, these CSCs will provide to the rural masses.

Talking to the media persons, at the foundation of the first communication tower at Singur, the CEO of SREI Sahaj e-Village Ltd Dr. Sabahat Azim said, "Today is actually the first stage towards bridging the digital divide between urban and rural India. Almost 80% of the villages in the state of West Bengal will be connected to the Internet through the world's largest wi-fi network to be built up in the state. We are putting together over 5000 nodes which is one of the largest network in the world."

He further added that over 47 Million people in the villages of West Bengal will be benefited through this programme. This will open up opportunities for people to set up a sustainable business and achieve financial freedom through the common service business, he said.

It may be recalled, SREI has entered into a Master Service Agreement with the Panchayat and Rural Development Department, government of West Bengal, to set up nearly 5,000 common service centres (CSCs) in rural Bengal. The program has been drawn up under the aegis of the increasingly popular public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

The agreement signed between SREI and the Government of West Bengal, on April 05, 2007, encompasses 14 districts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Uttar Dinajpur and Dakhin Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Nadia and South 24 Parganas, Purba Midnapore, Bankura, Birbhum, Howrah and Hooghly in Public Private Partnership (PPP) Mode.

The initiative envisages setting up one CSC for each cluster of six villages with one being set up within each Gram Panchayat and Panchayat Samiti office premises. To start with, 4,937 such CSCs to be known as 'Tathya Mitra' is being set up with internet connectivity and will offer a-Governance services and other commercial services to the rural populace.

Under this program, a number of village level entrepreneurs (VLEs) preferably from women self-help groups (SHGs) will get direct livelihood while rest of the population will get access to e-Governance and Internet related services at its doorstep at a very nominal rate.

These CSCs have the potential of developing as revenue neutral tools in the hands of other Companies and service providers keen to access rural markets. The IT-enabled e-kiosks are being developed to provide information and services for meeting rural needs in relation to on-line payments, agriculture, education, vocational training, health and hygiene, micro-finance, railway ticket booking, digital photography and computer games among others.

From http://www.equitybulls.com/ ,  July 18,2007 
[top]

Analyst Attacks Neglect of Knowledge Economy

TAFE and vocational education and training institutions should be able to offer degree programs in their own right to help Australia compete in the global knowledge economy, higher education analyst Simon Marginson says.
In a speech scathing of federal Government policy, Professor Marginson said tertiary education in Australia had degenerated into a marketing culture as universities starved of public funds placed making money ahead of the public good.

VET was the major casualty of the "politicised standoff between the commonwealth and the states on education" which had also resulted in a collapse of TAFE resourcing, he said.

But the growing importance of vocational and preparatory courses was recognised in nations such as Finland and The Netherlands, which "confer more dignity on their second sector than we do in Australia", Professor Marginson said at the University of Melbourne's "Advancing Tertiary Education" seminar this week. He is based at the Centre for the Study of Higher Education there.

Although Australian tertiary institutions had jealously maintained the status barrier, "many TAFE institutions are competent to provide degree-level teaching, and already do so, auspiced by universities", he said. "It is time to reconsider the relation between TAFE and higher education.

"Australian public policy is out to lunch," Professor Marginson said.

"Government has achieved the goals of fiscal reductions and export growth at the price of Australia's larger capacity as a global knowledge economy.

"I suspect that cabinet sees the knowledge economy as a semi-sophisticated form of special pleading: a shallow, self-serving mantra pinned to the begging bowls of vice-chancellors."

He said funding cuts had forced universities to expand the number of international fee-paying student places so that "the whole tertiary system is now dominated by the hunger for export revenue".

The US, China, Singapore and much of Western Europe were investing in their national knowledge economies to build a broad-based, independent global competence, but in Australia "we disinvest in national knowledge capacity so as to build a narrow global dependence".

"In the face of the long-term downsides and despite the risk of over-exposure in the global market, policy's stance is, 'who cares?'," Professor Marginson said. "National policy is not just out to lunch. It has gone on extended vacation."

Professor Marginson said the election provided "better than usual prospects of reshaping the policy agenda". Other policy problems included:

* diminution of long-term capacity in basic research;

* a "complete shemozzle" in fees, loans and HECS arrangements;

* faltering participation by domestic students both in quantity and quality;

* failure to achieve diversity in public higher education;

* global engagement of tertiary institutions being too narrow;

* recurring problems of standards, especially in international education.

From http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au ,  November 7,2007 
[top]

Eye on E-government

NEW DELHI: IT MAJORS TCS, HP-Bharti combine, UTL, HCL, Mumbai-based GTL along with other players such as BHEL are all learnt to be in the running for e-governance projects which have a combined value of about Rs 1,000 crore across seven states — Bihar, Assam, West Bengal, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Karnataka. While sources in the department of information technology said that these players had submitted their bids for building the state-wide area networks (SWAN), this could not be independently confirmed.

DIT sources also said that the bids for executing this project in each of the states (except for Rajasthan and Karnataka) would be opened shortly. This is because, for these two states, the players have time until next month to submit the bids, they added.

All these states are expected to award the contracts by September this year and have their network infrastructure operational by March 2008. Sources also added that the value of the contracts would vary from state to state. “The contracts will be in the range of Rs 100 crore- Rs 250 crore per state. The combined contract size will be over Rs 1,000 crore,” sources added.

All states in the country are expected to complete 100% point of presence (PoP) functionalities by September 2008, according to the latest SWAN Programme status report submitted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

These will mark the second round of contracts for setting up SWAN networks. This is because, states such as Kerala, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand have already awarded the contracts to building SWAN networks through a tendering process. In the earlier round, Tulip IT had bagged the contract in Haryana, UTL in Kerala and Jharkhand and TCS and Tamil Nadu.

The SWAN project which was kicked off across the country in October 2004, aims to equip all states with network infrastructure that interlinks and provides connectivity to all parts of the state. Besides, it will also help all states to have data centres in place for reliable and secured data and common services centres for delivery of services. Following the completion of the project, SWAN will ensure that at least 5 mbps of connectivity is available up to the block level all over the country.

From http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/,  November 7,2007 
[top]

Software Firm Launches Insurance Website

Ram Informatics, a city-based software company, which implemented e-Governance services in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, came up with a new website, www.insuranceonline.com, to help general public, agents, brokers and development officers of the Life Insurance Corporation of India.

At a press conference here, executive chairman Raman and executive director R. Jagadeeswara Rao said that the website currently had information pertaining to various insurance policies, premium rates, terms, premium calculators, forms, etc., of the LIC. However, the company would expand its scope to incorporate the details of other private life insurance players also.

Besides, the site also provided details of the LIC Housing Finance Ltd. While the services were free for general visitors of the site, value-added services offered on the site would be available for registered users on payment of an annual fee. The company was hoping to earn Rs. 2-5 crore a year from this business.

From http://www.hindu.com/ ,  July 18,2007 
[top]

Indian Delegation Arrives Lahore to Attend NRB Symposium

LAHORE, June 30 (APP): An Indian delegation of about 60 members arrived here through Wagha Border on Saturday afternoon to attend a two-day symposium to be organised by National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) on July 2.

NRB Chairman Daniyal Aziz and Lahore District Nazim Mian Amir Mehmood received the delegation headed by Mani Shankar Aiyar, Indian Minister for Sports, Youth Affairs and Panchayati Raj.

Talking to journalists soon after his arrival at Wagha, Mr. Shankar said, “I come here along with 55 people including seven ministers, parliamentarians, members of Legislative Assemblies, officials from the Union Panchayati Raj Ministry and experts in the field of local governance and sociologists.”

He also thanked the NRB for arranging the symposium, citing that it would provide a great opportunity to both sides to share and learn from each others experiences in the local bodies system. This would also strengthen friendship and fraternity between India and Pakistan, he added.

On this occasion, the NRB chairman said the symposium would discuss post-colonial administration and its effects on governance, fiscal decentralisation, fiscal capacity and financial management at local level and the outcomes of local government system in Pakistan and India with focus on public accountability, community empowerment and e-governance.

While, Mian Amir said, “Local bodies system is auguring well in Lahore and it is an honour for us that people from abroad coming to study our system.”

He said President General Pervez Musharraf brought a silent revolution by introducing local governments system in the country.

The NRB is organising a two-day India-Pakistan Symposium on Local Government here from July 2 (Monday).

Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and Governor Lt. Gen ® Khalid Maqbool will be the chief guests at the inaugural and concluding ceremonies of the event respectively.

From http://www.app.com.pk/,  June 30,2007 
[top]

New Card Will Help Pay Bills

A NEW payment facility by debit card for traffic fines, electricity and water bills through Bahrain's government web portal www.e.gov.bh was launched yesterday.

An agreement to enable the debit card payment facility has been signed between the Finance Ministry and Ahli United Bank, which will use the Benefit system offering an electronic network for financial transaction.

"This is another significant step towards the widespread use of e-Government services for availing services online," Bahrain E-Government representative Mohammed Al Qaed told a Press conference at Bahrain Ritz Carlton Hotel and Spa.

"Previously, only credit card users could make payments online for services such as traffic fines, electricity and water bill payments," he said.

"Bahrain's residents will now be able to pay for services available on the portal, at no additional cost."

Confidence

He was confident that this effort would go a long way in attracting more people to avail of the services available on the portal.

"Bahrain is making rapid advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) to enhance service delivery," said Mr Al Qaed.

"In addition to improving the customers' satisfaction with government services, the initiative is designed to gain competitive advantage over other nations in attracting investments in the long run."

He said Bahrain had long appreciated the importance of e-government and has undertaken a comprehensive programme to implement it in a phased manner to make a visible enhancement in quality of life of its constituents.

"As a part of this programme, major projects such as the Government Data Network, Smartcard and the e-government portal have been successfully launched to drive Bahrain to a leadership position in the field," said Mr Al Qaed.

Finance Ministry treasury head Nabeel Al Doy said the importance Bahrain was placing on ICT has resulted in a high degree of intra-ministerial computerisation and a superior infrastructure.

"However, we now need to focus on service delivery to our citizens in order to fully utilise the infrastructure that has been created, and at the same time to graduate to the next level in the e-government arena," he said.

Mr Al Doy said that with increasing focus on customer service delivery, it was imperative to develop a nation-wide strategy and an implementation plan to harness the synergies developed till now.

"A goal that was achieved through the approval of the e-government strategy and its subsequent launch," he said.

"The number of residents and citizens holding debit cards in Bahrain is significantly higher than those holding credit cards," he said.

Mr Al Doy said the payment to the government for various services through credit cards has exceeded BD20 million.

From http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/,  June 28,2007 
[top]

Karnataka to Expand E-Gov Initiative

The Karnataka government plans to open 20 more BangaloreOne outlets in the city and also expand its reach to five other cities in the state.

The decision to expand the reach of BangaloreOne outlets was taken after the success of the e-governance initiative in 20 centres across Bangalore city, Karnataka E-governance Secretary Rajeev Chawla said.

BangaloreOne is the integrated citizens service project of the government of Karnataka, engaged in providing the delivery of a variety of services to the citizens for and on behalf of various government departments, utilities and other agencies through public-private partnership through a 24/7 one-stop shop concept.

At present there are 20 centres in Bangalore and very soon another 20 mini-centres will be opened at an investment of Rs 5 crore, he said.

Talking to reporters after inaugurating ING Vysya Life Insurance Company’s premium payment facility at BangaloreOne centres here today, he said the government is gearing up to expand the citizens’ service project to five other cities like Hubli-Dharwad, Mysore, Belgaum and Gulbarga in the next few months.

In Hubli-Dharwad the centres will be known as HDOne or Hubli-DharwadOne and similarly in other cities the name of a particular city will be added to the name, Chawla said.

“We are planning to open five centres in the twin cities of Hubli-Dharwad in the next two months. Tenders have been invited for setting up the kiosks and will be commissioned shortly,” he said.

At present, 20 counters are generating a business of Rs 2 crore per day for six lakh transactions and within the next few months the government plans to increase the number of transactions to 12-15 lakh per day, he said.

The new counters are being opened at MS Building, Indiranagar, Jayanagar shopping complex, Wipro campus at Electronic City and National Games complex in Koramangala.

The department of e-governance is also planning to start a mobile utility services counters in Bangalore, he said adding that the design of the mobile counter is ready and the application is being tested presently.

The department is also in talks with Income Tax and Commercial Tax departments for collecting income tax and commercial tax on their behalf through BangaloreOne centres, Chawla said.

From http://www.business-standard.com/,  June 29,2007 
[top]

E-government Pact Aims to Boost Service Delivery

A collaboration that will investigate advanced delivery models for online services for citizens has been announced on behalf of the CSIRO ICT Centre and the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO).

Special Minister for State Gary Nairn, who is also responsible for AGIMO, says the partnership is a "significant early step" towards delivering on the Australian Government Online Service Point (AGOSP) initiative.

"The AGOSP initiative will usher in a new era of responsive government services," Nairn says. "AGOSP will enhance the Australia.gov.au Web site to provide simple, convenient access to government information and services for individuals."

Director of the CSIRO ICT Centre Dr Alex Zelinsky says existing service delivery models do not take into account the tasks a person is trying to accomplish or the context in which they are working.

"To deliver a service that meets a citizen's needs and expectations, the system has to capture and adapt to these important inputs and that is what CSIRO will contribute to AGOSP," says Zelinsky.

"Our expertise in search, information delivery, privacy and networked Web services will allow us to make significant contributions to this complex project to imagine and build the future services that Australians will use to interact with their government."

Zelinsky says Australians are increasingly turning to online transactional services to conduct their day-to-day affairs and CSIRO's goal is to contribute to developing e-services for government that are easy to use, meet the "real needs" of people and ensure security and privacy.

AGOSP will be delivered over fours years from July 2007, with the first release scheduled for December 2008. A second release will be in December 2010.

The partnership follows a previous collaboration between CSIRO and AGIMO to develop the first whole-of-government search service at Australia.gov.au.

From http://www.intergovworld.com,  June 29,2007 
[top]

E-Courts in India:A techno-legal Analysis

The effectiveness of a Judicial System is measured by its capacity to provide a timely and apposite justice to the parties to the dispute. Similarly, its effectiveness is debatable when there are intolerable number of cases that are pending and undecided. In the Indian context this is a clear violation of “Right to Speedy Trial” as conferred by Article 21 of the Constitution of India. India is facing shortage of “Judicial Officers” to handle the mammoth cases filed and accumulated over a period of time. One of the possible solutions that can help India in this situation is the adoption of the benefits of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the Judicial Functioning. Unfortunately, the same has not found favour with the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary. Although, the Supreme Court e-committee has been formulated yet it has not taken serious, concrete and productive steps except providing “Laptops” and “Computers” to the Judicial officers. We must appreciate that “E-governance in India” cannot be equated with mere “Computerisation”. It must relate to the active use of ICT for effective Justice Administration. However, the Supreme Court e-committee has at least taken a “Positive Step” in the right direction and Perry4Law welcomes this step. Perry4Law is committed to extend its expertise to the Indian Government in general and Supreme Court e-committee in particular for the effective establishment, maintenance and functioning of the E-Courts in India.
I. Introduction
The mechanism of e-courts facilitate the filing of applications, arguments through the electronic mode, submission of documents and evidence using ICT, etc. The E-Courts System of Singapore is a trend-setter in this direction. However, the existing “Electronic Infrastructure Development Strategy” of India is deficient and needs rejuvenation.[1] This is happening because the Legislature and Executive are not versed with the Litigation and the Legal Fraternity is never consulted while making Techno-Legal Laws.[2] To break this trend Perry4Law “Voluntarily” provided its expert recommendations and suggestions regarding the proposed IT Act, 2000 amendments[3], the proposed Broadcasting Bill-06[4], Techno-Legal and ICT Security Matters[5], ICT Strategy, Policy and Trends in India[6], etc at National and International level. These recommendations and suggestions were highly appreciated and acknowledged at both National and International level. However, India has still to cover a long distance to ripe the benefits of ICT. The problem seems to be lack of “E-readiness” on the part of India. It is unfortunate to see the placement of India even below Barbados when it comes to E-readiness. The Indian Government in general and the Supreme Court e-committee in particular must use the model of “Collective Expertise” as “Originally propounded and adopted” by Perry4Law.[7]

II. The Techno-Legal Challenges and their solutions
The establishment of e-courts in India requires tackling of certain Techno-Legal Challenges. These include:

(a) Need of Techno-Legal Knowledge Base in India,[8]
(b) More Techno-Legal Platforms[9] like PTLB TM/SM,
(c) Appropriate Cyber Law in India,
(d) Training of Judges and Lawyers in Cyber Law,
(e) Ensuring ICT and Cyber Security in India,[10]
(f) Introduction of the culture of ADR in India,[11]
(g) Use of Online Dispute Resolution in India (ODR in India),[12]
(h) Need of Techno-Legal Education in India,[13]
(i) Need of a Cyber Law Database in India,[14] , etc.
These Techno-Legal issues must be resolved so that e-courts in India can function properly. The Government must change gears now as the speed of reforms is grossly inadequate. It is high time that the Government must establish a “Specialised Institution” as per the requirements of UNDP, World Bank, European Union, etc so that foreign aid and grants can be utilised appropriately and legally. We must have a suitable e-infrastructure that is capable of meeting the needs of contemporary society. Perry4Law’s famous Techno-Legal and ICT Segment PTLB TM/SM* will provide Techno-Legal and ICT service pertaining to Cyber Law, Cyber Forensics Cyber Security, Techno-Legal E-learning Services, Due Diligence Compliance, Techno-Legal Audit, E-commerce, E-governance, ADR and ODR, IPRs, International Trade etc. We would also provide a “Legislative Framework” that could be effective for meeting the requirements of e-courts in India and an Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) base in India. In fact Perry4Law is receiving tons of appreciation communications[15] and requests for extending its Techno-Legal and ICT related expertise for matters[16] pertaining to the establishment of e-courts in Foreign countries.[17] We hope that our initiatives would prove effective for providing a Techno-legal direction to e-courts in India in general and Indian ICT strategy in particular.

Some of the International and National initiatives, collaborations and coordinating efforts of Perry4Law, PTLB TM/SM* and ICT HELPDESK of Perry4Law in this regard are as follow:
(a) E-governance and justice in India
(b) Online Dispute Resolution in India
(c) Judicial reforms in India through use of ICT
(d) Enforcing rule of justice through e-governance
(e) Dataquest-Changing the order
(f) E-judiciary and e-lawyering in India
(g) Training of Indian Judiciary: An interview
At the same time Perry4Law’s ICT and Cyber Security initiative titled as PTLB TM/SM is managing various Techno-Legal issues associated with the ICT and Cyber Security including protection of “Critical ICT Infrastructure in India”. We hope that these initiatives of Perry4Law would go a long way in providing a sound “Techno-Legal Support” to India so that it can match the International Standards and Norms.

About Perry4Law: Perry4Law is the first ever Techno-Legal and ICT Law Firm of India, and perhaps one of the few, in the world; dictated by cutting-edge technology. The firm is the brainchild of young, dynamic and enthusiastic Techno-Legal experts, all holding at least Masters Degree from the Premier Institutions of Law in India. Since its inception, the Firm has conquered new horizons and set new parameters, in the legal industry and has been recognized, both at National and International level; for its invaluable contribution to the legal fraternity.

Perry4Law, first and exclusive Techno-Legal Firm in India; is dealing with the legal issues associated with the use of ICT worldwide and is actively engaged in advocating and using ICT for legal purposes including ODR and establishment of E-courts in India. Broadly speaking, its services include Corporate matters, International Trade, E-Governance, E-Commerce, Cyber Law, IPRs, Civil and Criminal litigation, Taxation services, Legal BPO/KPO/LPO Services etc.

It has the privilege of being the most contemporary Techno-Legal Firm in the World that has acquired an expertise in the fields dominating the current Globalised and Information and Communication Technology guided World. It provided its valuable suggestions and recommendations to the Government of India on subjects like proposed amendments to the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act, 2000), proposed Broadcasting Bill-06, Techno-Legal Security Requirements, etc. Its association with various National and International ICT Institutions and Organisations like Computer Crime Research Center , UNESCO, etc reaffirms its commitment to fight against Cyber Crimes and Misuse of ICT at both National and Global Level.

© Praveen Dalal. All rights reserved with the author.
* Advocate, Arbitrator and Consultant, Supreme Court of India.
Managing Partner-Perry4Law (First Techno-Legal and ICT Firm, New Delhi, India).
LL.M, Ph.D –Cyber Forensics (Pursuing).
Contact: perry4law@yahoo.com , pd37@rediffmail.com
[1] Praveen Dalal, “Electronic Infrastructure Development Strategy of India Needs Rejuvenation”, (Not in Public Domain).
[2] Praveen Dalal, “Legal Perspective of E-Courts in India”. (Not in Public Domain).
[3] Praveen Dalal, “ The Proposed IT Act, 2000 Amendments: Boon or Bane”, http://www.indymedia.org/en/2006/10/849029.shtml
[4] Praveen Dalal, “ The Proposed Broadcasting Bill-2006: An Analysis”, http://topics.developmentgateway.org/ict/rc/ItemDetail.do~1071091?intcmp=3007&itemId=1071091
[5] Praveen Dalal, “ ICT Security in India: An Illusion”, http://www.unesco.org/cgi-bin/webworld/portalsforum/gforum.cgi?post=257;guest=7147226
[6] Praveen Dalal, “ ICT Trends in India-2006”, http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN025298.pdf
[7] Praveen Dalal, “ A journey towards collective expertise”, http://www.bloggernews.net/13459
[8] Praveen Dalal, “ Techno-Legal Knowledge Base in India”, http://www.bloggernews.net/14430
[9] Praveen Dalal, “ India needs platforms like PTLB”, http://reclaiming-india.blogspot.com/2007/05/india-needs-techno-legal-platforms-like.html
[10] Praveen Dalal, “ ICT and Cyber Security in India”, http://www.bloggernews.net/17940
[11] Praveen Dalal, “ The culture of ADR in India”, http://www.odr.info/THE%20CULTURE%20OF%20ADR%20IN%20INDIA.doc
[12] Praveen Dalal, “ Online Dispute Resolution in India”, http://www.e-arbitration-t.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=57
[13] Praveen Dalal, “ Techno-Legal Education in India”, http://cyberlawindia.blogspot.com/2006/12/techno-legal-education-in-india.html
[14] Perry4Law’s Cyber Law Database- http://perry4law.googlepages.com/cyberlawdatabaseofindia

[15] Mr. Charles Geiger, Executive Director WSIS, c/o ITU wrote: “I refer to your blog mentioned at http://www.sdnp.undp.org/perl/news/articles.pl?id=8947&do=gpage. I have been reading your blog with interest. I am quite familiar with the Indian judiciary system. Your explanations are interesting, but I would be interested to know if and if how the information society is changing the judiciary itself, especially the access to courts for disadvantaged sections of the population. Is there any impact und the enormous backlog of cases? Are lawyers better informed about new cases (are cases of the High courts and Supreme Court published electronically?) In several ways, India is on the forefront of e-governance (even if it does not always help politicians to get re-elected, I remember the case of the chief minister of AP). But is there any impact tangible in the field of the legal/judicial administration? Are courts getting equipped with computers? I was once shown through the enormous archive of (what I did understand) were not yet settled cases at Baroda High Court. There was literally hundreds of tons of documents in a very big hall. Has this changed or will this change for good? A good and efficient judiciary system would have an important impact on development, and also on the Human Rights situation. Is there any new literature on experiences and progress made by India in this field?” For answers, kindly see E-Courts in India.

[16] A recent mail read like this: “I was interested to read the article on your website regarding e-courts in India and I thought you might be interested to hear that XXX is on the verge of completing an innovative project in Y to provide digital recording and document management in pilot courts in Y and Z for the Legal and Judicial Reforms Project. Please let me know if you would like to hear more about this ground-breaking project.
[17] One of the e-mails to Perry4Law recently received reads like this “Recently, Brazilian congress has approved a law which adopts the use of ICT in judicial acts. This new law is very advanced and wishes to replace physical process for a total virtual one. I have many doubts about it and I really would like to share your ideas and to understand how India is adopting this technology for judicial purposes”.
Source: Reclaiming India: Reclaiming India is a resource that is critically analysing the policies and strategies of Indian Government, Public and Autonomous Bodies, Universities and Educational Institutions, etc. It aims at providing suitable policies and strategies so that skilled manpower and unshakable leaders can be produced in India. It will also make public the arbitrariness, maladministration and irregularities existing at various Institutions and Organisation with whom the general public regularly interacts.

From http://www.bloggernews.net,  June 30,2007 
[top]

BangaloreOne at Your Doorstep

BANGALORE: Forget walking up to the BangaloreOne Centre to pay your utility bills. Very shortly, you can have mobile BangaloreOne centres hitting the roads where you can pay your bills. The van will carry the limited counters which will have all the essential links to the main server of BangaloreOne.

The mobile vans are connected to the main server through V-Sat connectivity or GPRS wireless connection. It will move to residential areas near an open space to enable people to use it. “The mobile van will be the additional service station of BangaloreOne centres operating at 20 places in the city,’’ secretary of e-governance, Rajeev Chawla said.

The department, however, is more serious on operating the mobile collection centre in rural areas to ease the travelling distance for the rural dwellers to the tele centres.

In addition, the directorate of Electronic Delivery of Citizen Services will double the numbers of BangaloreOne centres in the city by next month.

The 20 new centres will be set up at BDA shopping complexes across the city. One centre will be set up at Wipro campus in electronic city. These will have four counters where all the necessary billings will be accepted like any other BangaloreOne centres. “Since the e-pragathi kiosks set up by BDA were not functioning in full swing, we are helping the developing agency with our wide network,’’ Chawla said.

With the addition of 20 centres, the directorate expects a turnout of 10 lakhs per month, which presently has 6 lakh people visiting the centres which operates round-the-clock.

The new centres will come up at Indiranagar, HSR layout, Wipro campus, M S Building and National Games Village in Koramangala, BDA main office and other BDA shopping complexes.

After BangaloreOne, it’s the turn of Hubli-DharwadOne. Soon there will be five centres set up in the twin cities. The e-governance directorate has paid Rs 1 crore to Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation to set up new kiosks.

Upcoming services at BangaloreOne centres will include KSRTC ticket reservation, multiplex movie tickets, Income Tax, Commercial Tax and tickets for Tirupati.

The BangaloreOne and ING Vysya Life insurance jointly launched insurance policy renewal payments through BangaloreOne’s integrated citizen service centres. The service will be available at all BangaloreOne centres round-the-clock on all days including holidays.

From http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/,  June 29,2007 
[top]

Microsoft to Provide E-government Support to State

Maharashtra’s somewhat tardy e-governance drive may soon change gear with Bill Gates promising special softwares and training to officials free of cost.

Microsoft chairman’s assurance to provide all necessary support to effectively execute applications related to e-governance has come as a high-point of Vilasrao Deshmukh’s recent Mission Investment jaunt to the US. Mr Gates had also announced plans to set up an independent IT park at Hinjewadi, near Pune.

“Meeting with Mr Gates was extremely pleasing,” said VK Jairath, Maharashtra’s principal secretary for industry and an architect of the CM’s US mission said. “His promise to help develop software for farmers’ needs was really heartening,” he said.

Most of the assistance coming in from Microsoft would incur no cost to the state exchequer. The areas the Microsoft would be extending its expertise are school management software, unicode standardisation, online citizen services application and the land record application enhancement.

The school management software is for computerising basic but critical activities of any school irrespective of its medium of instructions. The software can be customised for local needs and the company will train teachers, students and employees to acquire necessary skills. The training will be imparted at the state’s IT departments training centres by Microsoft experts.

The software giant will also assist the state to switch over to new-age land record application system. The current system involves separate, stand alone computer operations at over 358 locations in Maharashtra. This involves high-maintenance and faces difficulty in integration. Consolidating data spread in these many computers located across the state also becomes a gigantic task.

Now Microsoft will help the state develop web based system for land records. This, like the internet, can be used from anywhere. Along with convenience, it will be transparent in data transfer. The company will also help the state to migrate to the new system.

The Seattle headquartered software giant will also provide an application to be used for citizen services. To be used through internet or through special kiosks, it will offer Maharashtra citizen key services.

The most important initiative would, however, be unicode standardisation. With the centre mandating UNICODE fonts as the standard for data entry, convertibility of non-UNICODE data into the standard one was a major challenge before the government.

Microsoft will now offer converters at its own costs that will change over non-UNICODE data to into UNICODE one. “This single initiative alone will save the state’s substantial cost and will speed up the government’s operations besides expediting the process to standardise regional language key-boards,” Mr Jairath said.

From http://economictimes.indiatimes.com,  July 13,2007 
[top]

Nepal is in Need of Aggressive IT Policy

In accordance with the Central Government’s e-governance plan, the major thrust area will be automation of entire workload apart from increasing the revenue in the zone and plans were afoot to integrate the Central Excise and Service Tax system and develop a common server, said A. K. Raha, member, Central Board of Excise and Customs.

