Human Capacity Development for e-government

Transcription

1 Human Capacity Development for e-government Adegboyega Ojo, Tomasz Janowski, Elsa Estevez and Irshad Kamal Khan April 2007 UNU-IIST Report No. 362 T

2 UNU-IIST and UNU-IIST Reports UNU-IIST (United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology) is a Research and Training Centre of the United Nations University (UNU). It is based in Macao, and was founded in It started operations in July UNU-IIST is jointly funded by the government of Macao and the governments of the People s Republic of China and Portugal through a contribution to the UNU Endowment Fund. As well as providing two thirds of the endowment fund, the Macao authorities also supply UNU-IIST with its office premises and furniture and subsidise fellow accommodation. The mission of UNU-IIST is to assist developing countries in the application and development of software technology. UNU-IIST contributes through its programmatic activities: 1. Advanced development projects, in which software techniques supported by tools are applied, 2. Research projects, in which new techniques for software development are investigated, 3. Curriculum development projects, in which courses of software technology for universities in developing countries are developed, 4. University development projects, which complement the curriculum development projects by aiming to strengthen all aspects of computer science teaching in universities in developing countries, 5. Schools and Courses, which typically teach advanced software development techniques, 6. Events, in which conferences and workshops are organised or supported by UNU-IIST, and 7. Dissemination, in which UNU-IIST regularly distributes to developing countries information on international progress of software technology. Fellows, who are young scientists and engineers from developing countries, are invited to actively participate in all these projects. By doing the projects they are trained. At present, the technical focus of UNU-IIST is on formal methods for software development. UNU-IIST is an internationally recognised center in the area of formal methods. However, no software technique is universally applicable. We are prepared to choose complementary techniques for our projects, if necessary. UNU-IIST produces a report series. Reports are either Research R, Technical T, Compendia C or Administrative A. They are records of UNU-IIST activities and research and development achievements. Many of the reports are also published in conference proceedings and journals. Please write to UNU-IIST at P.O. Box 3058, Macao or visit UNU-IIST s home page: if you would like to know more about UNU-IIST and its report series. G. M. Reed, Director

3 P. O. Box 3058 Macau Human Capacity Development for e-government Adegboyega Ojo, Tomasz Janowski, Elsa Estevez and Irshad Kamal Khan Abstract The paper addresses the requirements for human capacity development for e-government in general and for Macao in particular. It starts by justifying the training of public officers as a critical success factor for e-government. It then presents some basic principles and guidelines for formulating an effective e-government training policy for public officers, followed by specific skills-sets considered essential for e-government according to: the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the UK Office of the E-Envoy and the US Chief Information Officer (CIO) University. In addition, the paper highlights the best practices in the development of public workforce for e-government. The paper reveals that allocating at least 10% of e-government budget on training and capacity development is essential for successful e-government programmes. It concludes with some recommendations for developing the public workforce for e-government in Macao.

4 Adegboyega Ojo is a Research Fellow at the Center for Electronic Governance - United Nations University - International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST-EGOV) in Macao, on leave from the Department of Computer Sciences, University of Lagos, Nigeria where he is a Senior Lecturer. Before his affiliation with UNU-IIST, he led major software development projects involving large multinationals in Nigeria. He has been involved in e-government research and development activities since 2004 at UNU-IIST as a member of the project team working on the e-government development in Macao. His research interests include Software Infrastructure for Electronic Government, E-Government Measurement, Ontology, Semantic Interoperability, and Applications of Computational Intelligence. He holds a doctorate degree in Computer Science from the University of Lagos in Nigeria. He is also a member of the Computer Professionals of Nigeria. Tomasz Janowski is the Head of the Center for Electronic Governance - United Nations University - International Institute for Software Technology in Macao (UNU-IIST-EGOV) and a Senior Research Fellow of UNU-IIST. Tomasz Janowski is the author or co-author of numerous publications in Computer Science, Software Engineering and Foundations. He has been a Program Committee member at many international conferences, supervised a number of international students and staff, and led several research, development and capacity-building projects. These include the e-macao Program to build a foundation for Electronic Government in Macao and the UNeGov.net initiative to building a global community of practice for Electronic Governance. As part of the UNeGov.net initiative, he organized many workshops and schools on Electronic Governance in developing countries. His current research interests include foundations of Electronic Governance, tools and applications of formal methods, and rigorous development of enterprise software, particularly software for the public sector. Tomasz Janowski holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Warwick, England, and an MSc in Mathematics from the University of Gdansk, Poland. Elsa Estevez is a Project Staff at the Center for Electronic Governance - United Nations University - International Institute for Software Technology in Macao (UNU-IIST-EGOV). She is also an Assistant Professor at the Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS) in Bahia Blanca, Argentina where she teaches subjects related to Software Engineering. Prior to joining UNS, she has been working as a Project Leader, Project Manager, System Analyst and Programmer in Information Technology for major industries, including banking, in Argentina. While in UNU-IIST-EGOV, Elsa Estevez contributed to various tasks of the e-macao and UNeGov.net projects, from research and development, through training, to networking. Her current research interest include: Electronic Government, developing software infrastructure for Electronic Government, and Component-Based Software Development. Elsa Estevez holds an MSc degree in Computer Science from UNS and a Licenciado Degree in Computer Science from Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dr. Irshad Kamal Khan is a Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. Dr. Khan has many years of experience teaching and doing research in Economics, Social Sciences and, more recently, Information Technology. He has been a Fellow of the United Nations University - International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST) during 2001, working on curriculum development for teaching Computer Science in Bangladesh, and UNU-IIST Post-Doctoral Fellow during working on the design of economic indicators for Electronic Government impact assessment. He has also been involved in Economic impact of Electronic Government, the Internet and the marketplace, and social networking for Electronic Government. Dr. Irshad Kamal Khan holds a PhD degree in Economics. Copyright 2007 by UNU-IIST, Adegboyega Ojo, Tomasz Janowski, Elsa Estevez and Irshad Kamal Khan

