Nigeria in 2014: Higher use of technology will lead to better governance

Since Barack Obama signed the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government on his first day in office, eventually led to Data.gov, African countries have also made efforts to have similar open data portal and Kenya in particular is playing leading role in this regard with the www.opendata.go.ke. The Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is making similar effort with the www.nigerianstat.gov.ng. The story of governance in Africa though punctuated by war, coups de etat and not-so-democratic elections is also full of stories of democratic progress and innovation. Technology is playing a role on the demand side of governance with citizens taking to technology platforms to amplify their opinions and demand better services from governments. It’s playing a big role on the supply side as well with governments adopting e-government and making progress along the path to open government and turning Africa into an attractive place to live in and do business. Notable example include the Kenya Revenue Authority’s (KRA) Portal, Tanzania Revenue Authority e-Filing and mPayments, Rwanda Mobile-enabled Driving license applications and Liberia’s Online Company Registry. This economic and urban boom in cities like Lagos and Accra where existing public infrastructure systems -- from transportation, to water, sanitation, energy, healthcare, public safety, education and administration – is under increasing strain, technology could play a variety of roles to address these issues. Other areas to watch out for include electronic lands registries, integrated financial management systems and electronic business registration in an effort to improve service delivery in their government to government (G2G) interactions and G2C / G2B services. Of course the idea of cloud computing, big data and mobile technology will be interconnected areas of discourse in 2014.

Read the full article here: 10 Economic Highlights to look out for in Nigeria in 2014. Want to share you thoughts on the Nigerian Economy in 2014? You can drop your comment below or continue the discussion with on twitter Tweet to @seunoyeniran

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