He was speaking at a press conference here on Thursday during a visit to the city to review the performance of the Visakhapatnam Customs, Central Excise and Service Tax Zone.

For automation of the Central Excise and Service Tax, the tender process was in place and all the ports would be interconnected soon. Emphasising the development of the interface between customer and client, he said that “E-filing” facility for filing Central Excise and Service tax returns electronically had been made mandatory for all assesses paying more than Rs.50 lakhs. On the Customs front, he informed the Custom House, Visakhapatnam has a full-fledged EDI-Electronic Data Interchange facility functioning. This means all bills of Entry and Shipping Bills are processed electronically .

Chief Commissioner of Visakhapatnam zone Vittal Dass, Commissioner of Customs and Central Excise Tirupathi M.C. Thakur, Commissioner of Customs Rakesh Kumar, Commissioner of Central Excise Visakhapatnam-1 Shakuntala and Commissioner (Appeals) P. N. Rao were also present.

From http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np,  July 13,2007 
[top]

New Zealand explains e-gov spending

The move towards e-government is the main driver behind a surge in spending over the past five years by New Zealand's State Services Commission (SSC), the main public sector agency, reports Computerworld. Spending on e-government accounted for NZD25 million out of a total NZD32 million rise in costs, according to the SSC, and e-government initiatives now account for 40 percent of all of its expenses. E-government programme director Laurence Millar said the business case behind the investment in e-government was based on the delivery of future benefits. The business case is "comprehensive", he said, and has undergone economic analysis, as well as being reviewed by the Treasury. The return on investment will be evident through reducing costs for the Government as a whole, said Millar, and not just for the SSC.

From enn.ie,  June 22,2007 
[top]

New Zealand talks about XML framework

The New Zealand government has invited software experts to an open forum to discuss the State Services Commission's proposed XML governance framework, reports M-Net. XML (Extensible Markup Language) enables data to be shared across different systems, especially over the internet, and is key to New Zealand's e-Government Interoperability Framework (NZ e-GIF). This framework aims to improve how government agencies work together electronically and make it easier for citizens to deal with the Government online by encouraging a consistent approach. The forum, scheduled to take place on 25 July, will promote free discussion between the Commission, industry players and software integration professionals on the proposed XML framework, and there will be no commercial advantage for any of the participants, the Commission said.

From enn.ie,  July 7,2007 
[top]

Building the Perfect Council Website

Building the Perfect Council Website

A wide range of leading experts and practitioners will offer their view of how to create the perfect council website: easy to use, working first time, compelling and engaging.

A partnership between E-Government Bulletin and the Socitm Insight Programme, the event will draw on the collected wisdom of eight years of Socitm's annual 'Better Connected' review of all UK council websites and feature the Better Connected reviewers' own insights, plaudits and brickbats.

Interactive workshops will cover issues in detail including usability and key navigation techniques, search engines and the use of third party software.

Event website:
http://headstar-events.com/council07/

Venue:
Olympia 2 Conference Centre
Hammersmith Road,
Kensington
London, W14 8UX
United Kingdom

Contact:
E-mail: nicola@entevents.co.uk

From headstar-events.com,  December 7,2007 
[top]

Belgium launches online crime service

Belgian citizens can now report crimes to the police online, according to the European Commission's eGovernment Observatory. Citizens who use the Police-on-Web service can file reports about bicycle theft, shoplifting, vandalism and graffiti -- provided the crimes are not violent or posing an immediate threat. Site users need to have an electronic identity card, available from the country's national portal, before they can log a complaint. Users are then asked to fill in a form with all the necessary information and are given a reference number so they can follow up on police progress on the matter. The police said the service would help them to register complaints faster and to tackle these frequently reported crimes more efficiently. Violent or dangerous crimes that require an immediate response should be reported in the usual way, the police noted.

From enn.ie,  May 7,2007 
[top]

Dial 115 for service

The promised single service phone number for all of Germany’s public administrations is now on its way, the federal interior ministry says. The number will probably be 115.

The single phone number is intended as a first contact point for citizens seeking assistance or advice. But the aim is not to build up a national call centre, the ministry emphasises. The single number should promote “intelligent networking of decentralised service units at the federal, state and local authority levels”. It will also be an opportunity to stimulate “a change in the public administration’s service culture” by focussing more on “service to the citizen”.

The project is a complex one and the single service number will be introduced gradually, starting with pilot projects in various regions. Areas with existing service centres, or those planning to introduce one by the spring of 2008, will be chosen for the pilot schemes. Their experience will feed into the overall strategy for the introduction of the number. The basis of that strategy should be laid by the end of 2007. Germany’s federal states have been asked to help select pilot areas by September.

The federal interior ministry has applied for the use of the telephone number 115 nationwide. The assignment of this number is expected to be confirmed at the beginning of December.

From epractice.eu,  July 30,2007 
[top]

e-Democracy Seminar

he e-Democracy summer seminar of the University of the Basque Country

This seminar on ‘e-Democracy’ is organised by University of Mondragon (Spanish Basque Country) in collaboration with the Basque Parliament and the Basque Government as part of the list of Summer Courses offered by the University.

The event has been designed for those wishing to learn more about defining eDemocracy projects, developing project management plans and implementing projects aimed at improving public administration’s transparency, citizen participation in local government and decision making.

The methodology proposed by the organisers covers several objectives, among which:

eDemocracy concepts’ definitions, historical development, distinction with related eGovernment activities and topics;

* Teaching the basics of eDemocracy models from social, political, technological and institutional perspectives, as those models are being used today in numerous towns, cities, and local government agencies in countries and EU regions;
* Sharing aspects of some of those models, from the organisational and resources’ point of views notably;
* Analysing a list of e-Democracy Best Practices (BP), including steps to follow during the implementation stages, tools available to help with the implementation and management of these BPs;
* Giving an overview of a selection of real-life initiatives in e-Democracy in order to complement the theory of e-Democracy models, and to provide an open forum for Questions and Answers.

The course will be given in both English and Spanish. More information relating to registration is available on the seminar website.

Event website
http://www.sc.ehu.es/scrwwwsu/programas/b5i.html

From sc.ehu.es,  April 7,2007 
[top]

ERPT Fostering Public Sector Performance in Europe Roundtable (Politech Institute)

European Review of Political Technologies Fostering Public Sector Performance in Europe Roundtable

How to define, measure and deliver public sector performance, the key to successfully achieving the necessary transformation of the modern state e-enabled in an emerging global knowledge-based economy.

Venue:
OECD,
Tour Europe,
33 place des Corolles,
92049 Paris La Défense 2,
FRANCE

Website: http://www.politech-institute.org/view_event.asp?event_id=21

Contact: temab@politech-institute.org

From politech-institute.org,  June 7,2007 
[top]

Forget YouTube...check out EUTube

The European Commission has launched its very own channel on YouTube to make its audiovisual content more widely available to the public.

EUTube contains video content ranging from documentaries covering the EU's activities and history to interviews with European commissioners.

Issues such as climate change, energy and immigration will all be covered by the content available on the channel.

Margot Wallstrom, vice-president for institutional relations and communication strategy, said the channel shows the Commission is committed to better explaining its policies and actions to citizens.

She added the EU can't ignore online developments -- particularly the use of video sharing sites -- as it's important to communicate with citizens using all available means.

At present there are around 50 video clips available including an interview with Wallstrom along with a documentary on the EU's post-war development.

The majority of content is in English with some in French and German and other languages to be added at a later date.

From silicon.com,  May 7,2007 
[top]

Portuguese ministers hand out computers as internet access booms

Government ministers presented 5 000 computers to people across Portugal on 21 July as part of the drive to get the whole country on-line. And a new study shows a 200 % increase in Portuguese internet access in 2006. This is good news for eGovernment.

Fees paid by mobile phone operators for the third-generation UMTS licences have been put into a fund that will eventually guarantee broadband internet access for more than half a million people in Portugal. The assistance is focused on adults attending job skills courses, as well as school students and teachers. In this way, the Portuguese government is emphasising the strong links between internet access, computer skills and employment prospects.

This is part of the country’s Plano Tecnológico, which aims to “mobilise businesses, families and the institutions... in order to meet the challenges of modernisation facing Portugal”. It encourages eGovernment and other administrative innovations. The Plano Tecnológico is a response to the EU’s Lisbon Strategy.

The drive to get Portugal on-line seems to be working. In Spain, the Orange Foundation has just published its annual report on the information society. It singles Portugal out for special mention: “Among the European countries, the major development experienced by Portugal over the past year should be emphasised”. In just one year, Portuguese internet access grew by “over 200 %, enabling it to reach a penetration rate of 73.8 % – a figure that puts it into fourth place worldwide”.

From epractice.eu,  July 30,2007 
[top]

New agency for the eGovernment services infrastructure

ast June, the Romanian Government adopted an Emergency Ordinance which regulates the organisation and function of an Agency for the Information Society Services (AISS).

The new agency will have as its main responsibility the implementation and operation at national level of the informatics systems that provide eGovernment services. Thus, AISS will take over the specific responsibilities of the General Inspectorate of Communications and Information Technology in this field.

The agency will indeed be in charge of developing and operating the following applications mainly:

* eGovernment portal (e-guvernare.ro);
* Electronic procurement portal (e-licitatie);
* The Informatics System for the electronic attribution of international goods road transport authorisations (autorizatiiauto.ro).

Subordinated to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, AISS will be managed by a president and two vice-presidents assigned or dismissed by an order of the minister for Communications and Information Technology. Both positions will require passing an examination.

The Agency’s income will be composed of the fares of the electronic systems that it manages and operates as well as of revenues from activities developed in its own field of work, donations and sponsorships but also internal and external credits contracted in compliance with the applicable law.

From epractice.eu,  July 30,2007 
[top]

Swedes vote for traffic toll system

The Swedish parliament has voted in favour of adopting a traffic congestion toll system for the city of Stockholm. The system, which was trialed by IBM and the Swedish Road Administration last year, involves 18 barrier-free control points around the city that are equipped with beacons and cameras to identify vehicles. All eligible vehicles entering or leaving the toll zone are charged based on the time of day, with fares highest during peak hours. IBM says that the seven-month pilot scheme in 2006 saw traffic congestion reduce dramatically, air pollutants diminish by up to 12 percent, and public transport usage increase by around 40,000 commuters a day. IBM will begin rolling out the road-charging solution city-wide in August 2007. The decision to proceed with the rollout follows a public referendum in September last year in which most Stockholm citizens voted in favour of retaining the toll system.

From enn.ie,  June 22,2007 
[top]

Over half of Irish voters open to e-voting

Results of the last General Election could have been different if online or text voting had been implemented, a new survey has revealed.

From enn.ie,  January 8,2007 
[top]

11th Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine

AIME 07, the eleventh conference in the series, is an opportunity to present and improve the international state of the art of AI in Medicine from both a research and an applications perspective.

For this purpose, AIME 07 will include invited lectures, contributed full and short papers, system demonstrations, tutorials, workshops and a doctoral consortium for PhD students. Organised by the European Society for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. Website: http://www.aimedicine.eu/AIME07/index.jsp Contact: kik@amc.uva.nl

From aimedicine.eu,  July 7,2007 
[top]

UK's digital divide getting worse

The UK's digital divide is deepening, with those who are socially excluded most at risk of digital exclusion. A new study from research firm FreshMinds and the UK online centres -- an organisation that works to provide ICT access to all members of society -- found that 75 percent of people it counts as socially excluded are also on the wrong side of the digital divide. Helen Milner, managing director of UK online centres, said the term 'digital divide' is one that "we've been bandying about for a while, but it's more relevant and more urgent today than at any time in the last 10 years." She added that "technology is opening new doors and new worlds for 61 percent of the population, connecting them to better paid jobs, instant information, new forms of communication and social interaction, community infrastructures, government services, consumer power and convenience. But for a stable 39 percent, those benefits remain firmly out of reach." Milner appealed to MPs and policy-makers to "take ownership of digital inclusion".

From enn.ie,  May 7,2007 
[top]

Irish government to invest in health IT

The Irish health sector is set to get a technology boost, with analysts predicting a EUR260 million cash injection from the Government. According to iReach, the Government could spend up to EUR260 million in technology within the health sector in 2007, about 2 percent of the overall budget assigned for health this year. "If we compare this to our European counterparts it may initially seem insignificant. The UK will invest EUR2.64 billion this year on health IT, while Germany and France will invest EUR1.6 billion and EUR1.3 billion each," said iReach analyst Neil Brennan. "What these figures fail to show is the amount that these countries invest per capita on health IT. And it is here where Ireland compares very favourably." While Ireland may be spending less in monetary terms, per capita figures show that about EUR62 per person is spent on health IT in Ireland, compared to EUR43 per capita in UK, EUR19 per person in Germany and EUR21 in France. Read more on this story here.

From enn.ie,  June 22,2007 
[top]

High-tech scans cause chaos at UK airports

Holidaymakers returning to the UK have been warned to expect chaos at airports this summer, as new high-tech border controls cause major delays. On re-entering the UK, passports are now being scanned with laser technology installed by the recently formed Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) -- a procedure that is doubling the amount of time it takes to process passengers. According to media reports, delays have already occurred at Stansted and Luton airports, with the situation set to worsen as the new scanning technology is rolled out to all airports in the UK over the next few months. Concerns about the impact of delays have been voiced by the BAA, which runs the main airports, the Immigration Service Union and airline executives. The Daily Telegraph quotes Ryanair chief Michael O'Leary as saying that "this country is in danger of being taken over by 'secureocrats' who seem intent on bringing airports to a grinding halt. These are the same people who came up with the ridiculous idea that stopping people travelling with toothpaste and eye make-up would make us safer last year."

From enn.ie,  June 22,2007 
[top]

UK's efficiency drive slammed

Whitehall's drive to reduce the number of UK government websites has been sharply criticised, with accusations of the use of 'smoke and mirrors' being levelled at officials. In spite of government claims that it intended to close down more than 550 public service websites in an efficiency drive, only a fraction of these will be ceased, according to Public Sector Forums (PSF) -- an organisation that describes itself as an "independent network for e-government practitioners, representing virtually all UK local authorities." PSF cites the example of the Department for Transport, which the Government said would close 36 of its sites; it has now been confirmed that only six of these will be shut down. Other sites on the Government's hitlist, released in January, have also confirmed that they have no plans to be taken down. Ian Dunmore, director of PSF, said he would be surprised if any more than 100 of the 550 "doomed" government sites were definitely closing. He also noted that since announcing the closures, the Government has launched 24 new websites.

From enn.ie,  June 22,2007 
[top]

London School Admissions Project Gets E-government Award

A Wandsworth-led school admmissions project which has enabled parents in all parts of London to apply online for school places has won a top e-government award.

The scheme was introduced for the first time this year for young people starting at a primary or secondary school in September 2007.

The London-wide admissions scheme enables parents in all boroughs to apply using a single form.

The new online facility was taken up by 15 per cent of applicants in its first year.

Wandsworth Council's Graham Carter, who headed the e-admissions project, said: "The whole process of finding a school place is an incredibly stressful experience for many parents."

"The London-wide scheme aims to simplify the arrangements by avoiding the need for multiple application forms and the problem of places being held by parents for more than one school."

"Now by offering an online option we have been able to streamline the system even more."

"We were delighted by the response and expect numbers using this easy to use facility to grow each year."

The London Connects Awards recognise the most outstanding transformational e-government projects in the capital.

The judges included London Connects Chief Executive Steve Pennant, Journalist Michael Cross, Government IT Managing Editor Jonathan Harwood and MJ Editor Michael Burton.

The council will shortly be informing parents of arrangements for secondary admissions in September 2008.

Applications must be returned to the council, either online or in printed format, by October 19, 2007.

The deadline for primary applications for September 2008 is January 18, 2008.

From http://www.24dash.com,  July 13,2007 
[top]

Benefits System 'Too Complicated'

The benefits system is too complicated and there are too many incentives for claimants to stay on benefits long term, a think tank has said.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which has close links to the government, says benefits should be streamlined into a single allowance.

Setting up a flat-rate system could cost up to £1bn but the IPPR says it would save money in the long term.

The government said it was working to put simplicity at the core of policy.

In its report, the IPPR called on the government to scrap jobseeker's allowance, incapacity benefit, income support and carer's allowance.

Flat-rate allowance

It said the complexity of the existing system caused difficulties for both claimants and officials.

It also said there were significant financial incentives for people to move onto long-term benefits like income support which gives them more money than jobseeker's allowance.

Under its proposals, the present array of benefits would be replaced by one, flat-rate allowance.

Instead of being labelled "disabled", "lone parent" or "unemployed", a claimant's entitlement would be based on their out-of-work status.

The benefits system Peter Hain has inherited is too complex to be effective

Kate Stanley, IPPR

Individual circumstances would still determine their package of support and the benefit would come with conditions, the report said.

The proposed system would guarantee anybody of working age out of a job would get a basic income for 12 weeks, without a medical assessment or means test.

After 12 weeks, by which time most jobseeker's allowance claimants have moved off benefits, the IPPR proposes a means-test.

Kate Stanley, head of social policy at the IPPR, said: "The benefits system Peter Hain has inherited is too complex to be effective."

She added the proposed system would allow people to start the process of getting back into work more quickly.

Balance

The Department for Work and Pensions acknowledged that the benefits system could be complicated.

"The DWP must strike the right balance between a system that is simple and one that addresses the specific needs of the individuals who rely on it," a spokesman said.

"However, we recognise that the system can be complicated and have established a dedicated benefit simplification unit to ensure simplicity is core to future policy and to improve the current system."

The spokesman said that the Welfare Reform Act had introduced two new benefits, both much simpler than their predecessors, and added that pensions were being made simpler.

New Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain is expected to announce welfare reforms next week.

From http://news.bbc.co.uk ,  December 7,2007 
[top]

Google Plans Search Service for Mobile Content

Google Inc. is developing a new search service for cellphones that will help consumers find and buy ringtones, games and other mobile content as the Internet company pushes more deeply into wireless, people familiar with the matter say.

Google already offers cellphone users a version of its popular engine for searching the Web. Now the company wants to go beyond just looking up Web pages, effectively becoming a gateway for finding and paying for mobile media content.

With the new system, users would search for a piece of content -- say, a U2 ringtone -- and get back a list of providers as well as links enabling them to easily purchase the material. Eventually, Google would charge companies for high placement in the search results, much the way it offers "sponsored links" on computer Web searches, the people familiar with the plans say.

The company has been working for months with content providers -- including large entertainment companies and smaller mobile-media aggregators -- to index their material and make it available via mobile search. But the project has been marred by a series of technical delays, people familiar with the matter say, illustrating that there's a learning curve as Internet giants adjust to the peculiarities of the mobile world. It isn't clear how soon Google plans to launch the service.

The Internet company has considered including a social-networking component that would let users of the company's Gmail email service exchange content, a person familiar with the initiative says. Overall, the service would work much like the Google Product Search service, formerly known as Froogle, people familiar with the situation say. A spokeswoman for Google declines to comment.

Google's plans to broker the sale of mobile content like ringtones and games could become a threat to large cellphone operators like Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., especially if Google enables customer payment through eBay Inc.'s PayPal or its own online Checkout service. The operators have built their own storefronts to sell such material, and they would prefer to hold on to consumers' attention and spending. If billing goes through the carriers instead, appearing on customers' monthly bills, carriers could actually benefit because they usually get a significant cut of such transactions.

Though mobile content is still a small market, it is growing quickly. Global sales of music, video, ringtones and other content reached $27.4 billion last year, and they are expected to grow to $59.3 billion by 2011, according to the technology-research and consulting firm Yankee Group.

Google has lately been sparring with Verizon and other operators in Washington over Google's proposal to have regulators open up wireless networks to more services from Internet companies and others. Google has also made a series of moves lately to beef up its presence on cellphones. The company recently began testing a service -- similar to its AdSense platform on the Internet -- that will broker ads for other mobile Web sites. Last month, its YouTube unit made a version of its video-sharing Web site available for Apple Inc.'s iPhone. And the company has said it's working on new software applications for cellphones as well as a software platform for such devices on which other developers could build.

Other Internet companies have also been pushing into mobile lately. In June, Yahoo Inc. launched a partnership with the U.K.-based carrier Vodafone Group PLC to show banner ads on cellphones for such companies as Ford and Nissan. In a small deal it didn't announce publicly, Yahoo also recently acquired a small company called Actionality that brokers ads for applications and games that can be downloaded to cellphones. Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, meanwhile, acquired mobile advertising provider Third Screen Media in May.

When it comes to searches on cellphones, Internet companies like Google and Yahoo have been competing with start-ups like Medio Systems Inc. and JumpTap Inc. The lure for all providers is the potential ad revenue that could be generated by sponsored links alongside search results. Revenue from search ads is still tiny, but Google and others see it growing down the road.

The start-ups have snagged early deals with U.S. wireless operators like Verizon Wireless, Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA and Alltel Corp. The carriers integrate the start-ups' search tools into their handsets to make it easier for consumers to find content in the carriers' mobile storefronts and to look up local businesses. Microsoft Corp. is the only major Internet company to land such a partnership with a U.S. carrier, a pact with Sprint Nextel that provides a search bar customers can use to find everything from ringtones on Sprint's storefront to local restaurants.

Translating Internet search to the cellphone screen isn't trivial. While consumers search the Web for just about everything on PCs, cellphone users are usually interested in a much narrower universe of information, such as sports scores, the phone numbers of local businesses and media downloads like games and wallpaper.

The small cellphone screen limits the space to display results, so search providers have to be as precise as possible in determining what a user wants.

Google's mobile search isn't promoted by carriers, but consumers are beginning to discover it. Google has a separate search service that lets users send a text message to "googl," or 46645, to look up a local business.

---

Kevin J. Delaney contributed to this article.

From Wall Street Journal,  July 17,2007 
[top]

'Bolt from the blue' for Google

By PETER SMITH and RICHARD WATERS

The Australian competition regulator's decision to take Google to court over alleged misleading and deceptive conduct in relation to sponsored links on the search engine group's website could have wide industry implications, experts warned yesterday.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which has a history of taking on large companies and winning most of its legal cases, this week filed what is thought to be the first trading standards lawsuit against Google.

The ACCC has taken aim at the design of the results pages Google returns in response to a search request, accusing the company of failing to create a clear enough distinction between its "organic" search results and the adverts that run alongside them.

It also wants a ruling on search results that imply an association between a company and its competitors. Such a ruling would have implications for how Google allows keywords to be registered from a trade practices perspective.

Peter Coroneos, chief executive of trade body the Internet Industry Association, said the ACCC's move was a "bolt from the blue" for Google and the industry.

He said the case went to the heart of Google's operating model in Australia and elsewhere around the world.

"The (Australian) internet industry has had a long and positive relationship with the ACCC and it is highly perplexing that they have moved directly to litigation."

The action could prove a test case for other search engine companies with implications for Yahoo and MSN.

A Sydney-based lawyer said: "Litigation tends to be unpredictable in terms of outcome because there are so many factors to be considered."

In common with its design in other countries, Google's Australian search site returns two sets of sponsored links, or advertisements, with its search results.

One set runs down the right side of the page, separated by a light rule from the rest of the page and under the words "sponsored links" in a lighter typeface.

The second set appears at the top of the organic search results, though in a separate coloured box, with the words "sponsored links" above and to the right of the results.

In a statement, the Australian agency said that while the search engine had faced action in the US and elsewhere on trademark issues, it "understands that it is the first regulatory body to seek legal clarification of Google's conduct from a trade practices perspective".

The case has been listed for preliminary hearing on August 21.

From Financial Times,  July 14,2007 
[top]

Mobile Workers can be Cleansed at the Gate

Many mobile workers risk bringing their company's business to a standstill whenever they connect to the corporate network while away from the office.

If virus scanners, firewalls and security patches on their computers are not up to date, they could unleash a virus or worm.

The risks are growing as more people access corporate networks: "Companies are increasingly providing suppliers and customers with access to their applications and data," says Rob Whiteley, an analyst at Forrester Research.

In response, there is an emerging set of technologies collectively known as network access control (NAC), developed by companies including networking equipment makers Cisco, Microsoft and an industry club called Trusted Computing Group.

When an NAC system is installed on a company's network, any computer which attempts to connect - from outside or within the organisation - is interrogated to ensure it complies with security requirements. If a computer is not running the latest security fixes or has not been scanned for viruses within 24 hours, for example, it can be restricted to a quarantined area from where it can download the required fixes or carry out a scan before being allowed on the network.

An NAC system also includes an authentication and authorisation component which forces anyone wishing to connect to the network to verify who they are to keep intruders out. Authorised users are only given access to the applications and data for which they have specific permission.

Property company Land Securities uses an NAC system from Juniper Networks with its 2,000 employees, clients and business partners who connect to its network. Paul Tuck, its network and security manager, says: "Now we can ensure every computer meets our minimum security requirements, we can give them access to data that we previously wouldn't have allowed."

NAC systems can cost tens of thousands of pounds, but could cost millions to implement depending on scale and scope, but these sums could represent good value if they prevent a network outage.

From Financial Times,  November 7,2007 
[top]

Blogging Cuts Both Ways

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES; Do you want to find out what's happening at Microsoft? You could visit the company web site and navigate your way through the home page, or you could go instead to Mini-Microsoft, the blog of an anonymous employee that has become a soap box for employee discontent over the past three years.

Here you can find details of managerial pay packages, bonuses and share awards. If that does not help you, there are alternative commentaries in the blogs of Mini-Microsoft India and Mini- Microsoft France.

Corporate confidentiality and communications policies have been ripped to shreds by the social networking phenomenon that has spread like a bushfire, taking advantage of internet platforms supported by second generation web technology that allow ease of access and individual content management.

Social networking and blogging sites have created opportunities for people to exchange information on companies in a way that can enhance or harm a corporate reputation or brand.

Other sites such as JobVent.com and www2wk.com (Where Women Want to Work) ask employees to rank companies on their workplace experiences or impressions.

Visitors at Where Women Want to Work, for example, are polled on whether they regard various companies as an "employer of choice".

At JobVent visitors are invited to review companies by awarding negative or positive marks under various categories such as pay, benefits, job security and the workplace environment.

Companies are then placed in league tables headed "I love my company" and "I hate my company", depending on the scores awarded on the website.

At least one company has instructed its lawyers to request information about the people who posted reviews on the site. But the site does not keep information other than what is posted on the review forms.

Richard Mosely, managing director of People in Business, a consultancy that advises companies about how to build and retain a so-called "employer brand", says that companies are being forced to take notice of internet sites and web-based forums that are sharing information and opinions on employers.

"When we are asked to audit employer brands it is not simply a matter of looking at the way companies want to present themselves, it is about the reality of the brand experienced as it is shared in various public arenas," says Mr Mosely.

The ubiquity of web site use and the flourishing of social networking sights is changing the relationship that companies have between their employees, customers and potential recruits.

But the changes are not one-sided. Recruiting companies are finding that information held on the internet can be valuable in assessing the character of potential recruits.

Recruiters seeking to know more about a job candidate can run their names through Google or check out their entries on networking sites such as LinkedIn where every one of the Fortune 500 is represented.

Information can flow both ways, however. Last year a job hunting Yale student, Aleksey Vayner, was embarrassed to discover that a video he had produced to support the CV he had sent to UBS, the investment bank, had been posted on the YouTube website.

The over-the-top video showed the student in various roles, breaking bricks in karate, pumping weights, and ballroom-dancing. The ridicule it attracted led to him taking leave of absence from college and to a leak inquiry at the bank.

Such cases demonstrate that the changing nature of work - including the opportunity to work anywhere, the ease of transfer of information, and the speed and access of the web - is making it increasingly difficult for companies to keep a lid on their internal relations.

From Financial Times,  June 27,2007 
[top]

Cellphones Get Wi-Fi, Adding Network Options

Vacationing in Oregon recently, Rob Mahoney was having cellphone- reception trouble. His signal, from AT&T Inc., was so weak he couldn't browse the Web.

So he tried Plan B, pressing a few buttons to turn off the smart phone's cellular connection and turning on its built-in Wi-Fi connection instead. Soon, the 65-year-old retiree from Temecula, Calif., was surfing the Web over the free Wi-Fi network provided by his bed and breakfast. It was "as if I were on a laptop computer, not a phone," he says.

Mr. Mahoney is at the forefront of a new trend: running cellphones on Wi-Fi. The technology, which extends landline Internet connections over radio frequencies within limited ranges, is already very popular with laptop users. Now, handset manufacturers want to bring it to cellphones as well, allowing customers to surf at higher speeds -- and in some cases, even make calls -- when their phones are near a hot spot.

