How Covid-19 lockdown triggered a positive change in Nepal’s e-governance system and digital economy
In line with the global trend of digitalization, Nepal has made a remarkable progress in the field of information and communications technology (ICT) in the past few years. However, some reports show that the state is lagging behind in engaging, designing or delivering innovative development solutions in the evolving landscape.
Things seem to be changing during the Covid times.
During the months of nationwide lockdown, e-governance has been widely in use in coordination with various arms of government at national and local levels, development partners and private sector. E-governance and digital economy have not just served the general public during the crisis, but also ensured efficiency, transparency and reliability of services at affordable costs.
At a time when paper-based records and data keeping system are still prevalent in Nepal, few reforms have been brought with the use of innovations. But lack of accessibility, poor literacy rate and poverty, and lack of willingness of both the governments and citizens to use e-governance stand as challenges.
Many experts believe that if there was no pandemic, many municipal and village councils would not opt for remote services despite years of hard work to implement electronic service delivery models. Ekendra Lamsal, who works as an e-governance consultant for provincial and municipal governments, shared: “From simple examples of online passes, citizen's queries to the government entities, technology based delegation and approvals using some sort of remote technology, they all pass some message which shows that remote service delivery is possible. Citizens want e-governance.”
...
