E-government in Germany

Did you know that the German government has an "e-government strategy" ... ?

The availability of powerful information technology, an increasing demand for transparent governance have led to impressive advances of e-government and e-participation in the recent years. OpenAid is applying these developments to development cooperation. While transparency is being discussed internationally as an approach to improve aid effectiveness, this issue commands very little attention in the German development community. The official discussion in Germany at the Government level is more dominated by e-government, understood as the availability of online administrative services to the public.
In Germany e-Government has been recognised as an important government task by the German Government since 2000.

At the World Exhibition in Hannover in 2000 the German Government launched the Initiative Bund Online 2005 aiming at providing online access to all Government administrative services that are suitable for online use. In April 2006 the European Commission published the EU E-Government action plan i2010 promoting online administrative services. In June 2006 ministers from 34 countries came together in Riga, Lettland, to discuss the use of the internet by European citizens as well as the European Governments themselves. The Riga Ministerial declaration on e-inclusion focusses primarly on the goal of making internet accessible, especially to partially excluded groups (older people, people with lower levels of education, unemployed, women, people with disabilities). Other key elements of the declaration concern the reduction of geographical digital divides within Europe, accessiblity and usability of the internet in the context of the Europena eAccessibility standards, digital literacy and the promotion of e-Government.

Since 2006 the activities and strategies on e-government of the German Government are pursued by Deutschland-online within the Interior Ministry. Deutschland-online publishes an annual action plan. According to the annual action plan for 2008 a modern state needs an innovative, effective and efficient administration supported by information technology and the use of the internet. Bilateral German development aid is part and parcel of the German administration, so this principle should apply to its different implementing agencies.