While high-end Wi-Fi smart phones have been available for several years, manufacturers of popular handsets are increasingly making the technology standard. Apple Inc.'s iPhone, scheduled to make its debut on AT&T Friday, will use Wi-Fi to let users browse YouTube and other content at much faster speeds than AT&T's cellular network allows. Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile USA is launching a service today with phones from Nokia Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. that will automatically transfer cellphone calls onto Wi-Fi networks when users have access to them at home or at one of the company's 8,500 hot spots. T-Mobile plans to offer similar features on other devices, including a BlackBerry from Research In Motion Ltd., later this year, according to people familiar with the matter.

Operators have resisted selling Wi-Fi phones in the past, fearing that such devices would eat into revenue from voice and data plans by allowing customers to cut back on cellular-network usage. They also worried that Wi-Fi could become a Trojan horse for third-party services that allow cheap or free Internet calling. While such mobile Internet calling services aren't widely available to date, they do exist. EBay Inc. offers a mobile version of its Skype service for Windows Mobile phones that has been downloaded more than five million times. The iPhone won't include any software for making Wi-Fi calls, but Skype and other companies say they are interested in developing such services if Apple will allow them.

While some carriers explicitly ban users from making Web calls over their own high-speed "3G" networks, operators don't currently have the technology to easily detect and block users from doing so over Wi-Fi.

Some carriers, though, are starting to warm to the technology, seeing it as a complement, not a substitute, to their networks. They think Wi-Fi can help them ease network congestion as mobile media applications like video hog more of their expensive bandwidth. And some are finding ways to use Wi-Fi to their advantage, offering Wi-Fi- based voice calls as a premium service.

In any case, much of the mobile industry believes mobile Wi-Fi is here to stay. By 2011, nearly a quarter of all handsets shipped world- wide will have Wi-Fi, according to ABI Research, up from just 0.2% in 2006. "Wi-Fi is becoming just another network consumers can access on their phones," says Jim Balsillie, co-chief executive of Research In Motion

Wi-Fi phones detect that they are in range of a Wi-Fi connection in much the same way that a laptop does. Tapping the network generally requires the user to hit a button selecting the Wi-Fi mode. Some operators will automatically switch users on to whatever connection is stronger -- cellular or Wi-Fi -- without them knowing.

Using Wi-Fi on a phone can carry benefits like faster connections and stronger access in areas with weak cell reception, including remote college and corporate campuses. Users could also scale back their voice and data plans if they used Wi-Fi instead of cellular service.

But using Wi-Fi on a phone comes with other hassles likely to keep users from scrapping their cellular plans entirely. Wi-Fi can sap a phone's battery life significantly. And because its coverage is fairly localized, users could get kicked off while trying to use the connection over long distances.

To address these concerns, operators are developing a variety of technologies and services, some of which try to handle the handoff between Wi-Fi and cellular connections more seamlessly. T-Mobile's new service, which will automatically transfer cellphone calls onto Wi-Fi networks, will have an introductory price of $10 a month on top of a monthly calling plan, and it will work initially with Samsung and Nokia Wi-Fi handsets.

T-Mobile, the most aggressive Wi-Fi adopter, hopes to eventually embed the functionality into most of its phones. The phones will work with any home router, but T-Mobile will sell two types -- free with a mail-in rebate -- that it says will boost battery life and be easier to set up. "We've made it really simple for the average consumer to use this technology," says Joe Sims, T-Mobile's executive vice president of product development. "They don't need to understand Wi- Fi."

Other operators are being more cautious, offering some phones with Wi-Fi but stopping short of developing a separate service for calling. Verizon Wireless, which is jointly owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, and AT&T have both tested a T-Mobile-like service that draws on technology embedded in phones to allow users to switch between Wi-Fi and cellular connections for calling, but neither has announced plans to deploy it.

AT&T, which has about 10,000 hot spots, says it sees Wi-Fi as a convenient alternative when customers are out of range of the company's high-speed network. "We view Wi-Fi as a complement to our broadband and high-speed networks," says AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel.

Nokia this week announced that it plans to introduce two more Wi-Fi handsets in the U.S., offering the devices, which will retail for around $400, to businesses through IT distributors and to consumers directly through several online retailers. To use the phones, consumers can swap in a compatible SIM card.

From Wall Street Journal,  June 27,2007 
[top]

Microsoft says egovernment will offer savings

Microsoft Corp. officials have been hammering home a key theme to government leaders gathered this week in Lisbon: modernizing their IT systems will provide better service to their citizens and save them money.

The software giant is hosting hundreds of high-ranking government officials at its Government Leaders Forum in Lisbon, a two-day conference tackling topics such as the role of IT in education, government and economic growth. Microsoft wants to play a large role in those areas.

Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and founder, is scheduled to make an announcement Wednesday afternoon around the theme of innovation in a knowledge-based economy.

Gerri Elliott, corporate vice president for Microsoft's Worldwide Public Sector division, told delegates here Wednesday morning that the company can help governments provide what it calls "seamless service delivery" -- essentially, IT systems that allow governments to provide faster response to citizens and easier use for a range of governmental functions.

"E-government cannot only revolutionize the way services are provided to citizens, but it can drive significant productivity efficiencies in the system itself in providing those services," Elliott said. "Your governments recognize these opportunities, and you've set some goals."

Microsoft announced a plan earlier this week to capture government business with its Public Services and eGovernment Strategy, part of its Microsoft Connected Government Framework program. The plan is aimed at helping governments map out a service delivery strategy with its IT systems, focusing on identity management, customer relationship management (CRM) and case management, along with document and forms management.

Elliott said e-government systems can eliminate red tape and break through "mind-numbing bureaucracy." The cost of inefficient bureaucracy is estimated at b,400 billion (US$484 billion) every year in Europe, she said. In the United States, it amounts to around $843 billion per year, she said.

If governments could save 15 percent of those costs, the savings would amount to 1.5 percent of all government expenditures, Elliott said. In most countries, that represents about half of the public health budget, she said.

"The savings are real," she said.

From www.intergovworld.com,  October 7,2007 
[top]

E-Prescribing May Grow As Industry Makes a Push Dinah Wisenberg Brin

The widespread use of electronic systems to send prescriptions from doctors to pharmacies promises to prevent thousands of life- threatening medical errors, save billions of dollars in health-care costs and even drive more business to drug stores.

Most U.S. physicians, however, have yet to adopt electronic prescribing, or e-prescribing, for the estimated four billion prescriptions they write annually, a situation that a phalanx of corporations and the government are working to change.

E-prescriptions, at only a couple of million a month today, "are on the verge of an explosion," Walgreen Co. Chairman David Bernauer told the National Association of Chain Drug Stores in April.

With e-prescribing, physicians can use hand-held, desktop computers or smart phones to send patient drug prescriptions to pharmacy computers.

Beyond conveying prescriptions, systems can alert doctors to potential drug interactions or dosing problems, reduce handwriting errors, automate the renewal process, and provide data on a patient's drug plan. Hospitals, insurers, and technology companies, among others, have been working to advance adoption of e-prescribing.

The drugstore industry formed an organization, SureScripts, in 2001 to develop a network that allows doctors to electronically transmit prescriptions to almost all U.S. pharmacies. More than 120 physician and pharmacy software companies are certified or nearly certified to send or receive prescriptions over the SureScripts exchange.

Early this year, one of those companies, clinical software maker Allscripts Inc., joined computer maker Dell Inc. to form a coalition -- the National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative -- in an effort to provide free Allscripts Web-based e-prescribing technology to every physician in the U.S. The coalition targets doctors in small group practices, aiming to address concerns about costs and difficulty, among other barriers to their adoption of e-prescribing technology.

Allscripts Chief Executive Glen Tullman said the coalition's effort so far has added thousands of physicians nationwide to the ranks of e- prescribers. He expects "a very strong, very high-visibility" ramping up in September, with large employers and more managed-care companies and payers joining the coalition.

Insurer WellPoint uses e-prescribing as a component of its multimillion-dollar health information-technology efforts, said Charles Kennedy, WellPoint vice president for health IT.

WellPoint sees e-prescribing as a way to lower costs and improve safety and quality of care, Mr. Kennedy said. The company is seeing very rapid growth in the transactions, although e-prescribing, in its early stages, remains "a drop in the bucket," he said.


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From Wall Street Journal,  June 27,2007 
[top]

Signing Up for E-Signatures; More Companies Are Using New Technology to Cut Costs -- and Fraud

Seven years ago, after Congress validated "electronic signatures" in a new law, John Crowley tested the technology with an eye toward using it at his mortgage- and banking-services company. He quickly decided it wouldn't work.

The software for computerizing pen-and-ink signatures on contracts, mortgages and other important documents was too complicated for most people to use, said Mr. Crowley, now chief information officer of Fidelity National Financial Inc., a Jacksonville, Fla., surety and title-insurance company. The software involved multiple steps and high-tech "digital certificate" software that people had to download to their computers for extra security, he said.

A lot has changed. Today, small companies such as Seattle's DocuSign Inc., Sertifi Inc. of Chicago and EchoSign Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., have launched Internet-based technology that makes signing contracts on a computer simpler and more user-friendly, often involving fewer clicks than buying a book or a pair of pants online. E-signature products also have gained legitimacy as they have withstood legal challenges, giving executives more confidence that contracts signed online are just as binding as pen-and-ink ones, said executives at companies that are using the technology now.

It all convinced Mr. Crowley to give e-signatures another try. In a few weeks, Fidelity National will start using e-signatures in a pilot with a major mortgage lender. The lender will let people refinancing their mortgages sign a power-of-attorney document online with DocuSign, speeding up the process and possibly cutting paper and postage costs. Mr. Crowley also hopes the effort will help his company to reduce mortgage fraud, since people who use it have to answer multiple security questions before they are allowed to view and sign the documents online.

"To the extent [these] technologies can help us take [fraud] out of the mix, we are all over it," he said. Other DocuSign customers include Microsoft Corp., which said it is using e-signatures to complete thousands of contracts a month online, and mortgage company First Magnus Financial Corp. in Tucson, Ariz.

The main draw of the new e-signature services is cost savings and convenience. Instead of sending one contract back and forth between parties via fax or overnight mail so that everyone can physically sign one original document, e-signatures allow the whole process to be done online. At First Magnus's lender-services arm, for instance, the company is using DocuSign to streamline insurance-policy processing and has cut transaction costs by 58% in the last year, resulting in tens of thousands in dollars of savings a year, said Jeff Arnold, the president of First Magnus Lender Services.

The new, Web-based e-signature services aren't as complicated to use because they don't require people to download special "digital certificates" from companies such as VeriSign Inc., which help authenticate Internet transactions and continue to be used in many industries. Some doubters want more proof that the new hosted Internet services are as secure as the older technology. Technology researcher Gartner Inc. estimates that through 2010, 75% of organizations required to use electronic signatures will choose "low cost, low technology" solutions instead of more complicated technology.

Companies considering e-signatures face a dizzying array of product choices in a fragmented and sometimes confusing market. With the hosted service sites, companies such as DocuSign allow customers to post documents on a secure Web site and send parties there to "sign" them electronically. (After answering several questions to receive a password, people use a computer mouse to click on a signature line, flagged with computerized yellow sticky notes. A cursive-style imprint of their name appears on the line.) Users can even select their favorite font for the lettering.

Other more established companies, such as Montreal's Silanis Technology Inc. sell e-signing software that companies can download directly onto their computers, although it also offers Web-based products. Interlink Electronics Inc., of Camarillo, Calif., makes software as well as electronic signature pads, such as those many big retailers use for credit-card purchase.

EOriginal Inc., of Baltimore, touts itself as an "e-vaulting" vendor: It works with companies such as DocuSign, Sertifi and Interlink to digitally archive signed documents and create document audit trails. That is important should contracts ever be challenged.

Concerns linger about the security and long-term storage of electronic documents, said Kristen Noakes-Fry, an analyst with Gartner. But, she adds, "I'm very optimistic about the market myself."

With DocuSign's e-signature product, the process starts when one party to a contract or other agreement gets an email saying they have documents to be signed. To sign, the user needs to register for DocuSign's service, a process that involves going to the Web site and getting a password. The company asks several security questions, such as listing recent addresses, which it can check against available data, such as motor-vehicle records.

Once the registered user clicks on a link in their email, they are taken to a DocuSign Web site to view the documents they need to sign. They click in the right places and then send the documents -- in Adobe Systems Inc.'s PDF format -- back to DocuSign for storage and archiving. DocuSign charges customers based on the volume of signatures they process. The service is priced per "envelope," usually $3 to $5 an envelope for big companies, a price that is far cheaper than an overnight package, DocuSign said.

DocuSign said it has processed more than three million online signatures since it was founded four years ago and is on track for transactions to increase 400% this year.

Some companies are using the technology for outbound sales and marketing calls: First Magnus Lender Services said it uses DocuSign to "freeze" customers when it gets them on the telephone to discuss insurance. If a person tells the First Magnus phone marketer that they are interested in an insurance policy, the marketer can ask them to go online as they are talking on the phone and walk them through the sign-up process within minutes. First Magnus's Mr. Arnold said his company has increased the number of policies sold by 24% since it started using DocuSign in this manner.

From Wall Street Journal,  March 7,2007 
[top]

Users are Transforming Innovation

By MICHAEL SCHRAGE and ERIC VON HIPPEL

Pincered between the US's established technical prowess and Asia's growing dynamism, the European Union has declared innovation a policy priority. Entrepreneurship is encouraged as never before. The roles of research and development and higher education are stressed.

Unfortunately, these important initiatives undervalue perhaps the most important transformation now redefining the world's innovation economy. Ingenious leading-edge users - not everyday consumers or profit-focused producers - are becoming the economic engines that drive innovation. In sectors as diverse as software, biotechnology, medical instrumentation, telecommunications and sports equipment, users are spurring growth.

Academic researchers are rapidly converging on the notion that the most effective form of user-centred innovation involves design collaborations among many, widely distributed contributors via the internet. Technology dissolves once-meaningful distinctions between "innovators" and "customers". Policymakers must take note.

The rise of open source software as a business phenomenon rivalling SAP, Microsoft and IBM, for example, offers policymakers at the national, regional and global level a superb model and challenge. Intellectual property agreements based on compulsory licensing and code-sharing have fostered vibrant global communities that openly reveal and share their innovations. Sophisticated software users with a need for better solutions - not proprietary software developers -- have been the dominant innovators here. These users have crafted intellectual property rules, informal networks and peer review mechanisms that transcend borders.

Their success has prompted a fundamental rethink of digital business models. Proprietary software incumbents have been forced to respond and adapt. Competition from open source has made them more innovative and responsive to customers.

Is this success an aberrant one-off, or does open source represent the tip of a user-driven innovation iceberg that will further shatter policy assumptions? Europe led the world in promoting user-driven innovation infrastructures. When Tim Berners- Lee spun off the world wide web network software collaboratively developed at Europe's Cern particle physics laboratory to support the world's high-energy physics community, he proffered digital designs that made users into digital developers. The rise of the internet has been a tale of user-driven innovation. This shift towards digital design and prototyping tools is rapidly being extended to all fields, from sports equipment design to the design of complex biological molecules.

Courageous entrepreneurs and brilliant engineering polymaths are hardly irrelevant or minor players in this environment. But policymakers seeking to encourage sustainable innovation environments simply cannot afford to ignore users. The opportunity to transform innovation requires policymakers to take them seriously.

Denmark has been the first nation to turn this into policy. In 2005, the Danish government established "strengthening user-centred innovation" as a national priority. Sweden's tradition of "participatory design" has positioned several of its industries to take good advantage of this phenomenon. Britain's National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts has begun funding policy research in user-driven innovation. These early efforts are important and more will follow.

The policy point here should not be to invite new subsidies for innovative users. The issue is "empowerment" not subsidy. Policymakers need the intellectual honesty and common sense to examine where existing innovation policies subsidise more traditional and more proprietary approaches at the expense of user- driven innovation.Policies discriminating against users undermine an economy's ability to innovate and grow.

Certainly, national governments and the European Union could use their procurement power and standards-setting influence to ensure that in healthcare, digital technologies, public education and energy networks, user-driven innovation infrastructures are granted parity with proprietary vendors. Patent-holders should not be allowed to smuggle protected property into a common space and later claim damages when that property is innocently used. The right to modify products that have been purchased must also be clarified; open standards must be supported.

Neither "open source" nor "user-centred" means free. Manufacturers fighting rearguard actions against user-created content should look instead to the new business models being developed by companies such as Google. There is great wealth to be grown from proffering platforms for user-developed innovation. Semiconductor production companies, for example, have long profited by offering user-friendly toolkits to enable users to design their own high-quality circuits. General Electric - realising that users are the real developers of new medical MRI functionality - profits by opening up its MRI equipment to selected users. It even supplies specialist engineers to assist user-innovators, with the expectation of benefiting from preferred access to developed innovations.

Europe has an extraordinarily well- educated population all-too- frequently frustrated by institutional strictures and intellectual property constraints that make innovation more difficult than it needs to be. Rather than over-rely upon the past century's innovation mechanisms of venture capital, targeted subsidies and national champions, policymakers should treat this global trend as an innovative opportunity. The rise of user-driven innovation is about the democratisation of innovation - an act of economic empowerment. Boosting economic empowerment is a powerful way of boosting growth. Policies that facilitate greater diversity and democracy of growth are good politics and good economics.

Eric von Hippel is T Wilson professor of management and Michael Schrage is a researcher at the MIT Sloan School of Management

From Financial Times,  November 7,2007 
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Don't Stretch the Idea of User-driven Innovation

From Mr Jonathan Zuck.

Sir, In their article "Users are transforming innovation" (July 11), Eric von Hippel and Michael Schrage run afoul of Mr Schrage's own "Law of Good Ideas": that "there is no idea so good that it's not pushed well past the point of its diminishing returns".

Leading-edge users play a very important role in driving innovation today, as they have for centuries. As Prof Wiebe Bijker of Maastricht University demonstrated in his work, lead users were the driving force in the evolution of everything from bicycles to light bulbs.

Free and open source software programmes are merely a more modern example of where the line between users and innovators dissolves to create rapid product development and innovation. However, these case studies do not apply to every aspect of technological innovation, nor do they represent the vast majority of innovation worldwide.

Yet based on these case studies of an interesting phenomenon in evolutionary innovation, the authors want the European Union to bet the entire economy on it. They suggest that the European Union should rework its laws and procurement policies to give "parity" to "user-generated" innovation.

However, at no point do Prof von Hippel and Mr Schrage provide any concrete examples of ways that innovation is being thwarted by "institutional strictures and intellectual property constraints". In fact, they only demonstrate how this kind of innovation is taking off throughout the world economy, even within proprietary companies.

Most important, however, the authors neglect the fact that the policy changes they are suggesting would harm incentives for revolutionary innovations that truly create new markets and grow economies.

Small companies such as Astron Clinica depend on patents and other forms of intellectual property to raise the capital necessary to develop revolutionary new technologies. In fact, many of the user- innovators Prof von Hippel and Mr Schrage discuss would be likely to protect their innovations in order to ensure their efforts were rewarded. It would truly be a shame if the MRI hackers praised by the authors did not have the heavily patent-dependent MRI machine to hack.

User-generated innovation has been a part of the technological process since the beginning of time. Stretching the idea of "user- generated" innovation into the saviour of the European economy, would clearly produce diminished returns and possibly threaten real economic growth.

Jonathan Zuck,

President,

Association for Competitive Technology,

Washington, DC 20005, US

From Financial Times,  July 13,2007 
[top]

Testing Out the iPhone; We Spend Two Weeks Using Apple's Much-Anticipated Device To See if It Lives Up to the Hype; In Search of the Comma Key

One of the most important trends in personal technology over the past few years has been the evolution of the humble cellphone into a true handheld computer, a device able to replicate many of the key functions of a laptop. But most of these "smart phones" have had lousy software, confusing user interfaces and clumsy music, video and photo playback. And their designers have struggled to balance screen size, keyboard usability and battery life.

Now, Apple Inc., whose digital products are hailed for their design and innovation, is jumping into this smart-phone market with the iPhone, which goes on sale in a few days after months of the most frenzied hype and speculation we have ever seen for a single technology product. Even though the phone's minimum price is a hefty $499, people are already lining up outside Apple stores to be among the first to snag one when they go on sale Friday evening.

We have been testing the iPhone for two weeks, in multiple usage scenarios, in cities across the country. Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions.

The Apple phone combines intelligent voice calling, and a full-blown iPod, with a beautiful new interface for music and video playback. It offers the best Web browser we have seen on a smart phone, and robust email software. And it synchronizes easily and well with both Windows and Macintosh computers using Apple's iTunes software.

It has the largest and highest-resolution screen of any smart phone we've seen, and the most internal memory by far. Yet it is one of the thinnest smart phones available and offers impressive battery life, better than its key competitors claim.

It feels solid and comfortable in the hand and the way it displays photos, videos and Web pages on its gorgeous screen makes other smart phones look primitive.

The iPhone's most controversial feature, the omission of a physical keyboard in favor of a virtual keyboard on the screen, turned out in our tests to be a nonissue, despite our deep initial skepticism. After five days of use, Walt -- who did most of the testing for this review -- was able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years. This was partly because of smart software that corrects typing errors on the fly.

But the iPhone has a major drawback: the cellphone network it uses. It only works with AT&T (formerly Cingular), won't come in models that use Verizon or Sprint and can't use the digital cards (called SIM cards) that would allow it to run on T-Mobile's network. So, the phone can be a poor choice unless you are in areas where AT&T's coverage is good. It does work overseas, but only via an AT&T roaming plan.

In addition, even when you have great AT&T coverage, the iPhone can't run on AT&T's fastest cellular data network. Instead, it uses a pokey network called EDGE, which is far slower than the fastest networks from Verizon or Sprint that power many other smart phones. And the initial iPhone model cannot be upgraded to use the faster networks.

The iPhone compensates by being one of the few smart phones that can also use Wi-Fi wireless networks. When you have access to Wi-Fi, the iPhone flies on the Web. Not only that, but the iPhone automatically switches from EDGE to known Wi-Fi networks when it finds them, and pops up a list of new Wi-Fi networks it encounters as you move. Walt was able to log onto paid Wi-Fi networks at Starbucks and airports, and even used a free Wi-Fi network at Fenway Park in Boston to email pictures taken during a Red Sox game.

But this Wi-Fi capability doesn't fully make up for the lack of a fast cellular data capability, because it is impractical to keep joining and dropping short-range Wi-Fi networks while taking a long walk, or riding in a cab through a city.

AT&T is offering special monthly calling plans for the iPhone, all of which include unlimited Internet and email usage. They range from $60 to $220, depending on the number of voice minutes included. In an unusual twist, iPhone buyers won't choose their plans and activate their phones in the store. Instead, they will do so when they first connect the iPhone to the iTunes software.

Despite its simple interface, with just four rows of colorful icons on a black background, the iPhone has too many features and functions to detail completely in this space. But here's a rundown of the key features, with pros and cons based on our testing.

-- Hardware: The iPhone is simply beautiful. It is thinner than the skinny Samsung BlackJack, yet almost its entire surface is covered by a huge, vivid 3.5-inch display. There's no physical keyboard, just a single button that takes you to the home screen. The phone is about as long as the Treo 700, the BlackBerry 8800 or the BlackJack, but it's slightly wider than the BlackJack or Treo, and heavier than the BlackBerry and BlackJack.

The display is made of a sturdy glass, not plastic, and while it did pick up smudges, it didn't acquire a single scratch, even though it was tossed into Walt's pocket or briefcase, or Katie's purse, without any protective case or holster. No scratches appeared on the rest of the body either.

There are only three buttons along the edges. On the top, there's one that puts the phone to sleep and wakes it up. And, on the left edge, there's a volume control and a mute switch.

One downside: Some accessories for iPods may not work properly on the iPhone. The headphone jack, which supports both stereo music and phone calls, is deeply recessed, so you may need an adapter for existing headphones. And, while the iPhone uses the standard iPod port on the bottom edge, it doesn't recognize all car adapters for playing music, only for charging. Apple is considering a software update to fix this.

-- Touch-screen interface: To go through long lists of emails, contacts, or songs, you just "flick" with your finger. To select items, you tap. To enlarge photos, you "pinch" them by placing two fingers on their corners and dragging them in or out. To zoom in on portions of Web pages, you double-tap with your fingers. You cannot use a stylus for any of this. In the Web browser and photo program, if you turn the phone from a vertical to a horizontal position, the image on the screen turns as well and resizes itself to fit.

In general, we found this interface, called "multi-touch," to be effective, practical and fun. But there's no overall search on the iPhone (except Web searching), and no quick way to move to the top or bottom of pages (except in the Web browser). The only aid is an alphabetical scale on the right in tiny type.

There's also no way to cut, copy, or paste text.

And the lack of dedicated hardware buttons for functions like phone, email and contacts means extra taps are needed to start using features. Also, if you are playing music while doing something else, the lack of hardware playback buttons forces you to return to the iPod program to stop the music or change a song.

-- Keyboard: The virtual keys are large and get larger as you touch them. Software tries to guess what you're typing, and fix errors. Overall, it works. But the error-correction system didn't seem as clever as the one on the BlackBerry, and you have to switch to a different keyboard view to insert a period or comma, which is annoying.

-- Web browsing: The iPhone is the first smart phone we've tested with a real, computer-grade Web browser, a version of Apple's Safari. It displays entire Web pages, in their real layouts, and allows you to zoom in quickly by either tapping or pinching with your finger. Multiple pages can be open at the same time, and you can conduct Google or Yahoo searches from a built-in search box.

-- Email: The iPhone can connect with most popular consumer email services, including Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, EarthLink and others. It can also handle corporate email using Microsoft's Exchange system, if your IT department cooperates by enabling a setting on the server.

BlackBerry email services can't be used on an iPhone, but Yahoo Mail supplies free BlackBerry-style "push" email to iPhone users. In our test, this worked fine.

Unlike most phone email software, the iPhone's shows a preview of each message, so you don't have to open it. And, if there is a photo attached, it shows the photo automatically, without requiring you to click on a link to see it. It can also receive and open Microsoft Word and Excel documents and Adobe PDF files. But it doesn't allow you to edit or save these files.

-- Memory: The $499 base model comes with four gigabytes of memory, and the $599 model has eight gigabytes. That's far more than on any other smart phone, but much less than on full-size iPods. Also, there's no slot for memory-expansion cards. Our test $599 model held 1,325 songs; a dozen videos (including a full-length movie); over 100 photos; and over 100 emails, including some attachments, and still had room left over.

-- Battery life: Like the iPod, but unlike most cellphones, the iPhone lacks a removable battery. So you can't carry a spare. But its battery life is excellent. In our tests, it got seven hours and 18 minutes of continuous talk time, while the Wi-Fi was on and email was constantly being fetched in the background. That's close to Apple's claim of a maximum of eight hours, and far exceeds the talk time claims of other smart phones, which usually top out at five and a half hours.

For continuous music playback, again with Wi-Fi on and email being fetched, we got over 22 hours, shy of Apple's claim of up to 24 hours, but still huge. For video playback, under the same conditions, we got just under Apple's claim of seven hours, enough to watch four average- length movies. And, for Web browsing and other Internet functions, including sending and receiving emails, viewing Google maps and YouTube videos, we got over nine hours, well above Apple's claim of up to six hours.

In real life, of course, you will do a mix of these things, so the best gauge might be that, in our two-week test, the iPhone generally lasted all day with a typical mix of tasks.

-- Phone calls: The phone interface is clean and simple, but takes more taps to reach than on many other smart phones, because there are no dedicated hardware phone buttons. You also cannot just start typing a name or number, but must scroll through a list of favorites, through your recent call list, or your entire contact list. You can also use a virtual keypad.

One great phone feature is called "visual voice mail." It shows you the names or at least the phone numbers of people who have left you voicemail, so you can quickly listen to those you want. It's also very easy to turn the speakerphone on and off, or to establish conference calls.

Voice call quality was good, but not great. In some places, especially in weak coverage areas, there was some muffling or garbling. But most calls were perfectly audible. The iPhone can use Bluetooth wireless headsets and it comes with wired iPod-style earbuds that include a microphone.

A downside -- there's no easy way to transfer phone numbers, via AT&T, directly from an existing phone. The iPhone is meant to sync with an address book (and calendar) on a PC.

-- Contacts and calendars: These are pretty straightforward and work well. The calendar lacks a week view, though a list view helps fill that gap. Contacts can be gathered into groups, but the groups can't be used as email distribution lists.

-- Syncing: The iPhone syncs with both Macs and Windows PCs using iTunes, which handles not only the transfer of music and video, but also photos, contacts, calendar items and browser bookmarks. In our tests, this worked well, even on a Windows Vista machine using the latest version of Outlook as the source for contacts and appointments.

-- iPod: The built-in iPod handles music and video perfectly, and has all the features of a regular iPod. But the interface is entirely new. The famed scroll wheel is gone, and instead finger taps and flicking move you through your collection and virtual controls appear on the screen. There's also a version of the "cover flow" interface which allows you to select music by flipping through album covers.

