Prince Osuagwu
10 December 2008
Lagos — Technology will alter the way government performs as Governments across the globe are challenged to optimize technology for positive results, create mission success for their entity, and provide value for citizens and tax payers.
This could be the ultimate expectation of all participants at the Abuja IT in Governance roadshow facilitated by global leaders in technology consultancy and research, IDC .
The event, which has been on a Roadshow in four other countries in the middle-east and Africa region, was conceptualized by IDC to examine and showcase the value of information technology in the business of governance. With instances drawn from other regions where technology deployment has enhanced governance, the IDC Roadshow was used to enlighten decision makers in government departments and parastatals on how to use 'Information sharing and interoperability creates new opportunities for improved government service, delivery, and calls for new business and decision- making models to maximize IT value'.
The IDC MEA's IT in Government Roadshow was used primarily to examine the key factors driving IT investment Middle East & Africa and exploring how the adoption of new technology in the past few years can be maximized, with emphasis on such issues as: secure computing in government, the advantages of business continuity planning, effective mobile device management to optimize cost efficiency, outsourcing in the public sector and improving service and technical expertise.
According to Emerson Gibin, program manager Vertical Markets IDC MEA, who also served as the moderator of the IT in Government event in Abuja, "In most of the developed nations, the Governments are already spending a much higher proportion of the IT investments budgets in IT Services, as compared to Hardware. But in Nigeria, there is still a lot of infrastructure to be built and therefore the government needs to invest a lot in Hardware like PCs, Servers and Networking Equipment". This position was based on the various research carried out by IDC in addition to the fact that, all the items listed in the President Musa Yar'Adua's seven-point agenda will generate investments in technology, especially in the Education sector.
Also making separate presentations at the one-day event, the Country Manager of NetApp Nigeria/Ghana, Mr. Rex Mafiana and his counterpart from Dell Nigeria Mr. Harold Anumihe, both agreed that apart from investing in the technology infrastructure, there is also an urgent need for government to plan ahead on the ideal strategy for the management, protection and recovery of data.
According to Mr. Mafiana in his presentation titled 'Information Storage In Government', he justified the need for a concerted effort at data management based on the postulation that gaining incremental and consolidated knowledge and taking advantage of history for government and all stakeholders means there must be a secured store for information gathered by successive governments. He also pointed out that Technology provides an easy way to generate, utilize, manage and store information data. To that end, he then advocated that there should be in standard Enterprise Datacenter class infrastructure with the attendant standard Datacenter security, policies, processes, best practices and people to manage the information so stored.
In his own summation, the country manager of Dell Nigeria, Mr. Anumihe in his presentation on the need for governments to invest on disaster recovery strategies, stated that disaster recovery is meant to ensure minimal downtime in the business of governance. His words: "DR will ensure continuity in business of governance, enhance transparency and accountability, engender confidence in government business, help to attract foreign investment, enhance Fiscal prudence, maintain high integrity in government records by maintaining security records like National IDs, Passports, etc".
The Abuja end of the Roadshow, which had in attendance representatives from various government agencies and IT solution providers like JKK, Datagroup IT, Oracle, NetApp and Dell, was used to show the public sector in Nigeria the key factors driving IT investments and help explore how the adoption of new technology in the past few years can be maximized. The event ended with the organizers calling on the Nigerian government to recognize and respond to changes in, and resulting from, the greater commercial business environment with an infrastructure that is sufficiently flexible to support developmental efforts as this requires ongoing attention to innovation, as well as the commitment of money and resources towards achieving such goals.
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