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Master Thesis
                  Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study




       Heidelberg University of Applied Sciences


                 Germany/Heidelberg

                Faculty of Informatics




                     Master Thesis

TOWARDS E-GOVERNMENT: IRAQI DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS’
                 CASE STUDY


                     Submitted By

                  SAIF AL-SHOKER


                     Supervised by

               Prof. Dr.Yass Mohammed

                Prof. Dr. Gerd Moeckel

                  Company’s Supervisor
           Dipl. - Ing. Thomas Brandtstaetter

                     February 2012



                                                                           2
Master Thesis
                 Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study




   Towards E-Government: Iraqi Diplomatic
            Missions’ case study


                             By

                  SAIF AL-SHOKER

            Matriculation no: m1000859




       A thesis submitted as a pre-requisite for the

               Degree of Master of Science



              Thesis Advisory Committee



 Prof.Dr. Mohammed Yass                   Dipl-Ing. (BA)
  Prof. Dr. Gerd Möckel                Thomas Brandtstaetter

  Heidelberg University                       BÜROTEX
   of Applied Science                       Synargos GmbH

Ludwig-Guttmann-Straße 6                   Max-Eyth-Str. 21
    69123 Heidelberg                       72622 Nürtingen
        Germany                               Germany




                                                                          4
Master Thesis
                          Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study



Affidavit


Herewith I declare:



•	 That I have composed the chapters for the Master Thesis for Which I am named
   as the author independently;

•	 That I did not use any other sources and additives then the one’s specified;

•	 That I did not submit this work at any other examination procedure;




Heidelberg,




(Date)______________________________




(Signature)______________________




                                                                                   5
Master Thesis
                                             Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study



Table of Contents

Abstract ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������13


Chapter One - General Introduction
1.1	      Introduction  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������14
1.2	       Research Problem and Aims  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������16
1.3	 Thesis Outcome  �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������16
1.4	       Disposition of The Study ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������17


Chapter Two - E-Government Literature Review
2.1        Introduction  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������19
2.2       The Concepts of State and Government �����������������������������������������������������������20
2.3      Characteristics of E-Government: ������������������������������������������������������������������������21
2.4    Definition of E-Government  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������21
2.5       What Are The Types of E-Government Delivery Services �����������������������������22
    2.5.1        Government to Citizen Approach ���������������������������������������������������������������23
    2.5.2        Government to Employee  Government to  overnment Approach 23
                                                        G
2.6    How Is E-Government Beneficial To Public Administrators and Society �����24
    2.6.1    E-Government Improves Efficiency �������������������������������������������������������������24
    2.6.2        E-Government Improves Services ���������������������������������������������������������������24
    2.6.3        E-government Helps to Build Trust Between  overnment  Citizens  5
                                                           G                       2
2.7       Adoption Phases of E-Government  �������������������������������������������������������������������25
    2.7.1        Chandler and Emanuel’s Model  �������������������������������������������������������������������25
    2.7.2        Layne and Lee’s Model ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������26
2.8      Descriptive Analysis of E-government in the Arab Region �����������������������������34
2.9      Barriers to E-Government Implementation in Arab Countries  �������������������35
2.10 Access Issues ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������35


Chapter Three - Case Study: Iraqi Diplomatic Missions
3.1. Introduction  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������37
3.2 Characteristics of the Republic of Iraq  �������������������������������������������������������������38
3.3 Iraqi Foreign Ministry  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������39
3.4     The Definition of Foreign Missions ���������������������������������������������������������������������40
3.5 Basic Concept ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������40



                                                                                                                                         7
Master Thesis
                                            Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study



Table of Contents

3.6 Stakeholders �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������41
3.7 Functions of the Missions Abroad  ����������������������������������������������������������������������42
3.8 Iraqi Diplomatic Missions and Citizens Abroad  ����������������������������������������������43
3.9 Comparative Worldwide E-Government Experiences  ����������������������������������45
   3.9.1 Australia ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������46
   3.9.2 Bahrain ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������48
   3.10 Consular Web-Based Services Requirements  ������������������������������������������50
   3.10.1 Organizational Requirements ���������������������������������������������������������������������51
   3.10.2 Change Management �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������52