-- Other features: There are widgets, or small programs, for accessing weather, stock prices and Google Maps, which includes route directions, but no real-time navigation. Another widget allows you to stream videos from YouTube, and yet another serves as a notepad. There's a photo program that displays individual pictures or slideshows.

The only add-on software Apple is allowing will be Web-based programs that must be accessed through the on-board Web browser. The company says these can be made to look just like built-in programs, but the few we tried weren't impressive.

-- Missing features: The iPhone is missing some features common on some competitors. There's no instant messaging, only standard text messaging. While its two-megapixel camera took excellent pictures in our tests, it can't record video. Its otherwise excellent Web browser can't fully utilize some Web sites, because it doesn't yet support Adobe's Flash technology. Although the phone contains a complete iPod, you can't use your songs as ringtones. There aren't any games, nor is there any way to directly access Apple's iTunes Music Store.

Apple says it plans to add features to the phone over time, via free downloads, and hints that some of these holes may be filled.

Expectations for the iPhone have been so high that it can't possibly meet them all. It isn't for the average person who just wants a cheap, small phone for calling and texting. But, despite its network limitations, the iPhone is a whole new experience and a pleasure to use.

---

Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find all our columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://walt.allthingsd.com

From Wall Street Journal,  June 27,2007 
[top]

Microsoft Plans Web Features for Office

Microsoft is looking to add new online features to its Office productivity applications within the next "year or so" in what would amount to a partial response to Google's encroachment on one of its core businesses, according to a senior executive at the software company.

Jeff Raikes, head of the business and server divisions, said Microsoft would offer online services that extend the capabilities of the desktop software suite used by an estimated 500m people, although he refused to give further details.

The most likely first step will be to let Office users share documents and spreadsheets they have created on their PCs over the web, according to analysts. That would overcome a key shortcoming of Microsoft's applications when compared with web-based packages such as those run by Google, said Rob Helm, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft.

Full online versions of Microsoft's Office applications are likely to follow, but only three years or more from now, Mr Helm added.

Microsoft's relatively slow response to Google, which offers a set of web-based word processing, spreadsheet and other applications that mirror the Office suite, indicates its belief that users will be slow to desert desktop software for the web.

"I remember the days when people said: 'retail will die because of online commerce'. Well, actually, retail is pretty healthy in the last few years," Mr Raikes told the Financial Times.

Google signalled two months ago that it was preparing to step up its challenge to Microsoft's traditional PC software business. Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer, said the internet company had expanded its mission to make online applications a core part of its business.

From Financial Times,  July 23,2007 
[top]

PloneGov Selected as a Finalist of the European E-Government Awards

The third European eGovernment Awards, organised by the European Commission, selects good practices on the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in public service.

Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, is expected to present the European eGovernment Awards 2007 for the most outstanding eGovernment solutions at the fourth Ministerial eGovernment Conference 2007 on 20 September in Lisbon, Portugal.

During the Conference, a major display of 52 real-life eGovernment solutions and applications will be organised to highlight new developments in Europe and to build upon these in order to stimulate the take-up and dissemination of good practices.

The forthcoming Portuguese presidency and the European Commission will jointly organise the Conference. This fourth Ministerial eGovernment Conference is the main European eGovernment event in 2007; it will feature achievements across European Member States and showcase good practices, as well as look towards the future.

Together with the forthcoming Ministerial eGovernment Conference in Lisbon (Portugal), the Awards revolve around four main themes relating to ICT:

Better public services for growth and jobs
Online public services directly contributing to the economic growth and jobs creation strategy of the European Union (known as Lisbon Agenda).

Participation and transparency
Interactive initiatives that empower citizens and business to influence open government, policy-making and the way public administrations operate and deliver services.

Social impact and cohesion
Public service initiatives contributing to improve the social environment and social cohesion. Services can be local, national, or European; user-oriented, inclusive, and interoperable.

Effective and efficient administration
Innovations or re-organisations in services and processes, which make administrations more efficient and effective and reduce administrative burden.

Public prize - Most inspiring Good Practice
Initiatives that provide creative solutions to common challenges and inspire others. For this prize there will be a vote by the public. All who register with the Good Practice Portal by 1 September 2007 can vote and provide comments.

Following the eligibility screening, each submitted case has been evaluated by a panel of independent experts. The experts work separately in a first phase of the evaluation process and agree on a ranking in the second to ensure the highest standards and complete impartiality. The result of the first two phases of the evaluation will be the selection of 52 finalists.

PloneGov, a major Plone e-government project, is selected among the 52 finalists and will be presented in Lisbon in September 2007. The winners will be presented at the Ministerial eGovernment Conference 2007 at the Awards ceremony on 19 September in Lisbon (PT).

This selection among the best European project is a success for Plone, Zope and Python. We hope that our action will be awarded and our community congratulated for its fabulous day-to-day work.

From http://www.zeapartners.org/,  July 14,2007 
[top]

Google's View into the Lives of Others

Google shows no signs of relenting in its effort to take over the world - sorry, to "organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". Last week, it promised to bid Dollars 4.6bn (Pounds 2.2bn) or more to run a mobile phone service in the US if the auction is conducted in the way that it wants. It also missed analysts' expectations for its second-quarter earnings because it was in so much of a rush to employ people that it hired more than it intended.

Eric Schmidt, its chief executive, made clear at Allen and Company's Sun Valley conference for media and technology executives 10 days ago that resistance to Google is useless. He dismissed the refusal of social networks such as Facebook to let search engines scan their content as a "transient" phase. He also took a potshot at Viacom, which sued Google over its YouTube video-hosting site, suggesting that the media group is simply an outfit run by lawyers.

Comments such as these make me worry that Mr Schmidt, who used to be a mild-mannered and open-minded soul, is becoming too big for his boots. The thing that unites these two remarks is the disdain they imply for anyone wanting to hide details of their private lives, or protect their intellectual property, from Google's algorithms. They suggest that Google will eventually be able to publish all the data it wants and be justified in so doing. Neither claim is true.

Taking privacy first, young people are more comfortable than previous generations about giving out personal details to all- comers by posting gossip and photos on blogs and social networking sites. That may mark a sea change in social attitudes but it could equally be, pace Mr Schmidt, transient. It will only take a few job rejections or disciplinary actions by employers and universities (Oxford is already trawling for miscreants on Facebook) for privacy to regain its former cachet.

While it is useful for such organisations, and for the nosy, to have the lives of others searchable, it is not always useful for those whose lives are searched. One of Facebook's appeals is that the site has privacy controls that allow users to share information only among their friends or chosen networks. If everyone's entry were made "universally accessible" and showed up on Google searches, Facebook would soon lose its appeal to adult users.

Google's fight with Viacom over breach of copyright on YouTube is analogous: YouTube wants to exploit something to which Viacom holds rights - video clips of programmes such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report - for its own benefit. It hopes to strike deals with companies such as Viacom to display such clips and share the resulting advertising revenue, just as it has already made deals with music companies including Warner and Universal.

Until then, YouTube plays cat and mouse with Viacom over the illegal posting of video clips on YouTube. It warns its users not to upload other people's copyrighted content but has not put in place a filtering mechanism to identify and block pirated clips, as it has done with music owned by companies with which it has struck deals. Instead, it asks television and film companies to monitor the site and point out copyright-infringing clips, at which point it is willing to take these clips down.

This state of affairs suits

YouTube (and, since Google

acquired YouTube for Dollars 1.65bn last year, Mr Schmidt). Viacom has to take the time and the trouble to monitor YouTube; illegal clips stay up on YouTube until Viacom serves it with a take- down notice. It is impossible to identify how many video clips on YouTube are amateur and how many are professional but its 60 per cent of the US video-sharing market clearly owes much to copyright foot-dragging.

YouTube's defence, which will be familiar to those with teenagers, is that it can't do much about copyright infringement and, anyway, it doesn't have to. It says that automatic filtering of videos is very hard to do; it is now testing a system with companies including Walt Disney but does not know when it will be ready to launch. Meanwhile, it insists that it is not required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US, or by European law, to block every breach of copyright.

I doubt whether Google is on such safe legal ground as Mr Schmidt asserts. Congress passed the relevant clauses of the DMCA to protect internet service providers and others from being held liable for breach of copyright by their users. But YouTube is not a neutral party to copyright infringement in the way that ISPs are: its business model is not merely to provide bandwidth but to encourage users to upload and share videos, many of which it knows quite well belong to other people.

As far as ethics go, it is definitely on shaky ground. If you were having a party in your house and, when your neighbour came around to complain about the noise, you said "sorry" and turned down the volume, only to allow a guest to raise it again five minutes later, you would obviously be in the wrong. The fact that you might have done enough to escape prosecution would not mean that you were behaving fairly.

Google's motto is "Don't be evil", but it should meet higher standards. Mr Schmidt can muse about the digital future and ridicule Viacom for being run by lawyers all that he likes. The fact remains that he wants to profit from the private lives and intellectual property of others without obtaining their permission first.

Never mind about not being evil,

Mr Schmidt; don't be anti-social.

From Financial Times,  July 23,2007 
[top]

Instant Messaging Invades the Office; Companies Say It Spurs Broader Collaboration -- And Scares Some Bosses

During the preholiday crush last December, a computer maker asked staffing company Adecco SA for 300 additional factory workers -- immediately. Using an instant-messaging program, Senior Vice President Steve Baruch tapped managers in three states to line up the workers within hours. If he had relied on email and phone calls, Mr. Baruch says, the same process could have taken him as long as three days.

Instant messaging is invading and changing the workplace. Employees started to sneak instant messaging into the office in the late 1990s, but now more companies are endorsing it. Faster and more casual than email, instant messaging can foster broader collaboration among employees even as it further blurs the boundaries between work and life.

Instant-messaging programs allow users to organize contacts into "buddy lists" and see who is online and available to chat at any given moment, world-wide. With most IM programs, users can start real-time conversations with one or more contacts, including multiple participants simultaneously. Sending a message opens up small windows on the participants' screens where users can type their chats. Most programs also offer file-sharing, voice and video features. IM can be used on computers and on wireless devices like cellphones. Many employees use popular consumer-level IM applications, such as AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo Messenger. But some companies have opted to buy more secure, customized systems that offer such features as archiving.

Roughly one-third of U.S. employees use instant messaging at work, many without the knowledge of their employers, according to a 2006 survey by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute. Many employers remain reluctant to endorse it officially fearing security breaches and distracted employees. But tech consultant Gartner Inc. projects that instant messaging will be the "de facto tool for voice, video and text chat" for 95% of employees in big companies within five years.

Unlike email, instant messaging offers "presence" -- a snapshot of which colleagues are available at a given moment, world-wide. Together with allied Internet technologies such as blogs and wikis, it is "changing the way people collaborate," says Andrew McAfee, an associate professor at Harvard Business School. Companies "increasingly react to situations and problems on the fly, not solely by hierarchy," he says.

Instant messaging can "scare managers who were taught they need to be in control," says Marty Anderson, a professor at the Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College. But others embrace the technology.

Suzanne Gordon, chief information officer for software maker SAS Institute Inc., Cary, N.C., "chats" daily via instant message with overseas staffers two or three rungs below her on the organizational chart. During one such session, a manager in France pointed out a flaw in technology support. Canvassing other employees by instant message, Ms. Gordon concluded the problem was serious enough for her to appoint a U.S.-based manager to help. "Sometimes through proper channels you don't always get the truth," she says.

Ms. Gordon recently "pinged" Philip Busby, a 23-year-old software developer three levels below her, to ask about his iPhone. Mr. Busby says he was surprised that Ms. Gordon, who oversees 350 employees, knew he had just bought the Apple Inc. device. But "it felt natural to chat with her, it happens all the time," he says. Ms. Gordon says she was curious whether the iPhone would be useful at SAS.

Paul Tidball, an SAS product manager who works from his home in Oregon, says instant messaging makes him feel less isolated. Through IM, Mr. Tidball finds it easier to collaborate remotely on projects and find co-workers around the clock. He sometimes limits their ability to find him, however, by signing off the instant messenger program. "At some point you just have to put the mouse down," he says.

Connecting people across job categories and time zones can be both the strength and the weakness of the technology. Tim Waire, vice president for information technology in the generation unit of Constellation Energy Group Inc., "tags" colleagues who are not at their computers so he is notified when they start using their computer again. "Because you're a 24-hour company, you expect people to be available 24 hours," he says. "There's no excuse anymore for not being available."

Mr. Waire's boss, Beth Perlman, is more cautious. She is Constellation's chief information officer, and she limits her "buddy list" -- those who can see whether she is online -- to 27 people. But she can still feel overwhelmed. During a recent computer-security investigation, Ms. Perlman traded instant messages with two managers while talking to a third on the phone. "The only place I can't be reached is on a plane," Ms. Perlman says. "That's why I like flying."

Ms. Gordon of SAS agrees. "You cannot let technology control you," she says. "You need to use it to your own advantage."

Consider how Andrew Fano, global director of research at Accenture Technology Labs, seeks control. Mr. Fano knows instant messaging is distracting. When he's in charge of a meeting, he sometimes bans laptops. But he also considers it indispensable, and he says that he, too, sometimes uses it during meetings. He has even used it to advise colleagues when to speak up and to suggest points for them to make.

Fans maintain the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Knowing when others are available can generate unexpected paybacks, says Greg Vigil, director of the PowerGrip unit at Gates Corp., a Denver maker of automotive and industrial rubber belts and hoses. During a product- development meeting in Scotland last January, Mr. Vigil saw in the corner of his laptop screen that the company's technical director for Asia, Guenther Heinz, had become available via instant message and asked if he would join the meeting.

It was late in the evening in Tokyo, but Mr. Heinz agreed to join the discussion by telephone, outlining products and technologies his team was developing in Asia, Mr. Vigil says. That spurred ideas for products in Europe and North America. Following up on the chance interaction, Mr. Vigil will soon travel to Japan and China to meet Mr. Heinz and talk further.

Artists at San Francisco-based Industrial Light & Magic, a division of Lucasfilm Ltd., used to crowd a screening room for up to two hours each morning to review the prior day's work. Now, supervisors feed suggestions to the artists over a custom-built instant-messaging system in which each participant can see others' comments. "Artists are able to get feedback more quickly and continue to work" without leaving their desks, says visual-effects supervisor Tim Alexander, whose latest work includes "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."

At Adecco, Mr. Baruch says instant messaging gave him an edge in a recent meeting with an unhappy client. While the client was in the room, Mr. Baruch sent instant messages to colleagues to assemble data showing Adecco had upheld its end of a contract. "It added an important dimension to how we operate," he says.

Last year, Mr. Baruch used instant messaging to coach Wendy Liberko, a vice president who reports to him, through a sensitive meeting with a poorly performing employee. Mr. Baruch, Ms. Liberko and the employee were in three different locations, joined by a telephone conference call.

"He would send me messages saying, 'Good question!' or 'Don't forget to bring up those figures,'" Ms. Liberko says. She says she now uses the same tactics in Internet conferences with her nationally dispersed staff.

Ms. Liberko also says that instant messaging has reordered her communication priorities. She now deals with messages first, followed by voicemails, and finally email. At 11 a.m. one recent day, she had 150 unread email messages, she said, and no intention of "even glancing at" them before the day's end.

From Wall Street Journal,  July 24,2007 
[top]

Application of Consistent Fuzzy Preference Relations in Predicting the Success of Knowledge Management Implementation

Tien-Chin Wang, Tsung-Han Chang.

Abstract (Document Summary)
The implementation of knowledge management (KM) involves innovation and reformation for organizations. KM implementation requires not only a substantial investment, but also changes the organization culture and structure. Before embarking on KM, thorough planning is crucial to ensure the implementation achieves the intended objectives of accruing profit and enhancing competitiveness for organisations. Therefore, this study proposes an analytic hierarchical prediction model based on the reciprocal additive consistent fuzzy preference relations to help the organizations become aware of the essential factors affecting the KM implementation, forecasting the chance of successful KM initiative, as well as identifying the actions necessary before implementing KM. Pairwise comparisons are used to determine the priority weights of influential factors and the ratings of two possible outcomes (success and failure) amongst decision makers. The subjectivity and vagueness in the prediction procedures are dealt with using linguistic terms quantified in an interval scale [0, 1]. By multiplying the weights of influential factors and the ratings of possible outcomes, predicted success/failure values are obtained to enable organizations to decide whether to initiate knowledge management, inhibit adoption or take remedial actions to increase the possibility of successful KM project. This proposed approach is demonstrated with a real case study assessed by eleven evaluators solicited from a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) manufacturing corporation located in Taiwan. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

From European Journal of Operational Research, Vol.182, Iss. 3; ,  January 10,2007 
[top]

Don't expect free ride from YouTube to last forever

When it comes to online video sites, YouTube is the big kahuna. It arguably started the whole video-sharing revolution that's been picked up by sites all over.

Last week, though, I read an interesting story. Wendy Seltzer's, a former lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (and founder of the Chilling Effects project), had put up a short clip from the Super Bowl. Not of the game, but of the NFL's copyright notice.

Even to a non-lawyer, what Seltzer did was clearly fair use. She's a lawyer specializing in copyright commenting on copyright. But the NFL — the same folks who demanded that churches not have Super Bowl parties and who are claiming to own the trademark "the Big Game"— saw otherwise.

It demanded that YouTube remove the video, invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. YouTube removed it. Seltzer filed a counter-notification with YouTube, pointing out that her clip was fair use. YouTube restored it, but then the NFL — rather than taking the issue to court, as the law requires — filed a duplicate takedown notice with YouTube. And YouTube automatically removed it again.

I won't get into the legal details here, because Seltzer does a fine job. What interested me was how quickly YouTube bowed to the NFL's demands, and what that means for its future.

Free for all
FIND MORE STORIES IN: NFL | Super Bowl | Youtube | Wendy Seltzer | Yahoo Video

There's a good part of me that wonders how long YouTube (and other video-sharing services) will be with us.

An untold number of websites now sport video, either as part of a video blog, or to illustrate something, or just to share a funny tidbit. That video is stored and served by YouTube and its kin, even though it appears to be on those individual sites.

But YouTube's popularity is also the reason it can't last long in its current incarnation.

The reason for that popularity is simple: It allows people to share enormously high-bandwidth content, free. With most Web-hosting plans setting bandwidth limits (or charging for use over a certain amount), YouTube is an incredible convenience.

In exchange for having a translucent YouTube logo at the bottom, anyone can have as many videos as he wants hosted gratis. Google (which bought YouTube) pays for storage, bandwidth, backup, and so on. What's not to like?

A few things actually.

The videos on YouTube and other free video-hosting services are first generation. They're small, mediocre-quality files that are certainly good enough to see the action, but that's about it. In a world that's moving toward large screens and high definition, it's decidedly low end.

For now, though, the low cost outweighs the low quality. As I've written before, you don't always need high-end, professional production to be powerful and popular.

But now won't last forever. Eventually users will want better quality. Better quality means more bandwidth. More bandwidth means more expense, and eventually YouTube will have to make money.

There are a limited number of ways to do that.

Two roads diverge

First, keep in mind that YouTube serves two different markets. There are the people who visit YouTube.com to view, rate, and comment on videos, and there are the people who use YouTube to embed videos on their own sites.

The former are the most likely sources of revenue for YouTube. They can easily be shown ads and their demographic information can be collected, for starters.

The latter, on the other hand, are more of a drain on YouTube's resources. Luckily, some of those "embedders" are using YouTube to host their own content, so they're giving back— they're providing YouTube with the content it needs.

YouTube spends a ton every month on bandwidth alone; conservative estimates range from $1.2 million and up. Embedders aren't helping offset that.

The easy way for those embedders to be profitable for YouTube (or any video service) is to have ads run at the beginning of everyone's videos. But once that happens, the dynamic changes as users have to make a choice.

Right now, the video-hosting alternatives are all free and easy, so there's no incentive to switch. The popular sites stay popular. But if and when free video hosting stops being free, that changes. Then there's something to compare.

Some users will stick with YouTube because they're comfortable using it. They'll either deal with having ads or they'll pay whatever other price there is — maybe a monthly fee for having ad-free videos.

But others will start to compare the options. After all, the services are the same; video is standardized, so what comes from YouTube is the same as what comes from Revver or Yahoo Video or whatever.

Thus, once the free ride is over, video-hosting services will start differentiating themselves. Some will have ads, some will charge (or offer different plans). Some will allow longer videos, or R-rated content, or whatever.

Which leads us back to the elephant in the room — copyright. All these video services are run out of the U.S., where draconian and poorly understood copyright laws are squelching content.

Looking elsewhere

Seltzer's Super Bowl clip is just one example. Despite the law, YouTube bent over backwards in favor of the NFL. And it has been the target of copyright enforcers for all sorts of media companies, taking down hundreds if not thousands of videos.

I'm not talking about entire episodes of shows, which should come down. I'm talking about things like mashups — creative combinations of shows like " Dr. Who and the French Dalek." Or those who use copyrighted content in legitimate, fair-use ways, such as Seltzer did.

And there's one kind of competitor that can eat YouTube's (and Yahoo's and MySpace's) lunch: foreign ones. Other countries don't have the restrictions we do here; that's why The Pirate Bay, the ultimate source of links to music, movies, software, etc., operates with impunity... out of Sweden.

Mashups and other mixes aren't going away. And as more and more artists start mixing and mashing content, they'll look to find a place that won't take their work down at the drop of a corporate hat. And the chances of that being YouTube, or any other service beholding to U.S. laws, is limited.

Video-sharing is great — today. But tomorrow looks to be different. With users bound to want more, with companies needing to pay the bills, and with lawyers champing at the bit, the future for the market doesn't seem quite so rosy.

Andrew Kantor is a technology writer, pundit, and know-it-all who covers technology for the Roanoke Times. He's also a former editor for PC Magazine and Internet World. Read more of his work at kantor.com. His column appears Fridays on USATODAY.com.

From usatoday.com,  December 7,2007 
[top]

The Net's New Catch-all for Corruption

Corruption cases cascade down the website of Trace, a US non- profit group that helps businesses combat bribery. The list covers tens of millions of dollars paid in penalties and settlements by multinationals such as Dow Chemical, El Paso, the energy company, and Baker Hughes, the oil services group, over their relationships with countries as diverse as Angola, India and Iraq.

Trace hopes that the rollcall of corporate embarrassments will shorten thanks to its latest initiative. Bribeline is an internet hotline aimed at building perhaps the most complete picture of international bribery and how companies can prevent it. Since its launch this month, the service has received more than 1,000 reports relating to bribes in almost 100 countries. The sums involved range from less than Dollars 20 (Pounds 9.85) to more than Dollars 500,000 (Pounds 246,000).

The hotline, to which the World Bank will link from its website, is the start of a long and potentially valuable process. The global corruption landscape is being illuminated, highlighting where businesses have the biggest problems. "One of the most important ideas is that it's a risk-management tool for the private sector," says Michelle Gavin, director of Trace.

Companies' involvement in bribery matters not just for moral reasons but also because, as is increasingly acknowledged, it is bad for business. It can add to costs, generate bad publicity and, some argue, even damage the credibility of international financial markets, driving up risk premiums.

On a practical level, companies are becoming more aware of the risks of facing criminal bribery investigations. Laws have been toughened in many countries over the past few years after pressure from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

At the same time, the US, the most active pursuer of multinational bribery, has scaled up its activities: the Department of Justice has completed five foreign corruption cases a year

for the past five years, compared with an average of one annually between 1995 and 2000.

Trace's launch of the hotline is a reflection of how, in Ms Gavin's words, "despite constant discussion of corruption, constant headlines, there is a lot we don't know about how it works".

Bribeline is designed to be as informative as possible while also providing speed and anonymity. Nine straightforward questions ask what the bribe requested was for, what kind of official asked for it and whether it was a simple cash payment or a benefit in kind, such as jewellery or even sex. The reports, to be published annually, do not ask the delicate question of whether the person using the hotline paid the bribe.

Trace argues that the hotline could help companies in practical ways, such as allowing them to improve their internal anti-bribery efforts. If data from a country showed that most bribes were requested by top officials, for example, the company could concentrate on training and supervising senior managers who travel to sign big contracts. Conversely, if the problem seems to be among junior functionaries, the business could create safeguards for the local staff who secure permits, visas and other documents.

There are limits to the conclusions that can be drawn from Bribeline. The data are unverified and provided by a self-selecting sample of people who know about the hotline and have access to it. And the hotline can tell only half the story of international corruption. It can map out how companies are targeted, but does not examine situations in which they may be the ones spontaneously offering the bribes.

Another potential problem for the hotline is malicious reporting. The anonymity of the process removes the possibility that people could use it to smear individuals. And Ms Gavin says the website has mechanisms to cut out automatically generated requests from the same computer.

But it would be hard to stop an obsessive who logged in day after day from a different internet cafe to make reports that were damaging to a particular country or international body. The one named organisation in the hotline questionnaire is the United Nations, a favourite target of critics who have a political agenda.

The initial surge of interest in Bribeline suggests that Trace has already succeeded in at least one respect: identifying an area in which people are hungry to share information and spot important trends.

"We can't guarantee that these reports are accurate," Ms Gavin says. "(But) the hope is that in an aggregate they will help paint a useful picture."

From Financial Times,  July 31,2007 
[top]

Bahrain bets on portal to cut costs

Bahrain expects its new e-government portal to help it cut expenses by up to 90 percent, according to a government official. "Bahrain is a small country and we do not have mass production, but we are talking of savings of 90 percent to 95 percent on overhead costs," Mohammed Al Qaed, spokesman for e-Government Services, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur. Al Qaed said the portal is expected to streamline business within government ministries and agencies and noted that since its launch last month, payment for government services via the internet has grown by 280 percent. The portal, www.e.gov.bh, currently offers 167 online services to citizens, and there are plans to extend electronic payment facilities to a number of municipal, court and customs services. In addition, the government has now enabled site users to pay for services with a debit card; until recently, only credit card holders could avail of the portal's e-payments service.

From enn.ie,  May 7,2007 
[top]

Cabinet Pledge to Fight Poverty

THE Cabinet yesterday pledged to step up efforts to fight poverty and renovate old towns and villages.

Ministers said this was in line with the government's determination to ensure the welfare and comfort of citizens.

They made their remarks at yesterday's session chaired by Deputy Premier Shaikh Mohammed bin Mubarak Al Khalifa.

The Cabinet congratulated Prime Minister Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa for the achievements in urban and housing fields. It extended thanks to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UN Habitat executive director and UN officials for conferring the UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour award on the Premier.

The Cabinet also hailed Shaikh Khalifa for the achievements in the field of human resources development.

It discussed the environmental situation in Tubli Bay in line with the recommendations proposed by the ministerial committee for public utilities.

It took a number of measures to protect the bay, revive marine life, purify its waters and pump more water into it. It also tasked the Municipalities and Agricultural Ministry to study the possibility of removing some factories near the bay and creating more sewerage plants in Muharraq and other places to alleviate the burden on the Tubli sewerage plant.

It gave green light to the establishment of an e-government organisation to propose policies and strategies and implement e-government programmes.

The Cabinet discussed a memo raised by the Information Ministry on the establishment of a general organisation for tourism.

This follows a study conducted by a specialised constancy firm in co-operation with the Economic Development Board and the tourism sector.

The Cabinet passed a draft law prohibiting the production, storage and use of chemical weapons and ordered their destruction if found.

After reviewing a memo submitted by the Justice and Islamic Ministry, the Cabinet approved a draft law seeking the re-formation of the council in charge of guardianship of minors' money and approved an agreement between the government and the Islamic Development Bank on purchase of equipment to be used for the third phase of the Hidd water plant.

The Cabinet was also informed on Parliament and Shura Council's approval of a draft law to amend certain provisions of the civil and commercial procedural law, to pave the way for its royal ratification and issuance by His Majesty King Hamad.