5 Contents i Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Guidelines for Developing Training Plans Planning Skill Requirements for e-government OECD Office of the E-Envoy CIO University 5 3 Best Practices in e-government Training Initiatives 7 4 Recommendations 7 5 Conclusions 8 References 8

6 Introduction 1 1 Introduction Electronic Government offers enormous potentials for improving the internal efficiency of the public sector and the delivery of public services to citizens and other government customers. Most governments around the world have integrated e-government into their broader public sector modernisation agendas. The availability of skilled workforce with good capacity for learning is essential for e-government, along with other factors like leadership, regulatory frameworks, financial resources, organizational conditions, and Information and Technology (IT) infrastructure [1]. This is in line with a popular opinion that staffing is one of the key factors in determining the success or failure of technology applications [2]. In fact, the survey of e-government projects carried out by the World Bank revealed that successful e-government projects expend at least 10% of their budgets on training [3]. Most e-government readiness assessments involve determining the adequacy of human resources for e-government in individual government agencies. For instance the office of the E-Envoy in the United Kingdom provided a skill assessment toolkit ( skills map ) as part of the UK Online Strategy to prepare UK government agencies for e-government adoption [4]. Human resource planning for e- government is based on the agreed set of competencies required for e-government. These skills are definitely not restricted to technical skills. Managers, for instance, require broad skills to engage in e- government decision-making [5]. Concrete recommendations for e-government skill-sets are provided by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the CIO University established by the US General Services Administration and CIO Council, and the UK office of the E- Envoy. They span: Leadership, Technology Management, Information Management, Performance Assessment, Project Management and Information Technology. These skills are targeted at both specific categories of government employees (e.g. managers, IT specialist) as well as public officers in general. The identified skill-sets are provided to public officers by governments through formal education, informal education, and training programmes often carried out in partnership with private organizations and academic institutions. For instance, the CIO University initiative is supported by Carnegie-Mellon University, George Mason University, George Washington University and the University of Maryland [6]. The e-university Network initiative of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is supported by the Waseda University, Tokyo [5]. This paper provides a guide for planning human resource development for e-government, drawing from the experiences of other countries. Specifically, it discusses the basic principles for developing e-government training programmes for public officers and government leaders. It goes further to present best practices in e-government training initiatives and concludes with some recommendations for Macao Government. These are presented in Sections 2 through 4 respectively. 2 Guidelines for Developing Training Plans This section discusses the guidelines for planning skill development for public officers. The section also identifies the core skill-sets required for e-government, based on three popular recommendations by OECD, E-Envoy (UK) and the CIO University (US). 2.1 Planning A number of factors are central to successful skill-development for public officers. These include availability of the training and development strategy, communication strategy, impact assessment of