Chapter Four - Conceptualization
4.1.Introduction  �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������53
4.2 Research Process ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������54
4.3 Data Collection �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������55
   4.3.1 Literature Review ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������55
   4.3.2 The Questionnaire �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������56
   4.3.3 Interviews ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������56

Chapter Five - Design
5.1. Introduction  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������62
5.2 Architecture Prototype ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������63
   5.2.1 User Front-End Web Portal ���������������������������������������������������������������������������64
   5.2.2 E-Visa ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������66
   5.2.3 Online Appointment System �������������������������������������������������������������������������72
   5.2.4 Online Passport System ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������74

Chapter Six - Conclusion
6.1. Introduction  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������78
6.2 Discussion �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������79
6.3 Conclusion ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������79
6.4 Thesis Outcomes ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������80

Bibliography ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������81

Appendix A - Questionnaire����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������84




                                                                                                                                       8
Master Thesis
                                              Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study


List of Figures
Chapter One
Figure (1.1) - shows the thesis structure ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 18


Chapter Two
Figure (2.1) - Layne and Lee Model  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 26
Figure (2.2) - Web measure index ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 27
Figure (2.3) - Illustration of e-government maturity around the world ����������������������������� 28
Figure (2.4) - Illustration of e-government emerging stage ��������������������������������������������������� 29
Figure (2.5) - Illustration of e-government enhanced stage �������������������������������������������������� 30
Figure (2.6) - Illustration of e-government interactive stage ������������������������������������������������ 31
Figure (2.7) - Illustration of e-government transactional stage �������������������������������������������� 32
Figure (2.8) - Illustration of e-government connected stage ������������������������������������������������ 33


Chapter Three
Figure (3.1) - Iraq Neighboring countries ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 38
Figure (3.2) - Structure of the Iraqi Ministry of foreign affairs ��������������������������������������������� 39
Figure (3.3) - Illustration of the Australian e-government portal ���������������������������������������� 46
Figure (3.4) - Illustration of the Australian Embassy in Germany and e-visa processing   8                            4
Figure (3.5) - Shows the Bahraini e-visa website �������������������������������������������������������������������� 49
Figure (3.6) - Illustration of the Bahraini Embassy website in London ������������������������������� 50


Chapter Four
Figure (4.1) - Phases of the research process �������������������������������������������������������������������������� 55
Figure (4.2) - Website of the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm (old version) ���������������������������� 58
Figure (4.3) - The new website of the Iraqi Embassy in Oslo ����������������������������������������������� 58


Chapter Five
Figure (5.1) - Illustrates the proposed web-application architecture ��������������������������������� 63
Figure (5.2) - A proposed design of an Iraqi Diplomatic Mission website taking the Iraqi
Embassy in Berlin as a sample ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 64
Figure (5.3) - shows the basic view of Bonita soft GUI ��������������������������������������������������������� 66
Figure (5.4) - Shows the Process diagram of e-Visa application ������������������������������������������� 67
Figure (5.5) - A proposed design showing visa selection ������������������������������������������������������� 68
Figure (5.6) - A proposed design showing the user when he/she is prompted to enter
personal credentials. ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 69
Figure (5.7) - A proposed design showing generation of reference number �������������������� 70
Figure (5.8) - Shows the Process diagram of online appointment system ������������������������� 72
Figure (5.9) - Shows the Process diagram of online passport system �������������������������������� 75

                                                                                                                                              9
Master Thesis
                                                 Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study


List of Tables

Chapter Two
Table (2.1) - E-government development in the Arab world  ����������������������������������������������� 34


