E-governance remains key to facilitating government services, interaction and communication between the government and its clientele, Dr Alouis Chilunjika from National University of Lesotho (NUL) has said.
Dr Chilunjika said this when presenting the Lesotho Human Development Report 2023/24, ‘Harnessing technology and innovations to accelerate human development in Lesotho’ during a validation workshop held in Maseru on Wednesday.
He added that e-governance is important in improving transparency, efficiency, and accessibility of government services while also enhancing speedy and accessibility of government services.
Dr Chilunjika, a Researcher in the areas of governance, public finance and public policy amongst others said Lesotho has achieved a full coverage of a two generation (2G) network, 98 percentage for three generation (3G) and 70 percentage of four generation(4G), saying by 2019, Maseru district alone had the highest number of internet users with 45 percent penetration rate, while the rural districts of Thaba-Tseka, Mokhotlong, Qacha’s Nek and Quthing had the most non-mobile users.
“Despite Lesotho’s poor infrastructure and high levels of poverty, it has begun to take necessary steps to promote higher levels of e-government deployment, access and usages in communities by setting up government portal which is used as the gateway to access the visibility of public institutions which have an online presence,” he affirmed.
Moreover, he noted that though technology revolutionises the way people work, there are challenges of e-government, development and service delivery such as lack of funding, lack of ICT skills and knowledge, lack of interoperability (fragmented or disjoined E-government landscape), security and privacy concerns (cyber security threats) and lack of trust in the systems.
In conclusion, he recommended the establishment of a solid, robust and comprehensive regulatory framework for supporting the holistic implementation of E-governance in Lesotho.
This, Dr Chilunjika said include creation of favourable operation environments to attract more telecommunications service providers and citizen engagement education and awareness creation on the existence and usage of e-government platforms and technologies.
The workshop was attended by stakeholders in e-governance, gender equality, Education, and climate change to mention a few.
Source: LENA 15/02/2024