From http://www.gulf-daily-news.com,  July 16,2007 
[top]

Huge Savings Expected from Bahrain's New E-government Portal

Manama, Bahrain - Bahrain's new e-government portal, launched last month, is expected to help the government cut expenses up to 90 per cent, according to the official spokesman for Bahrain's eGovernment services.
'Bahrain is a small country and we do not have mass production, but we are talking of savings of 90 to 95 per cent on overhead costs,' Mohammed al-Qaed told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa this week.
The government also hopes to double the number of users who have residential internet access, some 33 per cent at present, over the next three years, al-Qaed said.
The e-government portal is expected to streamline business within the government ministries and agencies, the spokesman said. Since it was launched last month, usage of the portal has increased payment for government services via the internet by 280 per cent, officials said.
Although the system is too new to give an estimate of the savings so far, al-Qaed quoted studies by German institutions and the United Nations that gave a measure of what might be expected.
For example, a single government transaction for electricity and water that would cost on average Bahraini Dinar (BD) 3 (8 US dollars) can be reduced to 600 Fils (1.6 dollars) using electronic banking and only 200 fils (0.5 dollars) if conducted via the e- government portal, according to the studies cited by al-Qaed.
The savings would be quite large, given that the government spent BD 100 thousand last month alone to pay for electrical services.
On the private side, more than 50 per cent of Bahrainis have some kind of internet access at present, and according to al-Qaed the government plans to provide free internet access at various government locations around the island in coming months.
He added that they were currently working to allow for and expand existing electronic payments of various municipal, court, and customs services.
At present the eGovernment gateway www.e.gov.bh offers 167 government services to the public.
Al-Qaed's comments came on the sidelines of a signing ceremony Wednesday in Manama that officially inaugurated a system to enable debit card holders, who are around three times the number of credit card users in Bahrain, to make payments via the ePayment gateway.
The move is expected to create a great jump in usage of the e- government portal by enabling over 70 per cent of the Gulf island's residents to make payments through it.
Director of Treasure at the Ministry of Finance, Nabeel al-Doy, who signed the agreement on behalf of the government with Al Ahli United Bank, pointed out that his government was the first Arab government to accept credit card payments for government services via the ministries' websites as early as 1997.
Yearly income from credit card payments in the ministries of Bahrain has reached BD30 million a year, al-Doy told the press conference.
'We are expecting these figures to double in coming years following the introduction of the e-government portal,' he said.

From http://news.monstersandcritics.com/,  June 30,2007 
[top]

Dubai School of Government Presents Case Study on UAE's E-voting Process at Vienna UN Forum

The Forum, currently being held at UN headquarters in Vienna, Austria, runs until 29 June.

Nabil Alyousef, Executive President of DSG, headed the workshop on Thursday, which was attended by a number of senior officials including Guido Bertucci, Director of the Division for Public Economics and Public Administration, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations and Dr. Chung Nam, Director of Government Innovation, Ministry of Government Administration and Home affairs, Republic of Korea.

Dr. Yasar Jarrar, Executive Dean of DSG, presented the case study which assesses the role of knowledge management in the e-voting process in the UAE's first election for the UAE's Federal National Council (FNC).

In his presentation at the UN forum, Dr. Jarrar said: 'Knowledge management can play an important role in widening social acceptance of e-government processes such as e-voting through increased transparency and enhancing trust in government.'

The paper pointed out that a certain amount of trust in the government is a prerequisite for social acceptance of e-voting, regardless of the country's e-readiness level.

'The overall trust in the political system would clearly require a more comprehensive government overhaul of the economic, social and democratic approaches. Achieving a certain level of trust in the government is one prerequisite for introducing e-voting system, coupled with a certain level of social acceptance of ICT,' said Dr. Jarrar.

The move towards e-voting in the UAE was marked by the federal government's establishment of the National Election Committee (NEC) in August 2006 to supervise the poll process. One of the early decisions reached by the NEC was to use electronic measures for authentication as well as for the casting and counting of votes.

The committee viewed the e-voting system as 'modern' and as 'a symbol of the UAE's progress as an IT savvy country'. In addition to this positioning factor, the NEC opted for e-voting because it is 'easy to use,' 'most secure system for voting,' 'more transparent than the manual methods' and can 'deliver results in a very short period.'

The overall turnout in the UAE's first political participation process, and the first e-voting in an Arab country, amounted to 74.4 per cent of the Electoral College, suggesting relatively high social acceptance. The case study highlighted results of a survey conducted by Dubai Consultancy Research and Media Centre (DCRMC). Commissioned by the National Elections Committee, DCRMC's survey showed that the e-voting system had received 93.5 per cent satisfaction rate.

Alyousef pointed out the importance of knowledge management and said this is not restricted to information access alone, but involves maximising its use for the benefit of the public.

Considering the changing role of governments around the world in the light of evolving international circumstances, AlYousef's point presents a major challenge in terms of gaining access to premium knowledge management. However, the critical areas are expected to be in coordinating and accessing information quickly, accurately, and comprehensively.

During the workshop, Bertucci stressed the importance of information to improve government services and said the key lies in adapting it to the needs of the 21st century.

Dubai School of Government (DSG) is a member of the UN 7th Global Forum's Institutional Partners group. It is leading a large Arab delegation at the forum with more than 100 senior government officials from across the Arab world.

Since its establishment in 2004, Dubai School of Government has been focusing on promoting good governance by enhancing the region's capacity for effective public policy. DSG has also worked with other governments in the Arab world to achieve this goal.

From http://www.ameinfo.com,  June 28,2007 
[top]

Delays Plague Health-card Renewal Through E-government

“Now, you have to wait for at least three days,” an expatriate, who has been availing of the facility without any delays for the past three years, told Gulf Times yesterday.
The biggest advantage of renewing health card through the e-government portal was that one could collect the new card after 24 hours from the Health Card Office, provided the application was made on a working day and the next day was also a working day.
If the application was made on a holiday, the card would be ready after one working day. Further, if the subscriber opted for delivery through the post, at extra charge, the health card would be received within three or four days.
On the contrary, if the renewal were done through the Primary Health Centre concerned or the specific counters at Hamad General Hospital, it would take at least one month to get the new card.
“As I had renewed the health cards of my family members and myself through e-government on a Saturday, I went to the Health Card Office on Monday, but the lady at the counter took my receipts and asked me to come back after three days,” the aggrieved user said.
When queried about the unprecedented delay, the lady replied that “they were busy with lot of things”. When the applicant went again on the fourth day, he received the cards.
It is learnt that the increasing numbers of health card applications have affected the efficiency of the system.
“If very few residents used e-government to renew health cards initially, now more and more people are relying on it, increasing the load on HMC’s department concerned,” a source said.
The staff in charge are trying their best to cope with the rush, another source added while expressing hopes that the efficiency of the system would be regained shortly.

From http://www.gulf-times.com,  July 14,2007 
[top]

Huge Savings Expected from Bahrain's New E-government Portal

(MENAFN - Khaleej Times) Bahrain's new e-government portal, launched last month, is expected to help the government cut expenses up to 90 per cent, according to the official spokesman for Bahrain's eGovernment services.


"Bahrain is a small country and we do not have mass production, but we are talking of savings of 90 to 95 per cent on overhead costs," Mohammed Al Qaed told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa this week.

The government also hopes to double the number of users who have residential Internet access, some 33 per cent at present, over the next three years, Al Qaed said.

The e-government portal is expected to streamline business within the government ministries and agencies, the spokesman said. Since it was launched last month, usage of the portal has increased payment for government services via the internet by 280 per cent, officials said.

Although the system is too new to give an estimate of the savings so far, Al Qaed quoted studies by German institutions and the United Nations that gave a measure of what might be expected.

For example, a single government transaction for electricity and water that would cost on average Bahraini Dinar (BD) 3 (8 US dollars) can be reduced to 600 Fils (1.6 dollars) using electronic banking and only 200 fils (0.5 dollars) if conducted via the e- government portal, according to the studies cited by Al Qaed.

The savings would be quite large, given that the government spent BD 100 thousand last month alone to pay for electrical services.

On the private side, more than 50 per cent of Bahrainis have some kind of internet access at present, and according to Al Qaed the government plans to provide free internet access at various government locations around the island in coming months.

He added that they were currently working to allow for and expand existing electronic payments of various municipal, court, and customs services.

At present the eGovernment gateway www.e.gov.bh offers 167 government services to the public.

Al Qaed's comments came on the sidelines of a signing ceremony Wednesday in Manama that officially inaugurated a system to enable debit card holders, who are around three times the number of credit card users in Bahrain, to make payments via the ePayment gateway.

The move is expected to create a great jump in usage of the e- government portal by enabling over 70 per cent of the Gulf island's residents to make payments through it.

Director of Treasure at the Ministry of Finance, Nabeel Al Doy, who signed the agreement on behalf of the government with Al Ahli United Bank, pointed out that his government was the first Arab government to accept credit card payments for government services via the ministries' websites as early as 1997.

Yearly income from credit card payments in the ministries of Bahrain has reached BD30 million a year, Al Doy told the press conference.

"We are expecting these figures to double in coming years following the introduction of the e-government portal," he said.

From http://www.menafn.com/ ,  June 30,2007 
[top]

System to Monitor Ministries

His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has announced the setting up of a special team of "mystery clients" and an integrated system of performance management to monitor ministries' achievements and ensure proper implementation of the federal government strategy.

The announcement was made at a Cabinet meeting, held in an informal setting in Dadna in Fujairah yesterday, and was attended by Shaikh Hamdan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister.

The two-day Cabinet meeting reflects Shaikh Mohammad's keenness to adopt a flexible approach in government administration and follow up the progress of work on the government strategy that was approved by President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan in April.

From http://archive.gulfnews.com/ ,  July 14,2007 
[top]

Contextual Barriers to Strategic Implementation: An Examination of Frontline Perspectives

Karen A Meers.
Abstract (Document Summary)
Frontline employees are a valuable asset to many firms, but have been overlooked as a resource for strategic implementation. This study measured the effectiveness of a newly implemented account management telemarketing program and asked frontline associates to identify the barriers to successful implementation of the initiative. The sample consisted of 68 customer service representatives from a Fortune 500 company in the United States who had telemarketing calls added to their existing job tasks as a strategy to improve customer satisfaction ratings. Effectiveness ratio data were collected twice over an eight week period to determine changes in telemarketing performance. Interview data were collected to determine the participants' perspectives on barriers to the successful implementation of the program. The participants revealed that job-reality mismatches were responsible for the four contextual barriers that hindered implementation success: 1) telemarketing was viewed as a low priority by the customer service associates in direct opposition to the perceptions of the management team; 2) stress and overload resulted from interfering job tasks and time pressures; 3) managers and associates lacked telemarketing experience; and 4) telemarketing was resisted. Practical implications for utilizing frontline feedback in the strategic process to proactively address job-reality mismatches and implementation challenges are discussed. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

From Journal of American Academy of Business, Vol.11, Iss. 2;,  January 8,2007 
[top]

No Signs the Digital Divide is Closing

The digital divide is alive and well in California and may get worse unless policymakers take steps to address it, according to a new report.

Whether Californians have a high-speed connection to the Internet depends a lot on where they live and who they are, according to the report, which was issued earlier this week by the Public Policy Institute of California. Perhaps most strikingly, the report suggests that many Californians still can't even sign up for broadband connections because they're simply not available.

"The availability question still has not been answered," said Jed Kolko, a research fellow at the PPIC, which is based in San Francisco.

Among households with income greater than $100,000, broadband adoption was 68 percent in 2005, that last year for which the report had data. In that same year, broadband adoption among households with income below $25,000 was 24 percent.

In terms of regional differences, adoption ranged from just above 50 percent in and around the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles to just 21 percent in the rural Central Sierra region.

Some of those regional differences can be explained by their relative affluence and rates of computer ownership, according to the report. But data analyzed in the report suggests much of the difference has to do with broadband not being as available in rural areas as it is in urban ones.

Because the technology underlying broadband is relatively expensive to roll out and set up, the broadband divide is likely to prove difficult to close, said Kelko.
To address the access problem, the report recommended that policymakers focus on using state funds to provide broadband access in rural areas.

But another key stumbling block to broadband adoption may be even more basic, according to the report. Many state residents still don't have a computer at home. Indeed, some 42 percent of state households with income less than $25,000 didn't have a computer, the report found.

However, the variations in broadband adoption went beyond regional and income differences. There were similar divides among different racial and ethnic groups.

Some 63 percent of Asian Americans had broadband at home, according to the report. Among whites and Hispanics, broadband penetration was 46 percent. Just 36 percent of African Americans had broadband.

There was one bit of good news in the report for the state: broadband adoption in California continues to outpace that of the nation as a whole. Some 47 percent of state households have broadband access at home, compared to 39 percent of ones nationwide.

From http://www.mercurynews.com,  December 7,2007 
[top]

Town of Wheatfield's Web Site Aims to Bring E-government to the People

Residents of Wheatfield can soon get every type of form they need from the Town Hall with just the click of a mouse.

The Town of Wheatfield’s webmasters, Don Wallace and Nancy Rosie, are working to get all forms and permits online so residents can just print out a copy from home, fill it out and bring it into Town Hall.

“Some forms are interactive but not how we would like them,” Wallace said. “We are working on getting them to a point where one day they could be filled out online.”

But for now, residents can save one trip to Town Hall and print out such things as building permits, licenses, rezoning applications, STAR program forms, firearms permits and more.

From http://www.niagara-gazette.com,  November 7,2007 
[top]

Executives Get the Blogging Bug; More CEOs Openly Post Their Views on Work, Life; The Tale of a Colonoscopy

The Internet can be a dangerous place -- even for a CEO.

John Mackey, chairman and chief executive of Whole Foods Market Inc. is the latest to learn that lesson, after he was revealed this week as the author, under a pseudonym, of pro-Whole Foods comments on an Internet stock-message board. Mr. Mackey also maintains a blog that has attracted the attention of federal antitrust regulators.

More CEOs and other top executives are venturing online, most notably with signed blogs, or personal Web pages on which they opine openly. Blogs offer CEOs a way to communicate with investors, employees and customers, and to defend themselves when under fire. Top-level corporate bloggers include Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems Inc., J.W. "Bill" Marriott Jr., chairman and CEO of Marriott International Inc., Michael Critelli, executive chairman of Pitney Bowes Inc., and Robert Lutz, a vice chairman of General Motors Corp.

Done well, "a blog is an extremely effective way of articulating a vision," says Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging consultant and author of "The Corporate Blogging Book."

But blogs, chat rooms and stock-message boards also pose pitfalls, particularly for executives unaccustomed to unfiltered dialogue. Some CEOs deliberately stay away from newsy or controversial subjects in their posts, and many companies now review executive writings before they are posted online.

Some executives comfortable in the online world questioned the wisdom of Mr. Mackey's actions. "It's a huge mistake for a CEO of a public company to post under an undisclosed handle," says Mark Cuban, the billionaire majority owner of professional basketball's Dallas Mavericks, president of HDNet and an avid blogger himself. He began his own blog in March 2004 as a response to a reporter who Mr. Cuban thought had taken his answers out of context. His first entry consisted of posting their entire email exchange.

Last month, Mr. Cuban wrote about his colonoscopy: "One minute I'm talking rugby, the next I'm waking up, picking up the conversation where I left off and being told to 'dispell the air in my system.'" Because he doesn't work for a public company, "no one monitors or screens my work," Mr. Cuban wrote in an email interview. "I have unlimited space to say exactly what is on my mind and no timetable but my own in which to say it."

The CEO of job site Jobster Inc. attracted criticism from other bloggers last year after writing online about his iPod playlist as rumors swirled that the company was planning layoffs. Giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was embarrassed after a public-relations agency set up a pro-Wal-Mart blog but didn't fully reveal the identities of the bloggers. Countless executives have been haunted by ill-considered emails.

Mr. Mackey's postings under a false name were very different from a signed blog entry. While many bloggers yesterday criticized his behavior, legal experts yesterday said it was unclear whether he had violated securities law by touting Whole Foods' stock and denigrating that of Wild Oats Markets Inc., a rival that Whole Foods now wants to buy.

It appears from his voluminous postings that at times Mr. Mackey made financial predictions that weren't readily available from company disclosures to the markets.

At the 2006 annual meeting, Mr. Mackey told shareholders the company would hit $12 billion in sales by 2010, doubling its sales in five years. Less than a week later, under the pseudonym "rahodeb," he was even more confident in an online posting: "The upgraded prediction of $12 billion is most likely conservative. Won't surprise me if the number ends up close to $14 billion in 5 years."

Later the same month, defending himself against a charge that he was a stock "pumper," rahodeb predicted that "operating cash flow for 2006 will be up at least another 20% just as it is every year." Despite his rosy prediction, operating cash flow in fiscal 2006 rose only 10.2%. A Whole Foods spokeswoman declined to comment on both postings.

Whether they are unlawful could depend on several factors, including whether the statements were misleading or intended to manipulate the price of the stock. Whole Foods also could argue that the Yahoo message board is freely open to the public. A Securities and Exchange Commission spokesman declined to comment.

So far, there appear to be few other consequences. A big Whole Foods investor said it was sticking by Mr. Mackey, and, as of midafternoon the Whole Foods board hadn't met to discuss the matter, according to a company spokeswoman. She declined to say whether any meetings were planned. Mr. Mackey declined an interview request yesterday. Whole Foods shares fell 50 cents, or 1%, to $39 in heavy trading on the Nasdaq.

Still, public-relations experts said Mr. Mackey's postings risked damaging Whole Foods' well-regarded brand. "Their trust bank is probably sufficient enough to weather this storm, but it chips away at some of their golden brand, because they go from being the company that cares about our health to just another company," said Richard S. Levick, who runs Levick Strategic Communications, a crisis- communications firm.

Mr. Mackey's choice of forum was unusual as well. Stock-message boards were popular for a time during the tech-stock boom in the late 1990s, but fell out of favor after reports that investors had used the boards to circulate rumors that moved share prices. Most posts are anonymous, and few contain verifiable information. "It's the Wild West if you're going to use that stuff," says Todd Clark, director of stock trading at Nollenberger Capital Partners Inc. in San Francisco.

Mr. Mackey's postings recalled a 1999 incident involving mutual-fund giant Franklin Resources Inc. William Johnson, the son of then-CEO Charles Johnson, used a pseudonym (FlmMker9899) to defend the company and his father on an online message board. William Johnson wasn't a Franklin employee. Franklin Resources "has a longstanding internal policy that applies to all employees regarding public discussion in various public forums," spokeswoman Stacey Johnston said yesterday.

Forty of the country's biggest 500 companies now publish corporate blogs, according to the Fortune 500 Blogging Wiki, a collaborative tracking site. Technology companies such as Cisco Systems Inc., Oracle Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. embraced the idea early, but senior executives at industrial giants like Boeing Co. and GM have adopted the trend.

Mr. Critelli at Pitney Bowes started blogging last month. One post asserted that mail is more environmentally friendly than it gets credit for. "That's a very difficult concept to capture in a sound bite" but the blog allows him to explain it fully, he says.

The company's public-relations and legal teams review his posts, but have suggested only minor changes, he says. He likes the relative freedom of the blog, which notes that the views are his own. When he gave a speech as CEO, Mr. Critelli says, there were "multiple sign- offs and heavy edits." Now, "I tell them I welcome that feedback but not to hold it up."

Mr. Lutz, of GM, launched his FastLane blog in early 2005. He often writes about new products. Each proposed posting "is looked at by a number of eyes before it goes out to make sure it's accurate and we're not getting ahead of ourselves,"" says Steve Harris, the auto maker's vice president of public relations. In most cases, he says, "it goes through the way Lutz did it.""

Sun, which boasts about 3,500 employee blogs, publishes internal guidelines, with warnings such as, "Using your weblog to trash or embarrass the company, our customers or your co-workers is not only dangerous but stupid."" Sun's lawyers have told Mr. Schwartz not to disclose financial results or similar information solely in the blog.

Mr. Schwartz has been pushing the SEC to allow companies to post significant financial information on the Internet as a way to meet fair-disclosure rules. Last fall, Mr. Schwartz posted on his blog a copy of a letter on the subject that he sent to SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. Mr. Cox blogged back (and also sent a letter) applauding the idea but also raising some concerns.

Mr. Marriott, 75, is perhaps the most unusual corporate blogger. He doesn't use a computer. Instead, he records his musings on a digital recorder, which is then transcribed and posted to the Internet by a Marriott employee.

His blog discusses the hotel industry, but is also highly personal. Entries recount the birth of his granddaughter, memories of his parents' root-beer stand, and thoughts on immigration reform.

---

Tamara Audi, Russell Gold, Justin Lahart and Kara Scannell contributed to this article.

From Wall Street Journal,  July 13,2007 
[top]

Google Still Using E.U. Data Retention Ruse to Justify Massive Data Collection

Google's Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer continues to mislead the public about why Google keeps detailed logs on its customers searches and internet activity. In a blog entry posted yesterday to the Google Public Policy Blog, Fleischer writes that tdrives Google's retention policy is driven by the E.U. data retention policy -- designed to make it easy for police to identify who sent an email and what emails, phone calls and text messages a person sent. Google's policy is a complicated beast that keeps personally identifiable logs for all of its services globally 18 months, at which time Google attempts to anonymize the data by losing a few digits of the IP addresses of entries in the logs.

It's a convincing argument, but it's a misleading one. The E.U. Data Directive applies only to certain kinds of data (see Article 5 in previous link) -- such as IP addresses of a person using an email service, dates and times of the use of an ISP, etc. But none of those categories can be read as applying to internet searches. Gmail and Google Talk are likely covered, and perhaps features in Google's online office documents that let you send a document to another person are covered.

Fleischer has been making this argument for months now, and even Threat Level bought it the first go-round. But let's reiterate: There is no United States or E.U. law that requires Google to keep detailed logs of what individuals search for and click on at Google's search engine. It's simply dishonest to continually imply otherwise in order to hide the real political and monetary reasons that Google chooses to hang onto this data.

Google is keeping the data because its engineers love mining the data and because holding onto the data makes law enforcement agencies happy. How often do law enforcement agents or lawyers in divorce cases show up at Google HQ with subpoenas? No idea because Google refuses to make that data public, despite being perfectly free to do so. They say that keeping that number a secret is simply industry practice.

If Google really wanted to be the privacy leader among search engines, there's a lot it could do. For instance, it could stop issuing cookies to anonymous users that last for decades. Google claims that it uses user data to improve personalization. But it doesn't give its users clear, realistic and user-friendly choices about how they want to balance privacy versus personalization.

For instance on the user sign-up page, Google currently automatically enrolls users in to a system that records and analyzes everything they do on the Web, with zero explanation that the "feature" involves recording, in perpetuity, every url visited while logged into their Google account. Instead, users are simply told to turn on the feature to help Google personalize its results. God forbid, the bleeding edge tech company that claims as its corporate mantra "Don't Be Evil" could offer a range of options -- from "Keep my data for 18 months" to "Clean out my data weekly. I'm not interested in personalization."

It's technically very simple for Google to implement via a series of scheduled comparisons of user preferences against logs and even easier for it to stop opting new users into an online panopticon. But the company seems wholly uninterested in actually being a privacy leader, despite their assurances and misleading arguments to the contrary.

From http://blog.wired.com,  December 7,2007 
[top]

Googlesoft

Google might not like the idea but it feels more like Microsoft by the day. A plucky upstart fewer than 10 years ago, it is now the most feared company in the internet sector. Just as Microsoft once towered above the software industry and terrified rivals whenever it entered a new area, Google now does the same.

The search giant's market capitalisation weighs in at almost Dollars 170bn. That dwarfs the combined Dollars 120bn value of the other internet heavyweights - Ebay, Yahoo, Amazon and IAC. Throw in old media giant Viacom and Google still comfortably tips the scales.

Is Google really worth so much relative to its peers? Probably. Citigroup expects it to make operating profits of Dollars 5.3bn this year, an increase of 50 per cent. The others are expected to generate about Dollars 3.9bn altogether, with blended growth of

20 per cent. If Google can maintain anything like its stellar performance in search-related advertising for a few more years, its forward price/earnings multiple of 36 times will start to look vaguely reasonable.

Google continues to tighten its grip on search. Its global share now tops 65 per cent, according to Comscore. However, while users are increasingly tied to Google through personalised home pages, its dominance is not locked in by software on desktops, as Microsoft's was. Users can still click away at the touch of a mouse, if a better search engine appears.

That is unlikely to stop regulators becoming anxious that Google has too much control as a gatekeeper of information on the internet and is overly powerful in serving advertisements. Just as some of Microsoft's moves in the late 1990s fuelled concerns over dominance and, in some cases, privacy, Google has attracted scrutiny from privacy advocates and antitrust regulators for its acquisition of DoubleClick.

Google is sure to face more pressure from regulators as it plugs new software services into its dominant search platform. If it really is like Microsoft, however, by the time regulators catch up and put it under real pressure, its glory days will be fading already.

From Financial Times,  December 7,2007 
[top]

Book Value; Face Value

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook is being touted as the new Steve Jobs, and his company as the next Google

OLDER people in particular are often taken aback by the speed with which the internet's "next big thing" can cease being that. It even happens to Rupert Murdoch, a septuagenarian media mogul. Two years ago he bought MySpace, a social-networking site that has become the world's largest. The other day, however, Mr Murdoch was heard lamenting that MySpace appears already to be last year's news, because everybody is now going to Facebook, the second-largest social network on the web, with 31m registered users at the last count.

Facebook was started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, a student at Harvard and not even 20 at the time, along with two of his friends. The site requires users to provide their real names and e-mail addresses for registration, and it then links them up with current and former friends and colleagues with amazing ease. Each Facebook "profile" becomes both a repository of each user's information and photos, and a social warren where friends gossip, exchange messages and "poke" one another.

Facebook is generating so much excitement this summer that bloggers are likening Mr Zuckerberg to Steve Jobs, the charismatic boss of Apple, and calling his company "the next Google" on the assumption that a stockmarket listing must be imminent. It may be. Mr Zuckerberg has rejected big offers from new- and old-media giants such as Yahoo! and Viacom. One of his three sisters, who also works for Facebook, has posted a silly video online that makes fun of Yahoo!'s takeover bid and sings about "going for IPO". And Facebook has advertised for a "stock administration manager" with expertise in share regulations.

And yet Mr Zuckerberg insists that he is "a little bit surprised about how focused everybody is on the 'exit'." The truth is that he is sick of talking about it. The venture capitalists backing Facebook may want to cash out, but Mr Zuckerberg is only 23 and doesn't need the money. He also happens to believe--rather as Google's young founders do--that he can, and should, change the world. A flotation would be a big distraction.

Metaphorically, Mr Zuckerberg views himself as similar to the pioneering Renaissance mapmakers who amassed and combined snippets of information and then charted new lands and seas so that other people could use their maps to find, say, new trade routes. In Mr Zuckerberg's case, the map charts human relationships. Whereas many of the other social networks on the web primarily help people to make new contacts online--whether for hanky panky, marriage or business--Mr Zuckerberg is exclusively interested in "mapping out" the "real and pre-existing connections" among people, he says.

The fancy mathematical name he has for this map is a "social graph", a model of nodes and links in which nodes are people and connections are friendships. Once this social graph, or map, is in place, it becomes a potent mechanism for spreading information. For instance, he says, "we automatically know who should have a new photo album," because as soon as one person uploads it to the site, all her friends see it, and the friends of friends might notice too.

Other social networks can also do this, of course, but Facebook is distinctive in several ways. First, it is currently considered classier than, say, MySpace. One academic researcher argues that Facebook is for "good kids", whereas MySpace is for blue-collar kids, "art fags", "goths" and "gangstas". Facebook's roots are indeed preppie. Mr Zuckerberg took Latin, Greek and fencing at Phillips Exeter Academy and started Facebook at Harvard, after all. From there it spread to other elite universities, and it only opened up to the general population last September.

Mr Zuckerberg, however, thinks that the bigger difference is that Facebook is now becoming a "platform". By this he means that it is evolving into a technology on top of which others can build new software tools and businesses. In May Mr Zuckerberg opened Facebook up for outsiders to do just that, promising that any advertising revenues that third parties collect within Facebook are theirs to keep. Already, thousands of little tools have been created that allow Facebook users to share and discover music, play Sudoku, lend each other money, and so on. These toys can then spread through the social graph. If one user plays Sudoku, his friends see it and might try it too. These innovative uses of the social graph are, in Mr Zuckerberg's mind, the precise analogy to the trade routes that were found once the ancient mapmakers had done their part.

The cartographer of human connections

Clever though this is, the comparisons to Mr Jobs and Google are not merited yet. Mr Zuckerberg has evidently studied Mr Jobs's speaking style closely; and just as Mr Jobs is known for his uniform of jeans and a black mock-turtleneck, so Mr Zuckerberg has turned his combination of Adidas sandals, jeans and fleece sweaters into a trademark. But he has not had the chance to prove whether he has Mr Jobs's abilities to triumph over adversity and deliver not just one big idea, but a string of them.

Mr Zuckerberg is about to be tested in two ways. A three-year-old lawsuit is coming to court in which he is accused, in effect, of stealing the idea for Facebook from three other Harvard students. And if Facebook really is going to do a Google and go public, he will have to convince investors that mapmaking can be a business. One of its investors recently said revenues might come to $100m this year. But it is not clear how much of this comes from one big deal with Microsoft, which needs Facebook as a partner and might even like it as a division. Advertising, the obvious business model, does not seem to work well on Facebook, perhaps because people go there to socialise, not to shop. Trying to make money in other ways could be risky, since it might alienate users and damage the social graph. And it is, remember, awfully easy for one "next big thing" to be overtaken by the next.


The Economist. London: Jul 21, 2007. Vol. 384, Iss. 8538; pg. 72
» Jump to indexing (document details)
Full Text (1027 words)
(Copyright 2007 The Economist Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved.)


Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook is being touted as the new Steve Jobs, and his company as the next Google

OLDER people in particular are often taken aback by the speed with which the internet's "next big thing" can cease being that. It even happens to Rupert Murdoch, a septuagenarian media mogul. Two years ago he bought MySpace, a social-networking site that has become the world's largest. The other day, however, Mr Murdoch was heard lamenting that MySpace appears already to be last year's news, because everybody is now going to Facebook, the second-largest social network on the web, with 31m registered users at the last count.

Facebook was started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, a student at Harvard and not even 20 at the time, along with two of his friends. The site requires users to provide their real names and e-mail addresses for registration, and it then links them up with current and former friends and colleagues with amazing ease. Each Facebook "profile" becomes both a repository of each user's information and photos, and a social warren where friends gossip, exchange messages and "poke" one another.

Facebook is generating so much excitement this summer that bloggers are likening Mr Zuckerberg to Steve Jobs, the charismatic boss of Apple, and calling his company "the next Google" on the assumption that a stockmarket listing must be imminent. It may be. Mr Zuckerberg has rejected big offers from new- and old-media giants such as Yahoo! and Viacom. One of his three sisters, who also works for Facebook, has posted a silly video online that makes fun of Yahoo!'s takeover bid and sings about "going for IPO". And Facebook has advertised for a "stock administration manager" with expertise in share regulations.

And yet Mr Zuckerberg insists that he is "a little bit surprised about how focused everybody is on the 'exit'." The truth is that he is sick of talking about it. The venture capitalists backing Facebook may want to cash out, but Mr Zuckerberg is only 23 and doesn't need the money. He also happens to believe--rather as Google's young founders do--that he can, and should, change the world. A flotation would be a big distraction.

Metaphorically, Mr Zuckerberg views himself as similar to the pioneering Renaissance mapmakers who amassed and combined snippets of information and then charted new lands and seas so that other people could use their maps to find, say, new trade routes. In Mr Zuckerberg's case, the map charts human relationships. Whereas many of the other social networks on the web primarily help people to make new contacts online--whether for hanky panky, marriage or business--Mr Zuckerberg is exclusively interested in "mapping out" the "real and pre-existing connections" among people, he says.

The fancy mathematical name he has for this map is a "social graph", a model of nodes and links in which nodes are people and connections are friendships. Once this social graph, or map, is in place, it becomes a potent mechanism for spreading information. For instance, he says, "we automatically know who should have a new photo album," because as soon as one person uploads it to the site, all her friends see it, and the friends of friends might notice too.

Other social networks can also do this, of course, but Facebook is distinctive in several ways. First, it is currently considered classier than, say, MySpace. One academic researcher argues that Facebook is for "good kids", whereas MySpace is for blue-collar kids, "art fags", "goths" and "gangstas". Facebook's roots are indeed preppie. Mr Zuckerberg took Latin, Greek and fencing at Phillips Exeter Academy and started Facebook at Harvard, after all. From there it spread to other elite universities, and it only opened up to the general population last September.

Mr Zuckerberg, however, thinks that the bigger difference is that Facebook is now becoming a "platform". By this he means that it is evolving into a technology on top of which others can build new software tools and businesses. In May Mr Zuckerberg opened Facebook up for outsiders to do just that, promising that any advertising revenues that third parties collect within Facebook are theirs to keep. Already, thousands of little tools have been created that allow Facebook users to share and discover music, play Sudoku, lend each other money, and so on. These toys can then spread through the social graph. If one user plays Sudoku, his friends see it and might try it too. These innovative uses of the social graph are, in Mr Zuckerberg's mind, the precise analogy to the trade routes that were found once the ancient mapmakers had done their part.

The cartographer of human connections

Clever though this is, the comparisons to Mr Jobs and Google are not merited yet. Mr Zuckerberg has evidently studied Mr Jobs's speaking style closely; and just as Mr Jobs is known for his uniform of jeans and a black mock-turtleneck, so Mr Zuckerberg has turned his combination of Adidas sandals, jeans and fleece sweaters into a trademark. But he has not had the chance to prove whether he has Mr Jobs's abilities to triumph over adversity and deliver not just one big idea, but a string of them.

Mr Zuckerberg is about to be tested in two ways. A three-year-old lawsuit is coming to court in which he is accused, in effect, of stealing the idea for Facebook from three other Harvard students. And if Facebook really is going to do a Google and go public, he will have to convince investors that mapmaking can be a business. One of its investors recently said revenues might come to $100m this year. But it is not clear how much of this comes from one big deal with Microsoft, which needs Facebook as a partner and might even like it as a division. Advertising, the obvious business model, does not seem to work well on Facebook, perhaps because people go there to socialise, not to shop. Trying to make money in other ways could be risky, since it might alienate users and damage the social graph. And it is, remember, awfully easy for one "next big thing" to be overtaken by the next.

From The Economist,  July 21,2007 
[top]

MySpace Takes Steps to Repel the Invaders

MySpace is likely to change its technology strategy to allow other online companies to "plug" their web services directly into its social networking site, according to Chris DeWolfe, one of its founders.

The move would mark a new step in the evolution of social networks into fully fledged internet platforms while opening a new front in the battle for audience share among the web's fastest growing companies.

The expected change in approach is a reaction to the success of rival Facebook, which last month unveiled a similar step to open its network to outside developers.

Although it has fewer than half as many users inthe US as News Corp-owned MySpace, Facebook's approach has won it strong backing from other consumer internet companies, which hope it will give them an easier way to reach the network's 27m members.

More than 1,000 applications and services are already available, such as allowing users to add a box that keeps track of when their favourite bands are playing concerts nearby.

"The (Facebook) platform is interesting," Mr DeWolfe said in an interview with the Financial Times.

He argued MySpace's current technology approach gave its users many of the same benefitsbut said: "We'll probably offer users the choice of both."

The aim was to attract more online companies to create services for MySpace users. "We'll be bringing in more developers."

The race to lure other internet companies to build services on top of their networks reflects an attempt by the social networks to consolidate their recent audience gains and become central parts of the online landscape. Many internet companies, from Google to Ebay, have started making parts of their platforms available to outside developers, although Facebook's gambit marks a more radical attempt to turn itself into an "open" service.

However, the strategy raises sensitive financial issues that have yet to be resolved. Facebook has said any company that builds services on its network is free to make money from them, for instance, through advertising.

MySpace has taken a more restrictive attitude, blocking services that have tried to make money by advertising or selling directly to MySpace members.

Mr DeWolfe said MySpace was concerned not to allow uncontrolled advertising on to its network since that could undermine the experience for its users.

The change in approach being considered by MySpace could make it easier for users to add new elements, such as slide-shows, to their MySpace pages.

At present, members can only add an outside application like this by visiting the website of the company concerned, while in future they might be able to pick among a wider range of applications from inside MySpace itself, Mr DeWolfe said.

In addition to Facebook, another Valley upstart is looming larger on Mr DeWolfe's radar screen.

He says he expects YouTube soon to add new features in an attempt to turn its service into a fully fledged social networking site.

At the same time, he has his eye firmly on YouTube's own audience. MySpace upgraded its own video service this week with the launch of MySpaceTV. This is a YouTube-like service inten- ded to accelerate the site's transformation into a mainstream entertainment service.

The skirmish between these two giants of so-called user- generated content is set to have a powerful effect on the online media landscape.

From Financial Times,  June 29,2007 
[top]

Report: Avoid Getting Caught in Web 2.0 Tangle

Public officials should work to embrace new Web applications such as blogs but also be careful not to get “George Allen-ed” by what they say or do online, according to a new report from the IBM Center for the Business of Government.

Some political insiders started using the term “George Allen-ed” to refer to the former Virginia senator’s infamous use of racially charged language at a campaign rally. It seared through cyberspace via Web 2.0 applications such as YouTube and blogs, arguably costing him his re-election bid last fall. Still, more politicos and government executives are turning to new Internet-based applications to connect with constituents and the public at large.

“There are the professional benefits of better communication, [and] there are the PR benefits of more direct communications and clarity of message because of the no-filter situation,” said David Wyld, author of the IBM report and director of the Strategic e-Commerce/e-Government Initiative at Southeastern Louisiana University.

Federal agencies and their top bureaucrats are among those looking to take advantage of Web 2.0 tools to reach new audiences. Recently, the General Services Administration created a site on the USA.gov portal to showcase agencies’ active and archived blogs.

“What blogs are really about is engaging the public with the government,” said Bev Godwin, director of USA.gov. “There are people who read blogs more than they go to Web pages, and so it’s a way to get your information out, whether it’s about safety or [the] Library of Congress or anything else, into the blog community.”

But it is exactly this unfiltered, raw communication that offers the most potential pitfalls, the IBM report states. It lists several examples in which public officials’ misuse of blogs not only zapped their online presence but also jeopardized their careers.

“A lot of members of Congress are certainly more comfortable with talking points and talking on-script than they are with talking off-script,” said Tim Hysom, a spokesman for the Congressional Management Foundation, which monitors official congressional Web sites.

In 2006, fewer than 20 members of Congress had blogs on their sites, the foundation said, and GSA lists only about 10 agency blogs through USA.gov. Despite the slow start, experts think public-sector use of Web 2.0 applications will grow because of the tremendous upside of connecting with influential people.

Still, for bureaucrats and politicians used to communicating via press releases filled with talking points, blogs are a big adjustment.

“Blogs that are on message are not interesting, and they sharply remind the reader that the writer is incapable of seeing past his or her own official verbiage,” said David Weinberger, a research fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society who was also senior Internet adviser to the Howard Dean presidential campaign in 2004. “If you are just going to spit out talking points, then you shouldn’t bother blogging because you have lots of different spittoons for that stuff anyway.”

The IBM report offers 10 guidelines for public officials who blog:

Define yourself and your purpose.
Write the blog yourself.
Be sure to dedicate the necessary time to the blog.
Regularly post updates and respond to comments.
Don’t use the blog for self-promotion.
Accept criticism.
Run spell-check.
Don’t give the reader too much information.
Make the blog easy to use and try adding multimedia features.
Become a student of blogging and learn from others.

“You have got to make a personal commitment to the process and the technology involved,” Wyld said.

From http://www.fcw.com,  June 28,2007 
[top]

Canada achieves top e-government service ranking

Canada has set the bar in e-government service delivery for the fifth consecutive year, according to a report released this week by consulting firm Accenture.

But we can't afford to rest on our laurels. According to an Accenture spokesperson, there is still work to be done to meet citizens' growing expectations.

Titled Leadership in Customer Service: New Expectations, New Experiences, the Accenture report includes two major sections. The first is an assessment of the overall service maturity of governments surveyed.

For the second section, Accenture canvassed the views of 9,000 adults on how they felt about interacting with their governments online, in person, or via the telephone.

Of 22 countries surveyed in North America, Europe and Asia, Canada ranked first in customer service maturity in e-government. The U.S., Denmark, Singapore and Australia followed.

But according to Alden Cuddihey, a partner at Accenture's Canadian government operating group in Toronto, governments still have a long way to go in terms of how well services are offered in an integrated and seamless fashion, he said. "When you see the report and rankings, Canada still [emerges] as number one, and even though Canada and a few others are clear leaders, there is a lot of work ahead of them to achieve what we call true customer service" - defined as the ability to offer services to citizens through multiple, integrated channels.

To measure e-government service maturity, Accenture looked at four criteria: to what degree governments are able to offer services based on citizen segmentation; how well governments can deliver services through multiple channels; how fluid and integrated are the different levels of government when it comes to providing services; and how well the government communicates its ability to offer services.

On the communication front, Canada has done quite well, Cuddihey said. For instance, he said on arriving in Vancouver recently he saw several billboards with "quit smoking" messages from Health Canada and a 1-800 number that citizens could call to receive more information. Alternatively, a citizen can visit the Health Canada Web site, click on "Healthy Living" and link to a Web site which has tools and support for people trying to quit smoking. Citizens can also sign up for e-mails that include motivational messages and tips to help them be successful in their quitting efforts.

"This is an example of Canada making a concerted effort to reach out to citizens and let them know what services are available," while giving them options to access those services, he said.

However, the citizen survey section of the report tells another story about the levels of citizen satisfaction with government services, Chddihey said.

First, when people consider their experiences with government, they compare those experiences to the best service experience they ever had. "That becomes the benchmark by which we address how well government is doing," he said. The survey's general finding was that citizens are not satisfied with government services.

Additionally, people who have multiple interactions with government are often frustrated when they have to repeat details of the previous transaction, Cuddihey said. "There is a direct correlation between satisfaction and the degree to which government remembers who I am as a citizen," he said, adding that governments need to improve in that area.

Brent Staeben, spokesperson with Service New Brunswick (SNB), said his agency has worked hard to integrate transactions via various channels. A corporation owned by the Province of New Brunswick tasked with improving the delivery of government services to the public, SNB is becoming increasingly integrated with its partner departments on the database level.

The systems and interfaces SNB uses online and in its teleservices centre are based on the same technology. "So when you call up and want to renew your vehicle information, pay a fine, pay your municipal water bill, the call centre agent punches that information into the same system you would use when you're doing it yourself online." This means service is quicker and everyone has the same information, which keeps things seamless, Staeben said.

The Accenture report also found that people still prefer the telephone as the primary way to access government services, though they also had the highest level of dissatisfaction with the phone as a form of communication, primarily due to negative call centre experiences.

Ironically, the more services go online, the more demand for the call centre goes up, Cuddihey said. "I think often there is a view that online access to services will reduce [demand for] access to other channels. But the online channel might make people more aware of what services are available, which leads to more questions, and call centre use goes up."

However, Staeben said phone usage as a percentage of SNB transactions has actually dropped. "Our online transactions are eating into in-person and over-the-phone interaction."

He said the increased phone usage trend cited by Accenture may be a sign that citizens are dissatisfied with initial walk-in or online visits. "When you don't get the service you want at first contactb&you are really going to pick up the phone and start calling because you don't want to make a second trip. But what we find is the quality of service they're getting from us is so high," even during in-person visits, that it is making the rate of phone calls drop, he said.

Although Cuddihey said governments should definitely make all services available through the Internet, they should not stop there. "Citizens told us they do not want government to mandate access through one particular channel - they want choice."

From www.intergovworld.com,  October 7,2007 
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An Industry Outsider Takes Helm at ESA

Mike Gallagher takes the helm of the Entertainment Software Association — the trade group that represents video games — at a time of rapid growth and unprecedented prosperity in the industry. But Gallagher had virtually no name recognition inside the industry. He’s a former assistant secretary of commerce in the Bush administration – an attorney who’s worked in telecommunications, both in the private and public sector.

Gallagher’s ascension to head the organization coincides with the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), which kicks off today in Santa Monica. In our Q&A with the new president, Gallagher talked about the show’s new format, replacing ESA founder and president Doug Lowenstein, and how he plans to respond to those who seek to link video games with offscreen violence.

You’ve been in the public sector for the much of your career, mostly as an advisor in telecommunications policy. How has that prepared you to the head of the trade group representing the video game industry?

From http://www.msnbc.msn.com,  October 7,2007 
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10 Rules For Avoiding Identity Theft 'Mistakes'

The federal government is trying to clean up its act when it comes to ID theft. That includes lecturing CIOs on the basics of information security.

The federal Chief Information Officers Council was established in 1996, and codified into law by Congress in the E-Government Act of 2002. The CIO Council is described on its Web site like this: "The CIO Council serves as the principal interagency forum for improving practices in the design, modernization, use, sharing, and performance of Federal Government agency information resources." Membership on the Council is comprised of CIOs and deputy CIOs from 28 federal agencies, including the departments of Commerce, Defense, Justice, and State.

From http://www.informationweek.com/ ,  July 18,2007 
[top]

Broadband Baloney

Robert M. McDowell


American consumers are poised to reap a windfall of benefits from a new wave of broadband deployment. But you would never know it by the rhetoric of those who would have us believe that the nation is falling behind, indeed in free fall.

Looming over the horizon are heavy-handed government mandates setting arbitrary standards, speeds and build-out requirements that could favor some technologies over others, raise prices and degrade service. This would be a mistaken road to take -- although it would hardly be the first time in history that alarmists have ignored cold, hard facts in pursuit of bad policy.

Exhibit A for the alarmists are statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD says the U.S. has dropped from 12th in the world in broadband subscribers per 100 residents to 15th.

The OECD's methodology is seriously flawed, however. According to an analysis by the Phoenix Center, if all OECD countries including the U.S. enjoyed 100% broadband penetration -- with all homes and businesses being connected -- our rank would fall to 20th. The U.S. would be deemed a relative failure because the OECD methodology measures broadband connections per capita, putting countries with larger household sizes at a statistical disadvantage.

The OECD also overlooks that the U.S. is the largest broadband market in the world, with over 65 million subscribers -- more than twice the number of America's closest competitor. We got there because of our superior household adoption rates. According to several recent surveys, the average percentage of U.S. households taking broadband is about 42%; the EU average is 23%.

Furthermore, the OECD does not weigh a country's geographic size relative to its population density, which matters because more consumers may live farther from the pipes. Only one country above the U.S. on the OECD list (Canada) stretches from one end of a continent to another like we do. Only one country above us on this list is at least 75% rural, like the U.S. In fact, 13 of the 14 countries that the OECD ranks higher are significantly smaller than the U.S.

And if we compare many of our states individually with some countries that are allegedly beating us in the broadband race, we are actually winning. Forty-three American states have a higher household broadband adoption rate than all but five EU countries. Even large rural western states such as Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and both Dakotas exhibit much stronger household broadband adoption rates than France or Britain. Even if we use the OECD's flawed methodology, New Jersey has a higher penetration rate than fourth-ranked Korea. Alaska is more broadband-saturated than France.

The OECD conclusions really unravel when we look at wireless services, especially Wi-Fi. One-third of the world's Wi-Fi hot spots are in the U.S., but Wi-Fi is not included in the OECD study unless it is used in a so-called "fixed wireless" setting. I can't recall ever seeing any fixed wireless users cemented into a coffee shop, airport or college campus. Most American Wi-Fi users do so with personal portable devices. It is difficult to determine how many wireless broadband users are online at any given moment, since they may not qualify as "subscribers" to anyone's service.

In short, the OECD data do not include all of the ways Americans can make high-speed connections to the Internet, therefore omitting millions of American broadband users. Europe, with its more regulatory approach, may actually end up being the laggard because of latent weaknesses in its broadband market. It lacks adequate competition among alternative broadband platforms to spur the faster speeds that consumers and an ever-expanding Internet will require.

Europe also suffers from a dearth of robust competition from cable modem and fiber. Cable penetration is only about 21% of households. In the U.S., cable is available to 94% of all households. Also, the U.S. is home to the world's fastest fiber-to-home market, with a 99% annual growth rate in subscribers compared with a relatively anemic 13% growth rate in Europe.

In fact, the European Competitive Telecommunications Association reported last fall that Europe is experiencing a significant slowdown in the annual growth rate of broadband subscriptions, falling to 14% from 23% annual growth. Growth stalled in a number of countries, including Denmark and Belgium (4% in each country). And France -- a relative star -- exhibited just 10% growth. Yet all of these nations are "ahead" of us on the much-talked-about OECD chart.

Here in the U.S., the country that is allegedly "falling behind," broadband adoption is accelerating. Government studies confirm that America's broadband growth rate has jumped from 32% per year to 52%. With new numbers expected shortly, we anticipate a continued positive trend. Criticisms of our definition of "broadband" being too lax are already irrelevant as over 50 million subscribers are in the 1.5 to 3.0 megabits-per-second "fast lane."

Our flexible and deregulatory broadband policies provide opportunities for American entrepreneurs to construct new delivery platforms enabling them to pull ahead of our international competitors. For instance, newly auctioned spectrum for advanced wireless services will spark unparalleled growth and innovation.

Soon, we will auction even more spectrum in the broadcast TV bands to spur more broadband competition. In addition, we are in the midst of testing powerful new technologies to use in spectrum located in the "white spaces" between broadcast TV channels.

This is all wonderful news for our future. In a competitive market, consumer demand compels businesses to innovate. History has proven that, just when we think we are going to "run out" of spectrum, some brilliant entrepreneur finds a way to use the airwaves more efficiently.

By some estimates, since Marconi's first radio transmission 110 years ago spectrum capacity has doubled every two and a half years, while the cost of delivering information over wireless platforms has dropped by half every 42 months.

When the Internet was just used for email and static websites, dial- up services satisfied consumer demand. But when Napster came along, we saw a huge spike in cable modem and DSL take-up rates -- necessary tools in the art of stealing music. (Please obtain your music legally!)

Today, video applications are tugging hard on America's broadband infrastructure. YouTube alone uses as much bandwidth today as the entire Internet did in 2000. Not surprisingly, our broadband adoption rate continues to increase concurrently with the proliferation of this latest "killer app."

Consumers don't buy fat pipes for their own sake; they buy applications and content that require fat pipes. As consumer demand for more bandwidth-intensive applications and content increases, so does the incentive for network owners to provide more bandwidth. While America is on the right track, we can and will do more. We are creating more competition through the construction of new delivery platforms. We are clearing away unnecessary regulatory underbrush that may inhibit investment needed to fund more competition. We are also creating an atmosphere of regulatory certainty and parity.

When it comes to broadband policy, let's put aside flawed studies and rankings, and reject the road of regulatory stagnation. In the next few years, we will witness a tremendous explosion of entrepreneurial brilliance in the broadband market, if the government doesn't micromanage. Belief in entrepreneurs and a light regulatory touch is the right broadband policy for America.

---

From Wall Street Journal,  July 24,2007 
[top]

Biters Bit How Web Giants are Losing Business as Start-ups Scurry in

RICHARD WATERS


In the late 1990s, as the internet boomed, the bosses of many established companies were transfixed by the risk that some online upstart would spring from nowhere to up-end their business. Chief executives lived in fear of being "dotcommed".

A decade on, the fear is back. This time around, though, some members of the -original dotcom generation of disruptive internet companies are among those that are starting to run scared.

The extent to which the latest wave of online innovation is starting to wash up against some of the established internet powers was on display last week. Yahoo and Ebay, companies that can lay claim respectively to the biggest shares of the online display advertising and electronic commerce markets, sounded in contrite mood as they announced their latest earnings.

In both cases, the symptoms of the malaise can be seen in slipping growth rates and an admission that they have lost some of the creative dynamism that propelled them to global leadership in the first place.

"The user experience fell behind a little bit," Meg Whitman, Ebay chief executive, confessed of her company's slipping growth rate. From a company that has long been the leading case study in how to build and nurture communities doing business onthe internet, this amounted to quite an admission.

Ms Whitman's prescription: more innovation is needed across the board, in everything from Ebay's internal search engine to a revamped version of the feedback mechanism that lets buyers and sellers on Ebay's markets each rate how well the other performs. Ebay has also been racing into new businesses such as classified advertising and online comparison shopping.

Yahoo, whose position in online advertising has been seemingly as entrenched as Ebay's place in e-commerce, is suffering even more. Until now, the focus has been on the company's lagging search advertising business, reflecting a failure to keep pace with Google. It appears, though, that Yahoo's core business of online display advertising - a market Google is just beginning to enter - has also started to founder.

"We have not continually driven innovation in our display business," Sue Decker, Yahoo's new president, conceded last week. The internet company had stuck to the market it knew best, she added, selling space to big advertisers that wanted to run brand campaigns online. "We were slow to see the growing demand" for other types of online marketing, she added.

Admissions such as these do not just point to isolated instances of companies that took their eye off the ball. Rather, they are indicative of a broader shift. "The web has changed quite dramatically," says Ms Whitman, referring to the latest developments as "the next level of internet innovation".

Behind this lie the rising expectations of advertisers and internet users, the improved measurability of search advertising, the rise of social networks that meld communications and entertainment features in new ways, and experimentation with other "Web 2.0" technologies that have made the decade-old approaches of some of the "Web 1.0" giants look distinctly dated.

"This is changing things quite dramatically at the margin and exposing the complacency of the early leaders," says Roger McNamee, co-founder of Elevation Partners and a veteran valley financier.

In many ways, Google has become the poster-child for this new wave of inventiveness. With its striking attempt to embed creativity - the famous "20 per cent time" that allows engineers to pursue personal projects for one day a week - Google set out from the beginning to protect itself against the entropy that often afflicts companies as they get bigger.

Yet the pace of change has, in some important markets, outstripped even Google's ability to keep up. The most obvious examples were last year's purchase of YouTube for Dollars 1.65bn (Pounds 800m, Euros 1.19bn) and a down-payment of Dollars 900m to secure MySpace as an advertising partner, deals prompted by Google's failure to build successful video and social networking services of its own.

The root cause of this acceleration in online innovation, according to Ms Whitman, has been a fresh boom in start-up investment. This is a complete reversal of the market that companies such as Ebay and Yahoo faced in the first half of this decade. "The market dried up," the Ebay chief says of the access to venture capital available during those years. Disruptive new competitors were in short supply. "Now, we've seen the next wave of innovation." The change in speed has exposed the extent to which the big internet concerns sat back.

To be sure, the amount of money flowing into online company formation has not reached anything like the level of the dotcom boom. In the peak year of the bubble it topped Dollars 100bn, more than three times the amount likely to be put to work this year. However, US venture capitalists are currently investing at a faster rate than they have for almost six years, and at a level that is almost 50 per cent higher than in 1998, itself a historically active year in the start-up financing business.

That has been enough to trigger a race to capture some of the big new markets opening up online, from video to internet tele-phony. Innovation is happening "because everyone is pushing the gas pedal", says Bill Gurley, a partner at Benchmark Capital, a venture capital firm that first sprang to prominence during the dotcom boom thanks to its backing of companies such as Ebay.

This is the brand of capitalism that Silicon Valley knows best. To the more cautious managers of established companies, it can look reckless. An estimated 30 start-ups have, for example, raised venture capital to build consumer video sites. Many will fall by the wayside. Periods of overinvestment like this, however, lead to the sort of experimentation on which the Valley thrives and which has been the source before of unexpected upheaval.

"Risk is being discounted pretty dramatically," says Mr Gurley. "It does lead to quite disruptive ideas."

What does this wave of creativity mean for the established internet powers - not to mention the many traditional businesses in industries including media, retail, communications and software that are still trying to adjust to a world where many of their customers are now to be found online?

In one sense, the fate of companies such as Yahoo and Ebay lies in their own hands - as it always has for big companies with entrenched market positions that face a period of rapid change. They start with some of the world's most powerful consumer brands and audience reach that few offline companies can match. Yet their assets will quickly erode if they do not continually find better ways to please their customers.

Even Yahoo is only scratching the surface of the internet's real potential: the ability to deal with users based on personal interests and to exploit the interactive power of the medium to its full. When it comes to targeting advertisements and measuring and improving the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, "we're still at the experimentation stage", says Todd Teresi, head of Yahoo's display marketplaces business.

Jump-starting their stalled innovation machines will not be easy. Yet with massively more data at their fingertips about how users behave online, large and established companies such as Yahoo should still be in a strong position to lead the next round of innovation.

In some cases, though, the issues run deeper. The need for operational improvement is one thing; competing with a radically disruptive business model can be much more demanding. "All these guys are facing world-class cases of 'the innovator's dilemma'," says Mr McNamee, referring to the Clayton Christiensen book whose analysis of the problems established companies have competing with disruptive newcomers is the standard text on the issue. He puts much of this down to the emergence of new "person-to-person" businesses such as social networks, which are changing the behaviour of many online users.

Another engine of this disruption, adds Mr Gurley at Benchmark, is the flood of advertising making its way online. This is at the root of much of the experimentation taking place, he adds: virtually any business accustomed to receiving a subscription, transaction fee or other payment is facing competition from an advertising- supported rival.

Companies in industries such as software and telephony find themselves in the unenviable position of trying to guess how much of their business will move to this advertising-supported sector - and how quickly they need to respond. Acting too fast could undercut their existing sources of revenues needlessly, while moving too slowly will allow new rivals to become established.

For Microsoft, which faces encroachment from Google's advertising- supported internet applications, that threat means juggling two very different approaches. "The real opportunity is to be nimble enough to use a core code base in a variety of delivery mechanisms and support different business models when that's what the market merits," says Jeff Raikes, head of Microsoft's business division. One technical platform can, in other words, be employed to serve different sets of users, some of whom will pay while others will instead see advertisements.

If companies such as Microsoft are right, this Darwinian struggle need not lead to the extinction of established business leaders - even if succeeding in this world will take exquisite timing and a business agility that few giant corporations can manage.

According to the optimists, meanwhile, there will be enough to go around. Provided they act fast enough, the Yahoos and Ebays will remain powers on the internet, even as newcomers create large businesses from scratch. "I think both types of company will do well," says Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of Netscapewho has joined the latest start-up wave with Ning, his social networking company. "The market is so big now and there's so much to do."

There are, however, two caveats to this broadly optimistic view. One is that the need for new investment will prevent the internet giants from sitting back and reaping the rewards - structurally, the industry may be facing lower profit margins than had seemed likely. That seemed to be the message in last week's news that Google's costs had been rising rapidly. As Jerry Yang, Yahoo's co-founder and new chief executive, said: "Make no mistake: we are in investment mode." The full extent of those investments is still unclear.