Chapter Three
Table (3.1) - Iraqi’s National Profile sources ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 39
Table (3.2) - Consular functions summary �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 42
Table (3.3) - Estimated number of Iraqi citizens in various countries �������������������������������� 45


Chapter Four
Table (4.1) - Illustrates the key findings of some of the old Iraqi Diplomatic missions’
websites���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 60
Table (4.2) - Illustrates the key findings of some of the current Iraqi Diplomatic missions’
websites as part of a recent e-government project partially deployed but not successfully
completed������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 61




                                                                                                                                                       10
Master Thesis
                        Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study


List of Abbreviations




ICT          	     Information and communication technology
G2C			             Government to Citizen
G2G 			            Government to Government
G2E			             Government to Employee
E-services 	       Electronic services
MoFA 			           Ministry of Foreign Affairs
E-Visa		       	   Electronic Visa
GUI			             Graphical user interface
E-commerce		       Electronic Commerce
BPMN			            Business Process Model and Notation




                                                                                 11
Master Thesis
                           Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study



Abstract


E-government represents a key instrument in empowering change, fostering
technological innovation in the public sector and government structure. A mean
to make a crucial change in society, culture by utilizing the best out of ICT to
enhance government functionality. E-government has caught the attention of
many governments around the world to undertake studies, conduct research
in the efforts to identify factors that may play a significant role in the progress
of e-government in terms of reducing administrative costs, providing long-term
benefits and increasing accountability and effective delivery of e-services to the
citizens. Therefore, e-government is identified as a “hot” topic of the day and
one of the major priorities in governments’ agenda across the world. However,
e-government is not easy to come across because it is not simply a software rather
than a framework that reflects government policy and the relationship between a
government and its citizens.This consequently, raises many important critical points
such as political, social, cultural and technological issues which must be taken into
account and treated carefully when adopting e-government.

This thesis investigates on how an e-government system can be adopted and applied
at a diplomatic mission to provide consular services taking Iraq initiative as a case
study by conducting interviews with Iraqi diplomats as well as carrying out a survey
intended for ordinary Iraqi citizens.

Based on the data collected which served as an input for the initial framework to
narrow down the study. The framework was used as a tool to pave the road ahead
for designing a web application and prototyping a model to define the internal
workflow process of some online services. This thesis has made a contribution to
the field of e-government in terms of providing consular services to Iraqi citizens
within the diplomatic missions abroad.




                                                                                    13
e-government




               CHAPTER I           General Introduction
                                             1.1	 Introduction
               Throughout the 18th and the 19th centuries, the world
               witnessed the industrial revolution which has created the
               industrial society, whereas during the 21st century, the
               humanity has progressed to the information revolution.
               We are living in an era where the world is connected at
               all levels due to the revolutionary changes in technology,
               computers are being connected all over the world which
               consequently, leads to the use of information technology
               in almost every aspect of our daily activities reaching
               from banking, trading, learning, teaching, entertainment
               to government. As we know, one of the major goals and
               plans being considered in governments’ policy nowadays
               is to reduce the administrative size and costs on one
               hand and to increase the productivity and functionality of
               government body on the other hand. (Leon J. Osterweil,
               Lynette I. Millett and Joan D. Winston, 2007).
Chapter 1

E-government is considered to be a key success factor towards a modernizing
government. In this regard, governments are continuously facing new challenges
to increase their performance in providing citizens with better access to their
services.

The nature of government functioning has been going through a fast change due
to the impact of technology that made the delivery of services possible over the
internet. This has motivated different governments around the globe to conduct
research on the topic of e-government, which later has evolved to become a
recognized research field.