7 Guidelines for Developing Training Plans 2 e-government, determination of skill requirements and availability of performance indicators [6]. These factors are briefly discussed below, including the planning process. Training and Development Strategy: There is a need to provide training and development strategy for e-government as a component of the overall e-government strategy. The human resource function is expected to supply input into the development of this strategy for cohesion with broader human resource strategy for individual agencies and the government as a whole. Such a strategy should consider the possible changes that e-government could bring to the agencies, for instance the re-assignment of responsibilities to staff and the movement of staff from one unit or department to another. Cost issues should also be considered for prioritization. Communication Strategy: Training and development strategy needs to be communicated to staff. Communication generally builds commitment and understanding from staff. A communication strategy must seek to assist and reassure staff in coping with anticipated changes in their agencies. It must also provide staff with regular updates and progress reports. Impact Assessment of e-government: There is a need to carry out the impact assessment on the staff caused by the introduction of electronic services, especially the changes in the number of staff and their possible re-deployment to new locations. The introduction of new electronic services may also require new skills. Assessing the likely changes in staffing levels will assist the government in resource planning and re-deployment. Skill-Requirements: Public officers must posses an array of skills to be ready for e-government. The required skill-set must be determined a-priori based on the general prescriptions, and peculiar needs and opportunities of different agencies. This involves establishing the current human capacity of an agency. The skill-gap must be identified (required versus available skill-sets) for intervention or development. Skill development could also be managed through personal development plans by staff themselves. Without determining skill requirements, budgets and plans cannot be provided. The next section presents the detailed discussion on general skill requirements for e-government. Performance Indicators: Performance indicators are essential and useful for continuous improvement. They are required to monitor the attainment of the set targets as a basis for reviewing training activities. The above factors should be considered when developing a plan for e-government training. The typical steps involved in such planning are: Skill Definition, Initiation, Strategy Development, Sourcing of Resources, Specification of Training Needs, Implementation and Application. Skill Definition involves defining specific skills to be developed, and relating them to service and business area requirements. Initiation involves gaining the agreement from managers and training departments, as well as the staff to be trained. Strategy Development involves deciding on how skills will be developed, providing the rationale for having new skills, creating timelines, and agreeing on the overall approach and resources. Specification of Training Needs creates the detailed specification of the required skills, identifies the target group or persons, defines expected outcomes, and clearly communicates the expectations to all parties involved in the training (staff, trainers and managers). Implementation involves developing the skills through training and other means. The acquired skills are put into use in the Application phase. This phase also includes all forms of exploitation of the acquired skills for continuous improvement.

8 Guidelines for Developing Training Plans Skill Requirements for e-government There are a number of recommendations on skill-sets required for e-government. We present below three sets of recommendations by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the UK office of the E-Envoy and the US Chief Information Officer University OECD OECD identified four sets of skills as essential for e-government: information technology (IT), information management (IM), information society (IS), and updated management skills. These skills are relevant to government employees and managers in general. With the increasing integration of Information and Communication Technology into public administrations, basic IT skills including working knowledge of applications and how they can be applied to improve work quality and efficiency must be provided to employees. Managers are also expected to understand how technology can be used as a tool to accomplish or improve government processes. Managers also require skills to allow them to work with their organization s IT and IM experts to match government processes with appropriate technical solutions. The four skill-sets are briefly described below. Information Technology Skills: Information Technology (IT) skills are technical skills necessary to implement e-government. These include basic IT literacy for all employees, and technical skills for IT specialists to design and implement technical elements (hardware, software, communication) of e-government initiatives. Specific IT-skills include: Strategy and Planning, System Development, System Implementation and Maintenance, and Service and User Support. Strategy and Planning involves developing the organization s ICT infrastructure, auditing existing technological instruments and their adequacy, and exploring software solutions to achieve interoperability of data. System Development covers the establishment of communication networks, databases, acquisition of software and hardware to support services, testing online services, and facilitating communication among IT managers, employees and customers. System Implementation and Maintenance includes hardware and software installation, network administration, implementation of security policies, and continuous system evaluation through selected performance indicators. Service and user support involves receiving and providing solutions to reported problems, and providing ongoing user training for IT literacy. Information Management Skills: Information Management (IM) skills span the deployment of knowledge resources within the public administration and the sharing of knowledge with partners and other stakeholders outside the organization. These skills are essential for coordination and collaboration within the organization in order to create a transparent image to the public. Specific IM skills include Strategy and Planning for managers, System Development for IM, Implementation and Maintenance of IM Systems, and Service and User Support for IM. Strategy and Planning for managers involve understanding organizational needs for designing information systems, and designing strategies for information management within the organization and externally. System Development by IM involve identifying relevant sources of information for the organization, designing systems for the management and retrieval of electronic information, establishing the content to be provided for different output media and target groups, and designing systems to update information using different media. Implementation and Maintenance of IM systems include administering archive systems consisting of traditional and electronic media, updating information from external and internal sources, implementing content management systems for various output media and target groups, filtering and codifying information, and continuous monitoring of performance indicators. Responding to problems as well as developing and maintaining training programmes for employees and end-users are included in Service and User Support for IM.