The second caveat is that the history of this new business medium is still being -written. The internet is barely more than a decade old as a mass market phenomenon. Certainly, it seems that new businesses can still rise with remarkable speed. "Google came from nothing almost overnight," says Benchmark's Mr Gurley. What has yet to become clear is whether well-known internet businesses can fade almost as fast.

From Financial Times,  July 25,2007 
[top]

Ghana tops Africa on good governance

Ghana and South Africa received the highest marks of any African nations from the World Bank in its annual report on governance, entitled "Good Governance 2007".
The aid agency's global report for 2006, released Tuesday, shows mixed progress dating back to 1996 of Ghana's performance in the six governance dimensions. However, overall governance has improved and Ghana is proving superior to her peers in the rankings. The survey combines data from 33 publicly available sources to calculate worldwide governance indicators.

Ghana has improved its civil freedoms, government effectiveness and political stability, and has made extraordinary progress on corruption over the past decade. Yet, the rule of law has declined and lags behind figures from the year 2000. The ability of the government to formulate and implement both sound policies and regulations that permit and promote private sector development has also fallen.

The survey moulds indicators such as political stability, democracy, business environment and corruption into an annual snapshot of how the world’s 6.6 billion people are governed.

Moreover, it "demonstrates that governance can be measured, that poor governance is not an exclusive challenge of the developing world, and that reforming countries can make significant improvements in governance and in curbing corruption in relatively short periods of even less than a decade," according to a 2006 World Bank press release.

Summary for Ghana

Among the six categories listed in the report, Ghana is making improvements in four of the areas. The categories of Voice and & Accountability, Government Effectiveness, Rule of Law and Control of Corruption all received a higher rating than in 2005. Regulatory Quality stayed the same while Political Stability and Absence of Violence declined from its 2005 level.

In the category of Voice & Accountability, Ghana ranks in the sixtieth percentile worldwide. The figure has risen over 20 percent since 1996 and 10 percent in the last two years alone.

The areas within the category in which Ghana rated highest include human rights and press freedom. Based on the emphasis President J.A. Kufuor has put on freedom of speech, the press and human rights the government should be quite pleased at the results of this category.

Political Stability & Absence of Crime has climbed steadily since 1996 with the exception of a sub 40% score in 2000, just before Kufuor’s election.

Government Effectiveness rose from 1996-2000 and then fell sharply until 2004. Since then it has been increasing steadily and is likely to continue to do so. Ghana lifted itself back to its highest ranking ever in the quality of public services, civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures. Effectiveness in this area stems from the credibility of the government’s commitment to such policies.

Regulatory Quality saw no change in 2006 but remains below 1996 levels. This result indicates a struggle to promote and manage projects and services within the private sector.

Though the Rule of Law is lower than several of the other indicators at around the 50th percentile, it has declined slowly since seeing a dramatic increase between 1998 and 2000. Currently the rating in this category is behind that of the year 2000.

The cause for these numbers is unknown. It raises the question of whether or not all laws are being equally enforced. Is selective justice, the enforcement of some laws over others, common in this country? President Kufuor has always staked his political reputations on freedoms, and when such a policy is undertaken questions about the level of security inevitably arise.

Since 1996, despite a few plunges, Ghana has seen an overall increase in the Control of Corruption levels. From the year 2005-2006, an increase can be witnessed at a rapid rate.

The graph reports the margins of error at 5%, which corresponds to a 90% confidence interval. This means there is a 90% probability that the government is within the specified range.

Kenya, Algeria, Sierra Leone and Tanzania are examples of African countries making strides towards good governance, but, "other African countries still face enormous government and development challenges," a summary of the report said.

However, global efforts to cut corruption and improve government quality have made little progress in the last 10 years, despite bright spots in Africa and Eastern Europe.

The report shows several regions backsliding or stagnating since 2004 in the fight against graft, including East and South Asia, Latin America and even the rich nations in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The World Bank says companies and individuals pay an estimated 1 trillion dollars in bribes annually. Ghana has long been affected by bribery, but the increased figures in the Control of Corruption category suggest that the government is fighting to control such actions.

Finland and Singapore won top honors in fighting corruption. Denmark also won consistently high marks for governance among rich nations, while former Soviet states Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia made dramatic gains in the past five years.

The World Bank, which lends some 23 billion dollars a year for aid projects, began highlighting corruption as a drain on development and investment in the 1990s.

The report shows that Ghana is making great strides in order to prove the quality of life for its people. But it is imperative for this government, and the one that follows, to continue down the right course to ensure that Ghana remains one of the most stable countries in the region.

From http://www.thestatesmanonline.com,  December 7,2007 
[top]

China's Gloomy Governance Reform

PREMIER WEN JIABAO'S approval "in principle" of a draft national ordinance on openness of information on Jan. 17 caused top Chinese leaders to herald the daybreak of transparent governance. Once in force the statute would establish a national legal mandate for more transparent governance and pave the way for a more potent law on disclosure. Officials have characterized the ordinance as a key step in the "building of a 'sunshine' government," promising "release as a rule" at all levels of the country's vast bureaucracy. Hu Shuli, editor of China's influential Caijing Magazine, wrote a year ago of the proposed ordinance that "when looking back again after thousands of years, Chinese people will see that today is another new milestone in their history."

But tough questions remain about exactly how this will happen. For the ordinance to be truly effective, China's top leaders will have to take tough action to empower and protect news media across the country. However, what role Chinese news media will play in brokering the public's right to know is unclear, particularly given the growing pressures media have faced under Hu Jintao's government.

The whole process, up to now, has progressed in a fog of secrecy. China's top legislative body, the National People's Congress, has been working on this ordinance-officially known as the Government Information Release Ordinance-since March 2006. Originally due before the end of that year, the draft was constantly held up by internal squabbles between top officials who were determined to make it happen, and local officials and propaganda ministers who worried it could give too much power to citizens and the media. Political sensitivities over the legislation have kept it carefully under wraps even since Mr. Wen's approval. The details of the text have remained a mystery, and the public has been denied an opportunity to comment.

In a Feb. 14 article published in the People's Daily, Zhou Hanhua, a professor of law with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a key figure in the drafting process, finally offered a sneak peak at the legislation, one more tantalizing sign the ordinance is very close. First of all, said Mr. Zhou, the legislation would transform the present norm of "one-sided" disclosure and focus instead on "applicants' rights, so that people would have the right to obtain government information."

Secondly, the statute would require not only transparency in routine administrative procedures, but demand that governments release a "substantial" portion of the information in their hands. The legislation would establish four types of information release, including application from citizens, which Mr. Zhou referred to as "the blazing of a new trail." It would also specify various channels of "recourse" in the event governments refused to make information available. These would include administrative reconsideration and administrative litigation. Overall, Mr. Zhou says the proposed ordinance will provide "important protection in case the government does not release information through other means." These measures would, at least in principle, mark a historic shift from China's previous efforts on access to government information.

Some experts in China are confident the ordinance will succeed in exerting greater pressure on governments at all levels. "After the national ordinance goes into effect, the situation [in local areas] should improve," says Zhan Jiang, a professor of journalism at Chinese Youth University for Political Sciences. "Local governments will be under a lot of pressure."

China has made at least putative progress on information disclosure over the last few years. More than 80% of governments below the provincial level have so far implemented "public governance," according to figures from the State Council. But this means little more than that local governments now have Web sites where they post information at their discretion. The "public governance" mechanisms set up by departments of the State Council are similarly engineered as one-way streets, focusing on press-spokesperson systems and computerized operations.

It is an openness that smacks of public relations. Yang Haipeng, a former investigative reporter for Southern Weekend, says much information released by the government is for show, having been filtered through "multiple layers of bureaucracy." In the worst cases false information is leaked, such as real estate data that bucks up developers. "China's information-release system is simply another avenue for the propagation of lies," he says.

Even as top government officials began quietly ironing out the national information-release legislation last year, bans on coverage of such stories as the 40th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution underscored the determination of party officials to maintain a tight grip on public opinion.

The track record of a handful of city-level ordinances on public access to government information is not encouraging. Early last year, Ren Guosheng, a resident of Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, lodged a series of complaints with the city's planning bureau protesting the installation of metered parking spaces along city streets. Many residents felt the parking spaces had worsened the city's traffic situation and suspected unscrupulous dealings between officials and the meter company. Mr. Ren hired an attorney, and when the planning bureau refused to hand over the relevant permits and contracts, he sued using the city's openness of information statute. His appeal for access to planning bureau files was ultimately rejected, however. If he felt the planning bureau had not abided by its obligations, the court said, Mr. Ren could launch a complaint with the supervisory bodies responsible for investigating government neglect of duty. At present, the process of China's professed openness is marked with this sort of bureaucratic insularity.

This is why many say the legislation must include greater protections for Chinese news media if it is to be effective. But these protections seem increasingly far off during a time when press freedoms are increasingly under attack. Journalists say investigative reporting-which has flourished in relative terms since the 1990s-is becoming tougher and tougher under Mr. Hu. Some even say the news reports circulated exclusively in leadership circles are suffering as a result. Wu Muluan, a reporter with China Economic Daily, says: "I think that if this bigger picture doesn't change, a law on information disclosure will only be able to address a few minor issues, and won't be of much help to news media."

Peking University law professor Jiang Mingan wrote in an editorial not long ago that media restrictions should be relaxed, giving them the "right" to monitor corruption independently. Mr. Jiang urged leaders to begin working on a law to protect media. Independently, Zhang Jianjing, deputy editor-in-chief of China Economic Times, agrees better legal protections for media are a key issue: "What Chinese journalists need most is a law directly concerning news media, a law protecting their right to report and looking after their personal safety," he says. "Ultimately, that would make the biggest difference."

Protecting journalists and giving them greater independence touches on the contentious issue of press control in China, where "guidance of public opinion" remains the Party's supreme rule in media policy. This is not just about those mysterious missives raining down on a daily basis from the Central Propaganda Department. It's about the entire culture of journalism in China, where government offices cultivate close relationships with reporters, a process of co-option in which journalists risk morphing into publicists. Officials tend to avoid contact with journalists they do not recognize on the assumption they're working on an unfavorable story.

Last summer, Ma Cheng, a Shanghaibased reporter for the Liberation Daily newspaper, tried suing Shanghai's planning bureau on the basis of a local informationrelease statute after officials refused to provide information for a story he was working on. The case, which a handful of Chinese media prematurely heralded as a landmark, quickly fizzled out under local government pressure. Mr. Ma was removed from his post and no longer works as a reporter.

There is no doubt that national legislation establishing "release as a rule" would be a positive, even historic, turn of events for China. The ordinance would potentially mark the beginning of the end of "state secrecy" as the ad hoc rationalization for corruption, cruelty and incompetence. It would pressure governments at all levels to be more accountable for their actions, recognizing that their policies are meant to serve rather than manipulate the public.

But the Ma case in Shanghai underscores the challenges facing Chinese journalists as they press the government to live up to its promise of "sunshine" governance. If and when the information-release legislation makes it over the horizon this year, it is sure to meet staunch resistance from party and government officials who see control of information as an indispensable resource. Its effectiveness, therefore, will depend largely on the degree to which top leaders are prepared to match its commitments with real progress-perhaps beginning with discussion of a press law-toward a professional press empowered to monitor leadership at all levels without party or government interference. Of course, as made clear by the internal controversy presently holding back the openness of information legislation, this will be a long and touchy process, and we will have to wait for many more dawns.

[Author Affiliation]
Mr. Bandurski is a researcher at the China Media Project, a research program of the Journalism & Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong.

From Far Eastern Economic Review,  January 3,2007 
[top]

EU Rushes to Get New Treaty Set in Stone

The European Union is planning to rush its rewritten constitutional treaty on to the statute book at breakneck speed, with only Ireland certain to put thecontroversial text to areferendum.

Portugal, which takes over the EU presidency from Germany on July 1, aims to begin final legal work on the "reform" treaty at an intergovernmental conference starting on July 23.

Jose Socrates, the Portuguese prime minister, wants the text finalised with only the smallest legal changes in time for an informal EU summit in October, ensuring that the compromise agreed at last week's Brussels summit has little time to unravel.

"Our intention is to start working on it immediately," said Mr Socrates.

Lawyers will then translate the text into the 23 official languages in time for the leaders to sign the text at a summit in December.

If all went according to plan, the treaty would be ratified by all 27 member states next year, allowing it to enter force on January 1 2009.

That means a new, full-time EU president would have to be chosen in the autumn of 2008, with Tony Blair, the outgoing UK prime minister, regarded as a strong candidate for the job.

Officials drafting the new treaty were anxious to meet as many national demands as possible in order to limit the number of countries under pressure to ratify it in national referendums.

Ireland will hold a referendum; Bertie Ahern, Irish prime minister, conceded that the new treaty contains 90 per cent of the content of the constitutional treaty rejected by plebiscites in France and the Netherlands in 2005.

But the text includes technical tweaks specifically aimed at avoiding a referendum in Denmark, which would hold a public vote if the country's justice ministry detected a transfer of sovereignty to Brussels.

The changes include a stipulation that the EU could only sign up to the European Convention of Human Rights if all 27 states agreed and the move were ratified by all national parliaments.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, insisted his country had not negotiated with the aim of avoiding a referendum. A Danish spokesman said: "It is too early to say whether we will have one. A decision can only be taken once we see the final result."

Denmark caused panic when it voted down the Union's Maastricht treaty in 1992, but its population is now one of the most pro- European in the club with 66 per cent saying that EU membership is a good thing.

However, senior EU officials say that if Denmark concluded a referendum were unnecessary, that would ease the pressure for other countries to have a similar vote.

Britain and the Netherlands are both highly unlikely to hold referendums.

However, Gordon Brown and Jan Peter Balkenende - prime ministers of the two countries respectively - will still feel the political heat.

From Financial Times,  June 27,2007 
[top]

EU Role in Competition is Still at Risk

From Prof Francesco Giavazzi.

Sir, Michel Petite, the director-general of legal services at the European Commission (Letters, June 27), is of course correct when he says that "an objective that does not exist cannot be lost!"

The EU Treaty currently in force does not list competition as one of the Union's primary objectives, which only refer to "promote economic and social progress and a high level of employment and to achieve balanced and sustainable development". References to "a system ensuring that competition in the internal market is not distorted" and to "the adoption of an economic policy which is conducted in accordance with the principle of an open market economy with free competition" appear only in a different treaty - the text that lays out the rules for the functioning of the European Community and thus at a lower hierarchical level in the EU legal system.

Competition had been upgraded to the status of one of the EU's primary objectives by the Constitutional Treaty - a text, as we know, signed in Rome in 2004 by all EU states, but later not ratified. In the Constitutional Treaty, however, since competition had gained the status of a primary objective, the two references cited above were no longer necessary and were deleted. Whether or not they will remain in the treaty that will be drafted by the next Intergovernmental Conference remains to be seen.

It will depend in particular on whether the conference will take, as its starting point, the existing treaty (where they belong) or, as some have suggested it should, the Constitutional Treaty (where they do not).

If this were the case, not only the mention of competition as a primary EU objective, but also the two references would be lost: European competition policy would have been weakened not only politically but also legally.

It would be reassuring to hear from the director of the Commission's legal services that these concerns are unjustified.

Francesco Giavazzi,

Professor of Economics,

Bocconi University,

20136 Milan, Italy

From Financial Times,  June 29,2007 
[top]

Charter that has Magically Taken Centre Stage

From Mr Max Allman.

Sir, The article by Sylvie Goulard on the Charter of Fundamental Rights ("Britain's opt-out sets a dangerous precedent", July 20) is disingenuous, and ignores or bastardises the "history" of this particular piece of text.

First popping up at the Nice summit several years ago, the charter was a "solemn declaration"; ie, at its inception member states refused to give it a higher legal status. It then somehow magically appeared as a centrepiece of the deliberations of a new European Treaty, transforming what was otherwise a largely sensible process of reforming previous treaties and institutional arrangements into a grandiose "constitution". As it had to go through referendums, this duly crashed, thereby torpedoeing all the work that had been done on legislative and institutional reform and leaving the European Union institutions with a lot of messy wrangling (as yet unresolved) about issues that had previously been agreed.

During the process of seeking to promote the charter from being a summit sideshow to a core element of a new treaty, soothing noises were regularly made that all the substance of the charter articles was already contained in other pieces of legislation, so it really meant nothing new was being proposed. The mirror-image of this argument is now proposed by Ms Goulard in arguing against an opt- out. Someone is not being quite honest about the effect of incorporating the charter into a European treaty. Incorporation into a treaty means that, from having expressly been given no legal status by member states, the articles of the charter would become directly judiciable by the European Court, thereby having higher legal standing than national legislative decisions. That's a pretty big and unexplored change.

To smuggle in significant and uncharted areas of judicial authority for the European Court in this way, seemingly unasked for, and without clear consideration or public debate as to its consequences, is to my mind appallingly dishonest.

Max Allman,

Brussels, Belgium

From Financial Times,  July 23,2007 
[top]

A Biased Presentation of Charter of Rights' History

From Ms Sylvie Goulard.

Sir, I read with some surprise Max Allman's letter (July 23) describing my article on the charter of fundamental rights (July 20) as disingenuous.

Some facts: the charter of fundamental rights did not "pop up" at the European Council in Nice in 2000. It was drafted by a convention from December 1999 to October 2000 at the request of the heads of state and government of the European Union.

This convention, composed of members of national parliaments and of governments, deliberated in public under the supervision of Roman Herzog, the former president of Germany.

Not all of the member states refused to render the charter legally binding. This biased presentation of "history" is unfair. Mr Allman can of course disagree with the content of the charter, but one should not, in a newspaper such as yours, distort reality.

Who is being disingenuous?

Sylvie Goulard,

President,

European Movement France,

75006 Paris, France

From Financial Times,  July 26,2007 
[top]

EU's Democratic Deficit Hinders more Central Governance

By CAREL VAN DEN BERG and SAMMY VAN TUYLL VAN SEROOSKEN

From Dr Carel van den Berg and

Mr Sammy van Tuyll van Serooskerken.

Sir, Adam Posen's article, "Central power is a force for economic liberalism" (July 4) is a just criticism of those already feasting on the "death of the federalists", among them our new Dutch minister of European affairs, Frans Timmermans. On the other hand, Mr Posen overlooks the fact that the European Union does have a democratic deficit that stands in the way of more central governance.

More centralised economic governance will hardly be acceptable to the people of the Netherlands and other countries while the legitimacy of the European parliament is not being increased. At this moment, the members of the parliament are seen as acting, and too often act, along lines of purely national interest. Therefore, at present, there is no control function, no accountability at the federal level.

One way forward would be to have half of the seats of the parliament elected from European lists. A parliament legitimised in this way could choose the president of the European Commission, strengthening in turn the Commission's position vis a vis member states, which would contribute to a genuine political debate and accountability at the European level.

Carel van den Berg,

1071 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands

Sammy van Tuyll van Serooskerken,

Chairman, Dutch Liberal Democratic Party

From Financial Times,  September 7,2007 
[top]

A Bigger Club

The Organization for Hconomic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is to start talks with Chile, Estonia, Israel, Russia, and Slovenia that could lead to the five countries joining the 30-member group of advanced industrial economies. The Paris-based OMCD also plans to strengthen ties with Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and South Africa, a move that could culminate in membership.

The OHCO was established in 1960 and groups member countries that meet its standards of democratic government and market-based economic policies. After starling out with a core group of advanced industrial economies, the OECD's membership widened during the 1990s to include Mexico 1199.1), the Czech Republic (1995), South Korea and Poland 1,1996), and the Slovak Republic (2000).

From Finance & Development,  January 6,2007 
[top]

Britain's Opt-out Sets a Dangerous Precedent

SYLVIE GOULARD.

At the last European council, the British government obtained a significant opt-out from its partners, including France - which Gordon Brown, the new UK prime minister, will visit today. While the reform treaty is supposed to ensure that "the Union recognises the rights, freedoms and principles set out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of 7 December 2000", the UK has been given special status.

At first glance, this opt-out can be seen as a "victory" for the British authorities. Having signed the constitutional treaty and abstained from submitting it to ratification, they have thereby obtained additional concessions from their partners, which they consider to be in their national interest. The British government seems not to have realised to what extent this opt-out could have disastrous consequences in the long term.

First, by refusing - at least on a symbolic level - to share the values and principles recognised by all other member states of the EU, the UK undermines the enlargement process. Indeed, the charter brings together the corpus of principles and values that Europeans wished to affirm on the eve of the unification of the continent. These are already enshrined in a number of national and international texts, in particular the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the fact of bringing them together in a single text in order to adopt them jointly, at the end of the cold war, was an important gesture.

For this reason alone, for the countries that joined us recently, the British abstention is regrettable. Worse still, the British attitude endangers future enlargements, often justified by the desire to "export our values".

"Values? Which values?" the candidates for membership will rightly ask. With this type of opt-out, we set a dangerous precedent: fundamental principles that apply to some countries and not to others. Values a la carte from which you can withdraw without honouring your word. This sends the wrong signal.

Of course, British experts will immediately raise technical arguments: the charter is superfluous in their eyes. The UK already respects the substance of the text. But these arguments are hardly convincing. Either the charter simply duplicates other existing texts, and thus it is difficult to see what the oldest parliamentary democracy in the world could fear from it, or the opt-out concerns new substantial rules and the dispensation is unacceptable.

Which standards are going to be imposed on candidate states? The most demanding standards of the 26 signatories of the charter? Or the least demanding, those of the UK? As the British government has hinted that the social provisions in the charter were the source of their problems, this question deserves to be raised openly.

If the UK, one of the most economically competitive countries in the EU, shirks these rules, the candidate states can easily evoke their more difficult economic situation to ask for lower standards. This in turn gives the opponents of enlargement the opportunity to raise the threat of "social dumping". The British have done a big favour to those who oppose further enlargement, particularly in France.

Furthermore, this opt-out undermines any common external action. How could we envisage a common action between partners who do not share common values? Agreements concluded in the framework of the EU trade policy already contain human rights clauses; weakening the charter will not make them more credible. At the same time, the objective of sustainable development calls for an irreproachable attitude on the part of Europeans. In view of the worrying social and environmental conditions in emerging countries, Europe should unite around its values and promote a rigorous conception of the rule of law. Any flaw, any doubt, opens the door to all kinds of relativism.

During the intergovernmental conference, the British government would be well advised to recognise the pitfalls involved and renounce this opt-out. A satisfactory solution had been found during the convention to take account of the genuine needs of the common- law judicial system. Besides, Ireland, another common-law jurisdiction, will apply the charter.

In any case, the possible risk in the implementation of the charter in the UK is insignificant compared with the dangers of an opt-out presented as being in the British national interest. This time the UK seems to have tripped up on its own red lines.

The writer is president of the European Movement, France

From Financial Times,  July 20,2007 
[top]

World Bank Directors Test Zoellick

By KRISHNA GUHA and RICHARD MCGREGOR

Nine of the World Bank's 24 executive directors have written to its new president, Robert Zoellick, challenging its role in publishing controversial indicators that attempt to measure the quality of governance in its member countries.

The letter, signed by directors representing China, Russia, Mexico, Argentina and other predominantly developing countries, presents Mr Zoellick with the first serious test of his World Bank presidency less than two weeks after he succeeded PaulWolfowitz.

It follows the publication earlier this week of the annual Worldwide Governance Indicators report, which infuriated a number of governments. The report is not an official bank document but is produced by bank researchers and is highly influential in development circles.

Argentina complained about the finding that the quality of its governance had declined between 1998 and 2006, while China was deeply unhappy about its low rating on "voice and accountability" - one of six metrics evaluated by bank researchers.

People familiar with the letter said its tone was constructive and not intended to set up a confrontation with Mr Zoellick. The nine directors did not challenge the quality of the work done by the bank researchers.

But they said the bank should reconsider whether it should be in the business of producing this kind of analysis at all.

Some bank officials see the letter as the beginning of an attempt by developing countries, in particular those with authoritarian governments, to capitalise on the ousting of Mr Wolfowitz to roll back the bank's governance agenda. That agenda preceded Mr Wolfowitz but was championed by him.

Other bank officials play down these fears, noting that board concerns about the governance indicators are not new. In January, 10 directors wrote a letter to Mr Wolfowitz objecting to the inclusion of the indicators in the bank's official Development Indicators report.

Bank insiders say China has taken a prominent role in the latest controversy. Yang Yingming, the head of the Chinese finance ministry department that deals with the World Bank, said China had done "relatively well in some categories, such as government efficiency".

But he added "as for other ratings, they do not represent the World Bank's opinion" but only the views of individual authors. "The survey depends on a subjective questionnaire, making its objectivity open to question. Even we don't know when and how they conducted research in China," he said.

China is believed to have been annoyed by its score on accountability, which was skewed by the fact that it is not a representative democracy. Beijing also maintains that it has a strong record in fighting corruption, pointing to the tens of thousands of officials arrested each year for graft, something it believes was also not reflected fairly in the report's findings.

Some in Washington draw parallels between this controversy and China's unusually public opposition to the new surveillance regime at the bank's sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, seeing a pattern of greater assertiveness within these organisations.

However, there is no suggestion in Beijing that the two issues are linked.


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Financial Times. London (UK): Jul 13, 2007. pg. 6
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Companies: World Bank (NAICS: 928120 )
Section: WORLD NEWS
Publication title: Financial Times. London (UK): Jul 13, 2007. pg. 6
Source type: Newspaper
ISSN: 03071766
ProQuest document ID: 1304079901
Text Word Count 506
Document URL: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1304079901&sid=6&Fmt=3&clientId=1865&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Abstract (Document Summary)
Argentina complained about the finding that the quality of its governance had declined between 1998 and 2006, while China was deeply unhappy about its low rating on "voice and accountability" - one of six metrics evaluated by bank researchers.

Some bank officials see the letter as the beginning of an attempt by developing countries, in particular those with authoritarian governments, to capitalise on the ousting of Mr Wolfowitz to roll back the bank's governance agenda. That agenda preceded Mr Wolfowitz but was championed by him.

He added "as for other ratings, they do not represent the World Bank's opinion" but only the views of individual authors. "The survey depends on a subjective questionnaire, making its objectivity open to question. Even we don't know when and how they conducted research in China," he said.

Full Text (506 words)
(Copyright Financial Times Ltd. 2007. All rights reserved.)
By KRISHNA GUHA and RICHARD MCGREGOR

Nine of the World Bank's 24 executive directors have written to its new president, Robert Zoellick, challenging its role in publishing controversial indicators that attempt to measure the quality of governance in its member countries.

The letter, signed by directors representing China, Russia, Mexico, Argentina and other predominantly developing countries, presents Mr Zoellick with the first serious test of his World Bank presidency less than two weeks after he succeeded PaulWolfowitz.

It follows the publication earlier this week of the annual Worldwide Governance Indicators report, which infuriated a number of governments. The report is not an official bank document but is produced by bank researchers and is highly influential in development circles.

Argentina complained about the finding that the quality of its governance had declined between 1998 and 2006, while China was deeply unhappy about its low rating on "voice and accountability" - one of six metrics evaluated by bank researchers.

People familiar with the letter said its tone was constructive and not intended to set up a confrontation with Mr Zoellick. The nine directors did not challenge the quality of the work done by the bank researchers.

But they said the bank should reconsider whether it should be in the business of producing this kind of analysis at all.

Some bank officials see the letter as the beginning of an attempt by developing countries, in particular those with authoritarian governments, to capitalise on the ousting of Mr Wolfowitz to roll back the bank's governance agenda. That agenda preceded Mr Wolfowitz but was championed by him.

Other bank officials play down these fears, noting that board concerns about the governance indicators are not new. In January, 10 directors wrote a letter to Mr Wolfowitz objecting to the inclusion of the indicators in the bank's official Development Indicators report.

Bank insiders say China has taken a prominent role in the latest controversy. Yang Yingming, the head of the Chinese finance ministry department that deals with the World Bank, said China had done "relatively well in some categories, such as government efficiency".

But he added "as for other ratings, they do not represent the World Bank's opinion" but only the views of individual authors. "The survey depends on a subjective questionnaire, making its objectivity open to question. Even we don't know when and how they conducted research in China," he said.

China is believed to have been annoyed by its score on accountability, which was skewed by the fact that it is not a representative democracy. Beijing also maintains that it has a strong record in fighting corruption, pointing to the tens of thousands of officials arrested each year for graft, something it believes was also not reflected fairly in the report's findings.

Some in Washington draw parallels between this controversy and China's unusually public opposition to the new surveillance regime at the bank's sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, seeing a pattern of greater assertiveness within these organisations.

However, there is no suggestion in Beijing that the two issues are linked.

From Financial Times,  July 13,2007 
[top]

A Renewed Financial Systems Focus for World Bank

From Mr Michael G. Mimicopoulos.