In recent years, many governments around the world have taken initiatives in
adopting the concept of e-government as a powerful tool to meet citizens’ needs
and moving public services towards higher transparency, accountability and
efficiency. Among the main reasons why many governments are starting including
e-government in their agenda are to gain trust, confidence and credibility from
their citizens. However this vision that e-government is promising in improving
the overall functionality of any government cannot be accomplished without
encountering several serious obstacles. The degree of complexity of implementing
and maintaining good provision of online services is high. Countries such as Iraq
facing many obstacles is the best example that can be applied for this research
thesis.

This research thesis contributes to the issue of the Iraqi diplomatic missions to
citizens’ relationship in providing Iraqi citizens living abroad with good consular
services by addressing the current situation of Information Technology and the
degree of awareness within the Iraqi community living abroad and Diplomatic
member staff.

In recent years, many electronic Government projects were launched in Iraq, like
computerizing all MoFA’s internal processes and creating an intranet. For instance,
in 2004, (UNDESA, 2008), the Iraqi Ministry of Science and Technology has launched
an initiative in conjunction with the Italian Ministry of Innovation and Technologies
in providing technical support to construct an intranet connecting different
Ministries and even recently (Iraqi Missions overseas), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
has launched an e-government program to link all its diplomatic missions abroad
through a web portal but all projects have been largely unsuccessful, or even close
to having been achieved.



Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                          15
Chapter 1


1.2	 Research Problem and Aims


Iraqi citizens should be able to obtain consular services or information in minutes or
hours as compared to the current situation which is in days, weeks or even months.
Diplomatic member staff should be able to deliver their work more efficiently and
this cannot be done without a proper organizational structure.

Before conducting this thesis, I started interviewing different Iraqi Diplomats
and Iraqi citizens abroad (who most of them at least went to an embassy once
before) and after gathering enough information, the result showed that the general
public considers consular affairs as the most important mission of the whole
foreign ministry. Furthermore, Iraqi diplomats may still be a bit confused about the
significance of consular affairs as part of the whole agenda of the MoFA, but indeed,
citizens do not share that sense of perspective.

Now days, citizens have more demand for their time, as distances to work have
increased, rate of dual-income families has increased too. Thus, citizens are less
flexible to visit any Diplomatic Mission during normal working hours. Citizens want
to have access to consular services at their convenience and this thesis discusses a
solution to overcome such obstacle.



1.3	 Thesis Outcome


This thesis proposes a framework strategy to adopt and implement e-government
within the Diplomatic Missions. In addition, it presents a proposal for a sample web
design layout to replace the current one. Furthermore, it reviews the current issues
in providing good consular services to citizens and suggests a model presented
in three case studies: E-visa program (along with web illustrations to give the
reader clearer vision of the process), online appointment system program and an
online passport system using an evaluation framework based on questionnaire and
interviews results.




Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                         16
Chapter 1


1.4	 Disposition of The Study


The remaining chapters of this thesis are organized as follows:

Chapter two gives a brief description about the company profile in which the
author has conducted some research on the topic of e-government. Chapter three
explains some general concepts of government, state and e-government, in order to
prepare the reader to gain further insights about the topic.Then, it reviews different
definitions, perspectives and benefits of e-government. It also gives an overview of
the maturity levels of e-government, provided with some web illustrations. Finally,
it identifies some major issues that may prevent the achievement of e-government.
This is then, followed by short description about Iraq and its foreign policy in
chapter four. Furthermore, this chapter also presents an overview about Diplomatic
Missions as a general concept and some examples of worldwide e-government
implementation with some web illustrations related to the same topic. At last, this
chapter is concluded with a list of consular web-based requirements that contribute
in the successful delivery of services to citizens.

Chapter five provides the research plan on data collection methods and presents
the methods were used in this thesis. In addition, it shows how information was
collected from questionnaire and interviews to bring together all findings from
previous chapters to be served as an input to identify the problem and develop a
framework to propose a model to build a web application for the Iraqi diplomatic
mission in chapter six. Finally, chapter seven presents a conclusion for this thesis
with recommendations for future prospects. A simple framework is shown in figure
(1.1) to give the reader an illustration of the thesis structure.




Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                         17
Chapter 1




                       Figure (1.1) - shows the thesis structure




Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                18
e-government




               CHAPTER II                 Literature Review
                                              2.1	 Introduction
               A literature review will be conducted in this chapter, to
               introduce the reader to the core of this thesis, starting
               with the definitions and concepts of government, state and
               e-government.Then, it is followed by discussing the models
               of implementing e-government and the barriers to its
               implementation. In addition, this chapter will introduce the
               maturity level of e-government development presented
               with some web illustrations to give the reader a clear idea
               about the research topic as a basis for later chapters.
Chapter 2


2.2       The Concepts of State and Government


A state can be defined as an organized political community, residing in a territory and
possessing external and internal sovereignty which has internationally recognized
boundaries and recognition by other countries. The scope of a state is much more
beyond its structure and it consists of several elements which can be summarized
as follows (Rosenberg):

A defined territory: is a geographical area fixed by definite frontiers, under the
authority and jurisdiction of a government, in which the functions of a state take
place to exercise such sovereignty and no other state should have power over the
country’s territory.

Government: is the supreme authority by which a state is governed at a given time.
It has the role to administer and organize the organs of a state in the following
aspects: political, social, cultural, environmental protection, national defense, foreign
and internal affairs and enforcing of state policy (Duursma, 1996, pp. 110 - 119).

Permanent population: population is the collection of human beings living together
as a community. The population of a state represents all people who, in principle,
live in a territory on an ongoing basis.

Sovereignty: is the authority to govern or rule a group of people over a geographical
area. The definition of the “Sovereignty” is quite similar to the “Independence” and
they can interchangeably be used together (Chanhchom, 2010).

It’s important to keep in mind that state differs from government. As a matter of
fact, the nature of state is permanently while the nature of government serving
that state is temporarily and changes over time. Each successive government is
composed of a body of individuals whose role is to enforce laws and legislate new
ones. They are concerned with administering many areas of human activity such as
trade, education, medicine, war and etc (Duursma, 1996, pp. 110 - 119).




Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                            20
Chapter 2


2.3       Characteristics of E-Government


 It all started few years ago,when the world witnessed the explosion in communication
technology, which has influenced the society in a spectacular way, especially with
the emergence of the internet. Now that technology has become an integral part
of everyday life, it is seen to be as a solution to major problems for governments,
in fact, many government agencies around the world started to use ICT tools and
internet to support governance and to have a better relationship with citizens by
delivering more modern services and improving the quality and responsiveness of
these services to their citizens.

Only recently the public sector has come to realize the importance of ICT as a means
to provide high-quality and efficient public services and today, many government
agencies around the world are facing challenges to set up the prerequisites to
enable citizens to have a better and transparent form of access to their services.

A brief history of e-government shows that, in the 1990s, some governments took
some initiatives in adopting e-government solutions, ranging from simple web
presence and one-way communication to two-way communication with citizens.
Finally, this moved on with time to more integrated web presence like offering
the possibility of online payments, downloading or filling online applications, online
documentation and email communication (Leon J. Osterweil, Lynette I. Millett and
Joan D. Winston, 2007).


2.4       Definition of E-Government


For one to fully realize the idea of E-Government one must first understand
what government stands for, as we stated before that the role of a government
is to administer and organize the organs and structures of a state and only when
the government starts to use the ICT in their day-to-day activities it moves to
e-government.




Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                         21
Chapter 2


E-government, however, is a term for which there are multiple definitions among
different governments and organizations. For instance, (Ndou, 2004, p. 3) emphasized
that the failure of some e-government adoptions is due to the narrow definition
given to it.