9 Guidelines for Developing Training Plans 4 Information Society Skills: Information Society (IS) skills include the ability to use ICT resources to implement an e-government strategy of an organization in accordance with its overall strategy. The skills involve understanding new technologies and their limits vis-à-vis the organization s service strategy. This category spans: Relationship Management, ICT Awareness to Support Organizational Strategy, e-government Implementation Management, and Evaluation Management. Relationship Management includes determining the level of citizen involvement in public decision-making, establishing long-lasting relationships with ICT suppliers and specialists, defining the level of ICT integration with suppliers and other stakeholders, ensuring that the employees have adequate support and training, and identifying common sources of cooperation with partners to achieve the seamless government. ICT Awareness to Support Organizational Strategy involves understanding technology development related to e-government strategy, the organization s ICT architecture, standards for security, privacy, and authentication, and principles of risk management. e-government Implementation Management entails establishing relationships and responsibilities between the supply side (technology) and the demand side (online services), ensuring that end-users receive online services in appropriate manner and appropriate quality, and integrating traditional and electronic channels of e-government service delivery. Evaluation Management entails applying project management techniques to develop information systems, to introduce ICT-related services and to re-engineer business processes. It also includes identifying a set of indicators to evaluate the impact of online services. Updated Management Skills: Since e-government has a significant impact on the structure and processes of public administrations, traditional managerial skills are insufficient for new organizational needs. Managers need skills to manage organizational changes resulting from e- government. They also need to improve customer responsiveness, develop accountability frameworks, create incentives for cooperation and manage relationships with the private sector Office of the E-Envoy The UK Office of the e-envoy defined seven skill-sets for e-government: Leadership, Project Management, Information Professionalism, IT Professionalism, Acquisition, IT-Based Service Design and End-User Skills. They are briefly described below. Leadership Skills: Leadership skills include establishing the direction for the organization, setting clear goals and objectives, and managing the progress of the business strategy while making sure that e-government issues are addressed. Leadership skills also cover mainstream project management: carrying out business and ICT-related performance management and improvement, and defining, monitoring and achieving targets. Leadership skills also entail the ability to collaborate with providers and partners to identify opportunities for improvement and innovation in service delivery, as well as managing technological, structural, cultural and taskrelated changes. Programme Management Skills: Programme Management (PM) includes the management of project portfolios that change organizations to achieve benefits of strategic importance to them, as well as the application of project management disciplines, processes and standards to the development and management of information systems and ICT-related services. In addition, PM includes acquisition and utilization of the necessary resources and skills within the agreed timescales, quality and cost, and the ability to identify, evaluate and manage project risks. Acquisition Skills: Acquisition skills include the ability to define and maintain organizational structures, responsibilities, procedures and processes for efficient acquisition of ICT products and services, while ensuring that all legal requirements are satisfied. Other acquisition skills include:

