Building E-Governance through Reform: the Korean Experience

Abstract

This paper looks at the historical experiences in formulating Korea's e-Governance since 1980s. It is cited as one of the most frequently mentioned success cases in the global community. Korea's e-Governance has achieved a surprising growth over past two decades. Such an achievement is believed to be the result of consistent and proper formulation and implementation of IT policies linked to government reform. The e-Governance of Korea, evolving in three stages, was successfully achieved through the consistent leadership of successive presidents since 1987. In addition, the timely vision and objectives, established with consideration of efficiency and effectiveness, were appropriately applied and progressed in sync with the development of back-office management, front-office service, and e-governance infrastructure. The expansion of mass public services and transparency in the administrative process as well as the participatory governance also reinforced the advancement of the sound e-Governance. Such a rapid progress was achieved through the formation of the appropriate implementation organizations, flexible distribution of financial resources of the Informatization Promotion Fund, and the provision of a technical support network by the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) and the National Information Society Agency (NIA).