Sir, I do commend Clare Lockhart for a valiant effort to get states to be more transparent with the public purse ("Like companies, states must report", July 10). However, her recommendations, although practical, are politically unattainable.

I do not see many governments voluntarily putting themselves in a straitjacket by publishing online an annual report setting out their income and expenditure, providing a balance sheet of assets and liabilities, and outlining which public assets had been sold to whom, at what price and through what process.

If I do not see that, I much less see them subjecting this process to an independent international body empowered to monitor these accounts.

I do agree with her observation, however, that the World Bank and its partners should turn their focus from corruption within World Bank-funded projects to financial systems as a whole.

In particular, I would be in favour of a renewed focus on privatisation in the effort to improve efficiency; to create a favourable investment climate; to develop capital markets and promote broad-based ownership of equity capital; to increase tax revenue, in addition to the actual sale proceeds generated; and to foster greater market competitiveness.

Although governments have various objectives in maintaining state- owned enterprises (SOEs), some of which may play well with electorates, such as the social dimensions of job security and non- wage benefits, which have decreased as a result of privatisations, the burden of loss-making state-owned enterprises on public budgets is too much to bear for many.

It is important to add here that loss-making SOEs, which have been protected by public subsidies, have also raised the costs of doing business for the private sector.

Michael G. Mimicopoulos,

New York, NY, 10016, US

From Financial Times,  December 7,2007 
[top]

Good Governance To Change how Countries are Run, Start with a Report Card

Saviour or wrecker? Views on controversial regimes such as those run by Thaksin Shinawatra, the deposed Thai prime minister, or Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's populist leader, inevitably tend to extremes. Passing impartial judgment on governance is notoriously difficult, yet it is also important in holding these regimes accountable and improving the way countries are run.

That role falls to the World Bank. This week, the Bank's Institute published its sixth annual Worldwide Governance Indicators. The report pools hundreds of indices from 33 data sources by 30 organisations. It provides a picture of governance across six categories over a 10-year period and more than 200 countries and territories.

The example of Thailand is instructive. The 2006 coup reduced Thailand's "political stability" from a range comparable to South Korea's to that of the Philippines. That much is obvious. But the report also documents how the authorities' efforts to curb corruption in Thailand have barely budged in the past 10 years. Thailand is stuck in the global midfield, at best - despite widespread allegations of corruption against Mr Thaksin.

It would be no surprise were Thailand to join China and several other countries in criticising the study. This reaction is understandable, but misses the point. Railing against report cards is no substitute for trying to lift one's own performance.

The World Bank provides a useful role in sifting through a myriad of data sources and acts as a global arbiter in weighing the results. Many of the underlying indicators are subjective. There is no objective scale for judging a country's "rule of law". That is why the Bank relies on up to 19 different sources for that measure. The resulting report allows business groups, reformists and other parts of civil society to push for better governance, which is crucial for development.

The reaction to the report may not reflect its subtleties. The problem is that the niceties are often lost when ranking countries or providing a global top or bottom 10 countries. The Bank must assume this will be the case, but the inevitable talk of "hit parades" should not detract from its overall effort.

Economists are often accused, justly, of thinking that what cannot be counted does not count. In this case, economists are trying to count what - many would say - cannot be counted. The alternatives, however, are worse. Either we ignore this fact or we make subjective guesses. For all its weaknesses, the Bank remains best-equipped to crunch the numbers and deliver the judgment, however unpalatable.

From Financial Times,  December 7,2007 
[top]

The Next Head should Come from 'New Europe'

From Prof Lajos Bokros.

Sir, As the top position at the International Monetary Fund is once again up for grabs I wish to make a strong case to consider the candidacy of some undoubtedly world-class people from "New Europe", as the former communist countries of central and eastern Europe are usually referred to. The process of historically unprecedented transformation that has occurred since the fall of the Berlin Wall has already produced quite a few outstanding names who easily match the talent, expertise, performance and achievements of any other globally better-known candidate.

Let me mention just two. Leszek Balcerowicz, twice Poland's deputy prime minister, minister of finance and, lately, president of the National Bank of Poland. Mr Balcerowicz is well known as the father of Polish shock therapy, an exceptionally successful stabilisation of a hugely distorted non-market economy. Marek Belka, twice deputy prime minister, minister of finance and, lately, prime minister of Poland has also played a leading role in reforming both the enterprise sector and public finances. Moreover, these fine Polish gentlemen combine strong academic background, impeccable track record on the highest levels of public administration but also expertise in political management. In this sense, they are even better equipped than many others to lead an international financial organisation that distinguishes itself by an academically sound research orientation as well as a deep understanding of emerging market problems.

Last but not least, they come from the European Union's largest new member country, which might be important in our world full of symbolism. Put a Pole into pole position at the IMF!

Lajos Bokros,

Professor of Economics and Public Policy and Chief Operating Officer,

Central European University,

Budapest, Hungary

(Former Finance Minister of Hungary)

From Financial Times,  June 7,2007 
[top]

Like Companies, States Must Report

Paul Wolfowitz made fighting corruption the centre-piece of his tenure at the World Bank. Building on James Wolfensohn's famous 1996 speech on the "cancer of corruption", he made a valiant attempt to tackle collusion and missing funds within World Bank projects. But by failing to look holistically at government financial management systems, he missed a chance. The challenge for his successor Robert Zoellick is to realise the World Bank dream, of a world free of poverty, by making better stewardship of the public purse the norm.

It is an extraordinary and little-discussed fact that in the modern age, the public company is far more accountable to its shareholders than most governments are to their citizens. The demise of WorldCom and Enron shows that auditing standards are fundamental to ensuring that executives are held accountable. This is based on audited financial statements, including a balance sheet of assets and liabilities, which a public companysubmits annually. While recent events have sparked a debate on corporate governance, the business world understands that following the money is the way to keep business honest.

By contrast, the practices for stewardship of public resources for governments have not evolved such sophisticated conventions. Attention is narrowly focused on expenditure, with some of that spending remaining "off-budget". The Open Budget Index reveals that most of the bank's client countries do not publish adequate financial information. Out of 59 countries surveyed, only six provide "extensive" information, while 23 (39 per cent of them) provide either minimal, scant or no information to citizens. On a recent visit to an African country, it was evident that audit reports were completed five years after expenditure, coinciding nicely with the electoral cycle. The failure to track billions of dollars in oil revenues and public subsidies in Iraq, post- invasion, is a vivid example of the problems arising from omitting to track finances.

The practices of external actors exacerbate the situation. Donors tend to focus on projects, run through parallel "off-budget" organisations and rarely set an example by publishing their own accounts. Most non-governmental organisations focus on projects that run in parallel to national policy, rather than acting as monitors. Extractive industries have had little interest in disclosure - until the recent Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Criminalised networks also undermine transparency efforts.

Even more striking than the opaqueness of "cash flow" is the absence of a convention for a balance sheet of assets and liabilities for governments. There is a standard for public companies. But the assets of the state are not systematically valued and tracked. Instead, many governments collude in divesting important national assets - whether tangible (land, forests, antiquities, oil, gas and minerals) or intangible (the rights to limit the provision of goods and services, from running bus services to the use of spectrum) - for less than their value, with little scrutiny.

To put publicly owned assets - whether tax revenues, land, licences or cultural heritage - to work for citizens, they need to be valued and monitored. The World Bank and its partners should turn their focus from corruption within World Bank-funded projects to financial systems as a whole.

The mechanism would be simple. States would be required to publish online an annual report setting out their income and expenditure, provide a balance sheet of assets and liabilities and outline which public assets had been sold to whom, at what price and through what process. This would enable global and domestic monitoring by independent auditors and citizens.

To make this a reality, a global agreement should be reached on standards for an accounting system with conventions to include off- budget government expenditure and a range of public assets. Second, an independent international body should be empowered to monitor these accounts. Technology innovations have made tracking these data easier. Last, citizens should be able to monitor the budget.

The use of tracking flows of money through auditing expenditure against a comprehensive budget is one of the most effective drivers of reform. This practice was written into the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund, created to channel donor money to the Afghan government in 2002. The bet taken was that only by intensive auditing and reporting could leakages in the system be fixed. Money would be released to the government only after completion of satisfactory audit reports by a reput-able international firm, ranking ministries according to their percentages of ineligible expenditures in a given month. This created a healthy race to the top between ministries. From this central pot, some money was channelled in block grants directly to villages; communities set an example by organising budgets and placing their accounts in a public place.

This approach would allow the World Bank effectively to tackle corruption in developing countries. It could also reduce countries' dependency on inefficient, opaque foreign aid. The sooner transparency of governments is demanded by both donors and citizens, the sooner the budget can become the site of policymaking and public discussion. Unless state resources are firmly evaluated and monitored we should not be surprised if, for some time to come, developing countries are subject to Enron-type collapse.

The writer is a founder of the Institute for State Effectiveness and was chief adviser to the Ministry of Finance of Afghanistan 2002- 05. With Ashraf Ghani she is the author of a forthcoming book: The Framework: Fixing Failed States

From Financial Times,  October 7,2007 
[top]

World Bank Drags its Heels over Publishing Study of Illegitimate Debts in Poor Countries

By KJETIL ABILDSNES and GAIL HURLEY

From Ms Gail Hurley and Mr Kjetil Abildsnes.

Sir, There has been much criticism in the press about the World Bank's removal from its recent report on China of sensitive data on premature deaths due to pollution. The FT reported that "Beijing engineered the removal of nearly a third of a World Bank report on pollution in China" ("Beijing censored pollution report", July 3).

This, however, is only one example of the World Bank's failure to publish sensitive material. Non-governmental organisations have just learnt that a World Bank study on illegitimate debt - financed by the Norwegian government and recently completed - may not be published. Illegitimate debts are those loans that were extended to corrupt or repressive regimes and the money never used in the interests of the debtor population (and where the creditor was aware this was likely to happen) or loans used to support companies in developed nations to do business abroad in often unviable projects.

These "illegitimate" debts remain on the books of many poor countries and the lender shares in no part of the risk. The Norwegian government put up funds for the World Bank to look into this issue more than a year ago. A report has now been finalised but it seems the bank is dragging its heels over making its findings public.

Some analysts may speculate this is because the bank has been involved in the past in lending to some of the world's most notorious regimes, such as Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko or the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos, in the knowledge that large parts of the cash were likely to go walkabout. The Norwegian government has used public money to finance research into an issue of public interest by a public institution. It is unthinkable that the paper should not be published.

Gail Hurley,

European Network on Debt and Development

Kjetil Abildsnes,

Norwegian Debt Campaign

From Financial Times,  July 14,2007 
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Stewardship has to be Seen as Separate Goal of Financial Reports

From Mr Jerry de St Paer.

Sir, One might infer from Jennifer Hughes' article "Stewardship provides more complete form of accountability" (June 28), that this is an issue where dissent from the International Accounting Standards Board conceptual framework discussion paper was limited to Europeans.

While stewardship was historically part of the European conceptual framework and not part of US generally accepted accounting principles, as we move toward convergence of US and international accounting standards, we need to take a fresh look at both concepts and then decide what is best on an international basis.

In its comment letter to the IASB and Financial Accounting Standards Board of November 26 2006, the Group of North American Insurance Enterprises expressed its support for the position taken by Sir David Tweedie, IASB chairman, in his dissent. We believe stewardship is important because it focuses on financial reporting as it relates to information provided to financial statement users that helps them assess management's "stewardship" of the financial resources they have been given the authority and responsibility to manage.

Traditionally, this has meant providing information that is historical in nature to assess the returns generated on past investment decisions. The crux of the issue as we work with standard- setters to develop changes in accounting measurement and financial reporting is that management might no longer be held accountable for its decisions as financial reporting will focus on the future - expected values - as opposed to the past - historical cost - and will change its expectations about what will happen in the future every reporting period through the mechanics of the measurement model and a new proposed financial statement presentation.

We strongly believe stewardship should be identified as a separate objective of financial reporting. It is too important to be subsumed in the investment and credit objectives.

Therefore, the objective of financial reporting stated in the discussion paper should be the aggregation and dissemination of information that is relevant for making investment, credit, stewardship and similar resource allocation decisions. Stewardship is concerned with the accountability of the directors or management board of a business entity to its owners and is at the heart of financial reporting.

Jerry de St Paer,

Executive Chairman,

Group of North American Insurance Enterprises,

New York, NY 10005, US

From Financial Times,  July 20,2007 
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Let us Get the IMF off the Hook on One Count

From Prof Shinji Takagi.

Sir, Yeomin Yoon argues (Letters, July 10) that "the single most irresponsible action" that contributed to the Asian crisis of 1997- 98 was "capital account liberalisation" and that "the blame must be shared between national governments and, more importantly, the International Monetary Fund".

Prof Yoon exaggerates the role played by the IMF in "pushing hard for swift capital account opening for several years before the crisis". It is simply not true that the IMF insisted on capital account liberalisation in the Asian countries (eg. Korea joined the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1996, with a number of capital controls in place; Indonesia had almost fully liberalised capital outflows as early as the 1970s).

It is true that the IMF pushed for an amendment to its Articles of Agreement, in an effort to secure jurisdiction over capital account issues (for an excellent analysis of this effort, see Rawi Abdelal's book Capital Rules: The Construction of Global Finance, Harvard University Press, 2007); some senior IMF

officials may have expressed views favouring rapid capital account liberalisation.

However, in its dealing with individual countries, especially in Asia, there is hardly any evidence to suggest that the IMF indiscriminately advocated rapid capital account liberalisation. The IMF Independent Evaluation Office report clarifies the actual approach the fund took to capital account issues during this period - see www.ieo-imf.org/eval/complete/pdf/04202005/report.pdf

The IMF has been blamed for

many things. It may or may not be innocent on all counts but, at least

on the issue of its complicity in causing the crisis by "pushing" capital account liberalisation, let us get the IMF off the hook once and for all.

Shinji Takagi,

Professor of Economics and Principal Author of IEO Report,

Osaka University,

Osaka 560, Japan

From Financial Times,  July 30,2007 
[top]

A Woman's Touch

Laura Wallace.
A HOT topic at summits of global leaders over the past few years has been how the global community is doing in its efforts to meet the eight 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)-especially those that deal with poverty, hunger, health, education, and the environment. But little discussed is MDG3, which calls lor redressing gender disparities and empowering women. The June 2007 issue of Fc-O spotlights gender equality, asking why it matters. Wc learn that not only is MDG3 a vital development objective but it is also key to achieving several others-such as universal primary education (MDG2), a reduction in under-5 mortality (MDG4), improvements in maternal health (MDG5), and a reduced possibility of contracting HIV/AIDS (MDG6). Moreover, greater gender equality can also help to reduce poverty (MDG1) and promote growth.

As for how countries are doing in meeting MDG3, we learn that !here's reason to worry that the four official indicators being used to track progress are inadequate-a startling revelation given thai there are only eight years left to meet the goal. And to the extent that progress can be tracked, the results aren't encouraging. One of the hardest-hit groups is the 3D million "excluded" girls, who aren't even enrolled in school. These girls face discrimination and indifference in their own countries because they come from ethnic minorities, isolated clans, and groups in which the majority language isn't predominant. One way for countries to pinpoint policies needed to reduce gender disparities is through gender budgeting, which involves the systematic examination of budget programs and policies for their impact on women. As "Budgeting with Women in Mind" explains, this effort to mainstream gender analysis into government policies has gained prominence in recent years.

Also in the June issue, we look at Asia-a star performer in the global economy-10 years after the Asian financial crisis. A series of articles explores what Asia needs to do to hold onto regained ground and become an ever-greater economic force. An IMF review focuses on two of the challenges lacing the region: addressing worsening income inequality and learning to live with potentially unstable capital (lows. From Korea, Un-Chan Chung, a former presidential candidate and professor at Seoul National University, calls for a "new social compact" if the globalized system is to achieve success in Korea-and perhaps in other Asian countries as well. And from Malaysia, Central Hank Governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz stresses that "Asia's increasing role in the global economy further reinforces the need for it to have a commensurate voice and representation in the international financial community." Finally, F&D explores the deepening involvement of Asia-especially China-with sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) on the trade, investment, and aid fronts. China is now SSA's single largest Asian trading partner and its fastest-growing trading destination.

[Author Affiliation]
Laura Wallace
Editor-in-Chief

From A woman's touch,  January 6,2007 
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The Resurgent Charmer Would the Charisma of France's Ex-finance Minister Work at the IMF

By MARTIN ARNOLD, ROBERT GRAHAM, KWAN YUK PAN and GEORGE PARKER

For a country that has spent years wallowing in a sense of its own decline, France celebrates Bastille Day today with a renewed swagger. Two faces this week reflected the new mood: President Nicolas Sarkozy (of course) and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the super- smooth Socialist and European nominee to head the International Monetary Fund.

Mr Strauss-Kahn is France's own Comeback Kid. Brought down by false allegations of financial sleaze, completely outmanouevred by Segolene Royal during this year's French presidential election campaign, this time last week the charismatic 58-year-old appeared washed-up.

That was before Mr Sarkozy launched a classic coup. The decision by the Spaniard Rodrigo Rato to stand down as IMF managing director offered the French president an unexpected opportunity to plant another tricolour flag on an international institution. After a weekend lobbying European leaders, Mr Sarkozy went to Brussels on Monday night to persuade European Union finance ministers to make the multilingual, respected Mr Strauss-Kahn Europe's candidate.

Even as Britain tried to apply the brakes, the coup was executed. Alistair Darling, the new chancellor, was briefing British journalists that the IMF succession should be an orderly and transparent process when a text message informed him that DSK (as Mr Strauss-Kahn is universally known) had been officially named Europe's man for the job. By convention, Europe has always selected the IMF chief while the US gets the top job at the World Bank. The IMF board, though, decided on Thursday on an open procedure, suggesting that Mr Strauss-Kahn may not necessarily be a shoo-in.

A politician to his fingertips, Mr Strauss-Kahn shares with the president an ability to charm, persuade and hold a room. If chosen, he would become the fourth Frenchman currently running a big international institution after Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, Pascal Lamy, head of the World Trade Organisation, and Jean Lemierre at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Not bad for a country supposedly in long-term decline.

But while Mr Trichet and Mr Lamy represent an ascetic side of public life, the suave and affable Mr Strauss-Kahn is a champagne socialist with a famous wife, noted for his people skills and a flexible political philosophy. He achieved international recognition and Anglo-Saxon admiration during a highly successful spell as finance minister in 1997-99, when he nimbly sidestepped the Socialist manifesto to oversee a series of privatisations, including Credit Lyonnais and the sale of minority stakes in Air France and France Telecom.

Debt and unemployment tumbled. Mr Strauss-Kahn and Mr Trichet, then president of the Banque de France, oversaw the franc fort policy that prepared the country's smooth entry into the eurozone. Although not famed for his own hard work, Mr Strauss-Kahn burnished his reputation as a moderate socialist by opposing the government's controversial 35-hour week policy.

Married to his third wife, the respected television journalist Anne Sinclair, Mr Strauss-Kahn cut a glamorous figure, a regular fixture in Paris Match and the unrivalled star of Lionel Jospin's Socialist government.

Brimming with self-confidence, he riled Gordon Brown, then chancellor, explaining that Britain could not stay outside the single currency and still expect a seat at meetings of eurozone finance ministers. "Married couples don't invite strangers into the bedroom," he said.

In 1999 his career came shuddering to a halt. Accused of forging invoices for Dollars 84,000 for work done in an earlier life as a lawyer, he resigned, pleading his innocence. After two years of legal battles he was cleared of all charges, but it was to prove a long way back.

Mr Strauss-Kahn was born in 1949 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the upmarket Paris suburb of which Mr Sarkozy would become mayor. The son of a Jewish family, he spent part of his childhood in Morocco, which "instilled in him a keen interest in developing countries early on", said Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, a close confidant.

He studied economics and politics at Sciences Po in Paris before getting involved in Socialist research work. By 1991 he was industry minister in Francois Mitterrand's government, displaying a traditionally French interventionist streak, a facet of DSK's philosophy that becomes more pronounced when he has reasons to tack to the left.

He lurched to the left again years later as he prepared for a run at the presidency in 2007. After France voted No to a European constitution many thought too "Anglo-Saxon", DSK concluded that the centre of gravity of the Socialist party had moved. His advisers despaired as he said he would not only oppose privatising the energy giant EDF but that he would consider bringing it back fully into public ownership.

The political centre-ground opened up for Mr Sarkozy, the conservative candidate. "It was a big mistake," admits one aide.

But perhaps his biggest mistake was not to see Ms Royal coming. Like most of the male "elephants" of the Socialist party, nobody took her seriously until virtually the moment she claimed the party's nomination.

Will Mr Strauss-Kahn's legendary charm transfer easily to Washington? A debate is raging in France after Jean Quatremer, the veteran Brussels correspondent of Liberation, wrote in his widely read blog that DSK's "only real problem" was his fondness for women.

Angry correspondents claimed Mr Quatremer had crossed France's "yellow line" where journalists do not write about the private lives of politicians. Mr Strauss-Kahn has not responded publicly.

But Mr Cambadelis denied that Mr Strauss-Kahn is a womaniser and described him simply as very "Mediterranean".

Nevertheless, the widely held view is that Mr Strauss-Kahn is intellectually and politically well-equipped for the IMF job. Mr Sarkozy respects those qualities too - one possible reason for moving this potential rival off to the other side of the Atlantic.

But Mr Strauss-Kahn's admirers believe Mr Sarkozy's plan may backfire and that the IMF could provide him with a platform to launch another bid for the presidency in 2012. Then he really would be France's ultimate Comeback Kid.

Additional reporting by Martin Arnold, Robert Graham andPan Kwan Yuk

From Financial Times,  July 14,2007 
[top]

An Ear to Lend Zoellick Wants a Wide Debate on the Development Agenda

For all his reputation as a hard-driving boss, Robert Zoellick is in listening and healing mode as he prepares to succeed Paul Wolfowitz as World Bank president.

The former US trade representative and deputy secretary of state says his immediate priority will be to restore calm and purpose to bank staff, who rebelled against Mr Wolfowitz over his handling of a secondment package for his girlfriend.

"I am going to be focusing very heavily on the staff and getting to know the management. I want to give these people a sense that I know their qualities," Mr Zoellick pledges in an interview with the Financial Times in a grand but borrowed office at the US Treasury, adding: "People need to be treated with dignity."

Yet for Mr Zoellick, the healing once he takes over this weekend is not just about addressing internal complaints. "The thing that will draw us most together is a sense of common mission and purpose," he says.

Since being nominated by President George W. Bush, Mr Zoellick has worked a global contact book for advice on how to take the bank forward. A two-week tour of Europe, Africa and Latin America - marred only slightly by a controversy over tough remarks he made on Venezuela - exposed him to the extraordinary variety of tasks the bank's global stakeholders want it to perform.

Europe was looking to the bank to play a larger role in climate change, Africa for it to keep poverty reduction as its main focus, Latin America for it to develop more effective ways of helping middle-income countries.

People who know Mr Zoellick say he is eager to start a debate within and around the bank on the questions facing the world's leading development agency. In time this would lead to the articulation of a clear strategy.

He may find himself spending more time than he would care dealing with the conflict that still rages inside the bank. For now, he is seeking to adopt a balanced stance on the issue of corruption and its place in the development agenda. "There can be no movement away from (the view of) corruption as a cancer on development," he says. But the bank also has to think about questions such as "what is most effective?" and "do poor countries get penalised twice?" He says there are "positive steps" it can take to "build capacity, encourage good governance and transparency".

Mr Zoellick will also have to get to grips very quickly with a roughly Dollars 30bn (Pounds 15bn, Euros 22bn) fund-raising drive by the bank and establish a near-term agenda in time for its annual meeting in October. Yet the incoming chief sees these demands as reinforcing the need to move forward on strategy development, building on work by Francois Bourguignon, the bank's chief economist.

Mr Zoellick is careful not to set out publicly his initial thinking on the bank's future, for fear it would be mistaken for an agenda he intends to foist on the bank. Instead, he talks about the need for the bank to adapt. "We are now in a much more networked world. We have got much better regional banks, vertical funds, private foundations, the private sector and non-governmental organisations," he says. "We have to see how we can work more effectively together."

Mr Zoellick is keen to bring to bear lessons from his most recent job as a Goldman Sachs investment banker. "You will hear me talk a lot about client focus and working in partnership," he says. "I also want to connect the asset and liability side of the balance sheet" - using expertise and possibly even the bank's own balance sheet to develop innovative financial products. This could require changes to bank rules.

On the bank's multiple roles, Mr Zoellick says: "I think in terms of a portfolio of complementary investments." He is sceptical of those who argue that it should focus narrowly in an interconnected world. "There are no magic silver bullets - the world is too complicated."

Beyond that Mr Zoellick is unwilling to go, except to say he hopes to "plant seeds" and allow the debate on the bank's strategy to grow. However, his conversations with development experts - three of whom have also spoken to the FT - suggest that his earlyqueries revolve around sixsubject areas.

First, a focus on the poorest countries, particularly in Africa, left behind by the globalisation of trade and private capital flows. Here Mr Zoellick sees the importance of the IDA, the bank'sconcessional lending arm. He seems keen the bank should continue its work on social sectors, seeking to help, for instance, countries ravaged by HIV/Aids. But he has also floated a renewed emphasis on infrastructure and growth, with particular focus on regional integration and mobilising African savings through financial sector reform.

Second, work in middle-income and emerging economies, with the bank continuing to lend even to countries such as China that have access to private capital, but contributing most through its know- how in helping to build the infrastructure of a modern economy. Mr Zoellick appears hopeful that by helping address their needs, the bank will be able to build partnerships in third countries, for instance with China in Africa.

Third, a larger role in fragile and post-conflict states - an idea lately pushed by Mr Wolfowitz. This would require the bank to develop a rapid response capability. However, Mr Zoellick has said he is aware this raises difficult questions about how to ensure security for bank staff.

Fourth, a role in providing public goods, which prominently includes climate change but also combating disease or even supporting a trade round with aid for capacity building.

Fifth, Mr Zoellick has told people he is interested in exploring how the bank could better support modernisers in the Arab and Muslim world. Some of the people he has spoken to see this as potentially controversial. However, Mr Zoellick stresses that he envisages the bank working in partnership with local entities and funds, taking the modernisation of Asia as his model.

Finally, he has stressed the bank's role as a learning institution. He has indicated that finding a world-class chief economist to succeed Mr Bourguignon when he leaves this year is a priority.

James Wolfensohn, Mr Zoellick's predecessor but one, says the new bank president will be able to champion a more unifying form of globalisation in a world divided into rich nations, fast-growing emerging nations, slow-growth economies and stagnant ones. The challenge is to "convince the rich countries that nobody is safe if you have one or two billion people who are now informed with radios and cellphones but have nothing".

Mr Zoellick may be already thinking along these lines. In accepting the job, he said the bank should lead the way in developing what he called"sustainable globalisation".

From Financial Times,  July 29,2007 
[top]

Fait Accompli; The IMF Can Ill Afford Another Term of Hypocrisy

Fait accompli; The International Monetary Fund THE French were not the happiest of campers at the Bretton Woods resort in New Hampshire, where the International Monetary Fund was first conceived in 1944. Their country had yet to be liberated, and its place in the economic pecking order was uncertain. The French fretted that even the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) might have more collective clout in the new institution.

They need not have worried. The IMF has been kind to their country. France was the first member to draw money from it, and Frenchmen have led the organisation for half of its life. Thanks to an "understanding" reached this week by the European Union's finance ministers, the top man at the IMF looks set, once again, to speak with a French accent.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister, got the nod to replace Rodrigo de Rato, who surprised everyone by announcing he will resign in October after just three years in the job. Mr Strauss-Kahn is an urbane, multilingual economist, who appreciates liberal principles, even if he did not fight terribly hard for them in the Socialist Party to which he belongs. He resigned as finance minister in 1999, after three years of prosperity, prudence and privatisation, to clear his name in a corruption scandal. He is, in short, the kind of candidate who might win the job on merit. But that is not how the job is filled. By convention--a kind word for a stitch-up--Europe lets America pick the head of the World Bank, and in return, Europe names the head of the IMF. The rest of the fund's 185-strong membership is left to grumble, grouse and go along.

The EU finance ministers said this week they would consider a more open process--but not until next time. Their reasoning was simple. The Americans got to pick one of their own to replace Paul Wolfowitz, ousted from the World Bank in May for personal indiscretions, so why should the Europeans give up their customary privileges first? Thus does the world of economic statesmanship resemble a playground squabble.

After the bruising battle to oust Mr Wolfowitz, it might be argued that the bank needed a capable replacement quickly, and could not afford to open the process up. The fund, however, can ill afford not to. Mr Strauss-Kahn will inherit an institution that risks losing many of its traditional clients. Emerging economies, which once begged for the fund's money and bowed to its ministrations, now have their own hoards of foreign exchange to rely on.<