10 Guidelines for Developing Training Plans 5 deal-making and negotiation, relationship management and partnering, service and performance management, and managing consultants. Information Professionalism Skills: Basic information professionalism skills include the knowledge of information science: sourcing, mining, coding, storage, retrieval, dissemination and archiving of information. These skills also include librarianship, system management including web master skills, and archiving. IT Professionalism: These skills include cover Programme Management, Business System Analysis, Customer Relations, System Integration and Service Management. Programme Management skills include the ability to manage project portfolios. Business System Analysis involves systematic investigation, analysis and documentation of all or parts of a business in terms of business functions and processes, and the information they use. The definition of requirements for process and system improvements and construction is another aspect of Business System Analysis. System Integration involves incremental and logical integration and testing of software sub-systems and their interfaces to construct a complete system. System Integration also covers the incremental implementation of e-government facilities in existing ICT environments. IT-Based Service Design Skills: This category includes the skills contributing to business and administrative process re-engineering. Specifically, it covers the maintenance and implementation of service designs and delivery strategies, and the ability to develop and manage migration plans. End-User Skills: This category covers both specialist and general end-user skills. Specialist enduser skills include communication, statistics, economics, research and analysis, operational research, and finance and personnel skills. General end-user skills include operational data management and basic IT CIO University The CIO University defined 11 core competencies for federal IT executive officers: Policy and Organization; Leadership and Management; Process and Change Management; Performance Assessment; Project and Programme Management; Planning and Investment Assessment; Acquisition; e-government, e-business and e-commerce; IT Security and Information Assurance; Technical Competence; and Desktop Technology Tools [7]. These competences are described below. Policy and Organization: The required skills for this competence include the ability to: develop agency missions, organizations, function, procedures and policies; understand the regulations and laws related to IT; contribute to government s decision-making, execution, policy-making and budget formulation; establish linkages and inter-relationships among agency heads, chief operation officers, chief information officers, and chief financial officers; develop intergovernmental programs, policies and processes; develop privacy and security policies; and possess information management skills. Leadership and Management: Leadership skills extend beyond management to cover the ability to: define roles, skill sets and responsibilities of senior officials, CIO, staff and stakeholders; understand the methods for building federal IT management and technical staff expertise; provide standards for competency testing through certification, performance assessment and other methods; understand performance management techniques; build partnerships and teams; provide the foundation for knowledge management within the organization; and engage in practices which attract and retain qualified IT personnel.

11 Guidelines for Developing Training Plans 6 Process and Change Management: Process and change management skills cover the ability to: know and apply techniques and models of organizational development and change; apply techniques and models of process management and control; use modelling and simulation tools and methods; define models for quality assessment; carry out business process re-design and reengineering; develop plans and strategies for managing information resources; perform interagency functional analysis for IT; apply methodologies for IT planning; develop contingency plans; and apply monitoring and evaluation techniques. Performance Assessment: Performance assessment is crucial for determining if the set goals are being met. Specific skill requirements for this competence include the ability to: measure the business value of IT and customer satisfaction; monitor and measure new system development activities; measure the success of IT initiatives; apply processes and tools to create, administer and analyze survey questionnaires; select techniques for defining effective performance measures; and specify performance criteria. Project and Programme Management: The skill-set for this competence includes the ability to define project scope and requirements, and to manage project: integration; time and cost performance; quality; procurement and risks. Planning and Investment Assessment: This skill-set entails: knowledge of the current and best practices in cost benefit and risk analysis; knowledge of the risk management models and methods; ability to evaluate alternative IT investments; knowledge of capital investment analysis models; ability to analyse business cases; and ability to integrate performance with mission and budget. Acquisition: The basic skill-set for acquisition includes: providing acquisition strategies based on strategic and annual performance plans; understanding and operating post-award IT contract management including evaluation of past performances; and the ability to apply best practices in acquisition. e-government, e-business and e-commerce: This competence covers the ability to: understand strategic business issues and changes with the advent of e-government, e-business and e- commerce solutions; create the strategies for web development; understand industry standards, communication practices and channel strategies; understand dynamic pricing as it relates to government transactions; evaluate existing customer relationship management models and recommend them to the agencies; and identify social issues. IT Security and Information Assurance: This skill-set covers: understanding fundamental principles and best practices in Information Assurance; recognizing threats and vulnerabilities in IT systems; understanding legal and policy issues for management and end-users; providing IT security assistance; and providing standard operating procedures for intrusion or misuse of government IT systems. Technical Competence: Technical competence covers the knowledge of: information technologies, client-server architectures; collaborative processing; telecommunications; emerging and developing technologies; technologies for information delivery (intranet, internet, kiosks, etc.); system life-cycles; software development; and data management. Desktop Technology Tools: This competence covers the knowledge of desktop applications and technologies for office productivity, as well as the ability to create environments for continuous learning of desktop technologies.

12 Best Practices in e-government Training Initiatives 7 3 Best Practices in e-government Training Initiatives There are a number of initiatives on e-government training targeted at different sectors of the public. The CIO University established by the US General Services Administration and the CIO Council, and the e-university Network in Human Resource Development for e-government represent successful cases of central and regional efforts towards this end. At the state level, the Washington State Digital Government Application Academy is a notable initiative on skill development for e-government. We briefly discuss these three initiatives below. CIO University: The CIO University is a consortium of four graduate university programmes [2]. These include: Carnegie Mellon University, George Mason University, George Washington University, University of Maryland University College, La Salle University, Loyola University Chicago and Syracuse University. These universities each offer specific courses related to the core competencies associated with the skill set required of CIOs and other senior public officers who work within the CIO framework. The universities provide one of three options with respect to coursework: certificate programmes similar to other regular graduate certificate programmes; high-level overview of the core competences, not requiring the same level of depth as the first option; and remedial work for those interested in seeking advanced knowledge in specialised areas. The CIO University offers customisable training programmes for executive-level federal and non-federal public officers. e-university Network in Human Resource Development for e-government: The purpose of the e-university Network [5] is to establish a centre of excellence in human resource development for e-government through e-learning vocational courses and systems. The initiative is also aimed at promoting strong partnerships and interactive collaborations among academic institutions, government and industry in supporting Human Resource Development in the new digital economy. In addition, the project aims to implement ICT training and research programmes to fulfill the broad Information Society needs. The project has already provided online training to participants in Thailand. Online lectures are also planned for participants in the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia. Japan, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia are partners in this initiative. Washington State Digital Government Applications Academy: This initiative focuses on application development and training related to e-government [2]. Courses offered by the academy include e-licensing, e-permitting and e-forms. The courses focus on the critical services performed by the state government agencies and on collaborative agency ventures that provide standardised templates for digital government applications. The academy also promotes local government participation in training and application development. 4 Recommendations We present some recommendations on the development of Macao public workforce for e-government. The recommendations rely on the best practices presented earlier and on other factors peculiar to Macao: 1) There is a need to develop a human resource development plan for e-government as part of the overall strategic plan for e-government. 2) The Government should establish and maintain a skill inventory of its employees and assess the existing skill-gaps for e-government. 3) The Government should form strategic partnerships with universities, tertiary education institutions and training organizations within and outside Macao to offer courses and

13 Recommendations 8 4) assessment in their areas of competence. This partnership may be coordinated by a central training office located within the Government or through some third-party partner institutions. 5) The Government should commence the development of the online learning infrastructure and make it easily accessible to the public workforce for instance through agency intranets. 6) It is advisable that the Government exploits the regional human resource development efforts, for instance the APEC e-university initiative. 7) The Government should promote the philosophy of lifelong learning among its staff, as necessary for the Information Society. 8) The Government needs to encourage its staff to define and maintain a self development plan, similar to the Singapore s experience [8]. Existing e-government projects should be utilised to refine and implement these recommendations. In particular, the local survey task of the e-macao project [9, 10] could be utilised to act on the recommendation (2), while the training materials developed by e-macao could be used to act upon the recommendation (4). 5 Conclusions Human resource development plan is a key component of the overall e-government strategy of any government. The paper has provided some guidelines for drawing up an e-government training plan. It has also discussed in detail the requisite skill-sets for e-government as prescribed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US CIO University and the UK Office of the E-Envoy. Leadership, programme management, project management, process and change management, acquisition, technical and basic IT skills are some of the core skills required from contemporary public officers and managers for e-government. The paper also presented some best practices and notable initiatives in human resource development efforts for e-government by Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, CIO University and the Washington State Digital Government Applications Academy. The paper also puts forward some recommendation for Macao Government to prepare and develop its staff for e-government. Among them is the development of a government-wide training programme of public workforce, leveraging online learning, and promoting the ideas of lifelong learning and responsibility for one s self-development. References [1] Government of Italy Ministry for Innovation and Technologies, and United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2002, Plan of Action for e-government Development [2] Shannon Howle Schelin, 2004, Training for Digital Government, Digital Government: Principles and Best Practices, Alexei Pavlichev and G. David Garson (Eds.), Idea Group Publishing, pp [3] World Bank, 2004, Building Blocks of e-governments: Lessons from Developing Countries, Development Economics Vice Presidency and Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network (PREM Notes for Public Sector), No. 91 [4] Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 2003, The e-government Imperative, OECD e-government Studies

14 References 9 [5] Human Resource Development Steering Group of APEC, 2004, e-university Network in HRD for e-government, APEC Telecommunications and Information Working Group, 29 th Meeting, March 2004, Hong Kong, China [6] Employers Organization for Local Government, Skills and Development: e-skills Planner, p.html [7] CIO Council, Federal IT Workforce Committee, (1999), CIO University Learning Objectives Version 1.0 [8] Yong James, 2003, E-Government in Asia: Enabling Public Service Innovation in the 21 st century, Times Media Private Limited, pp [9] e-macao - Macao e-government Project, 2005, The State of Electronic Government in Macao, Volume 1: Survey [10] e-macao - Macao e-government Project, 2005, The State of Electronic Government in Macao, Volume 2: Agencies