According to OECD (2003), e-government is the use of Information and
Communication Technology (ICT), and particularly the internet to achieve better
government. However this definition is quite general and doesn’t focus on a
specific aspect of how to achieve a better government, while the (World Bank)
defines E-government as the use of information technologies ( such as internet) by
government agencies to transform relations with citizens and other governmental
branches as such to provide better delivery of public services to citizens, improve
interactions with business and industry and come up with a more efficient
government management, consequently resulting in less corruption, increased
transparency and/or cost reduction. This definition stated above has focused on
the desired goals without an emphasis on the tools should be used to achieve such
results.



2.5       What Are The Types of E-Government Delivery Services


E-government offers quite a lot of services to facilitate transactions between
government and other key stakeholders. It focuses on four main customers to
be served: citizens, government agencies, employees and businesses, however, our
main focus in this research will be mainly the interactions between government
and citizens, other government entities and employees and they are summarized
as follows:

•	 Government to Citizen Approach
•	 Government to Employee  Government to Government Approach




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Chapter 2


        2.5.1       Government to Citizen Approach


        This approach focuses on posting the information to citizens online through
        web pages such as ordering of birth/death/marriage certificates, as well
        as the possibility to enable the government and citizen to communicate
        and interact with each other using electronic format. Early stages of
        e-government web sites design were not organized properly, especially the
        hyperlinks to other government services. This proved to be confusing to
        citizens as they would spend time searching and going through a lot of
        web pages till they reach the information they need. Learning lessons from
        e-commerce sites, to adopt new approaches to bring citizen into satisfaction
        by using citizen-centric approach and this includes organizing the content
        around citizen needs and making the web site more structured to reduce
        the number of clicks to reach the information (Gant, 2008, pp. 16 - 18).
        This interaction improves the quality of citizens’ lives by providing good
        government services and a good example of G2C can be found in Dubai’s
        web portal (www.dubai.ae).



        2.5.2       Government to Employee  Government to
                    Government Approach

        Government to employee approach aims to enhance the performance of
        both government and its employee and this is done by coordinating the
        internal operations and improving the business processes among them.While
        this concept is very closely related to the Government to Government
        approach, its main objective here is to increase the level of cooperation
        between different government agencies; it provides the means to facilitate
        the interconnection and communication between government offices at all
        levels, in different locations by saving time and eliminating redundancies.

        A good example to be considered is the communications between
        diplomatic missions and their diplomats worldwide with foreign ministries
        as an instrument to enhance diplomacy (Gant, 2008, pp. 16 - 18).




Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                       23
Chapter 2


2.6      How Is E-Government Beneficial To Public Administrators
         and Society
Technology has proved to be valuable in increasing social productivity and economic
growth. Embracing e-government will help government to provide better services
to citizens as well as increased efficiency within government agencies, leading to an
overall environment of more structured government. The benefits to agencies and
citizens are outlined below:

•	 E-governement improves efficiency.
•	 E-governement improves services.
•	 E-government can help to build trust between government and citizens.


        2.6.1  E-Government Improves Efficiency


        With the usage of ICTs, e-government can simplify and make processing
        tasks and public administration transactions more efficient, resulting in
        less errors and the saving of time and money. Internet-based applications
        accessed online can bring significant improvement by enabling the share
        of data within and between government agencies, leading to an increase in
        their service processing and delivery capabilities as well as the exchange of
        data with less time and fewer staff. As well as the provision of information
        and make it available to citizens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (OECD, 2003,
        p. 2).


        2.6.2 E-Government Improves Services


        Citizen satisfaction is considered to be a core element of e-government
        strategy, successful services are built on user’s requirements and what they
        need and this can be done by providing these services on the basis of
        self-serve and make it almost effortless to find information, as the user
        should not have to understand the complexity of government structures
        and its inter-relationships.The internet can achieve this goal by making web
        sites more user-friendly accompanied by a quick government response
        and enabling governments to appear as a unified structure (Nations,
        E-Government Survey 2012, 2012, pp. 112-113).

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Chapter 2


        2.6.3     E-government Can Help to Build Trust Between
                  Government and Citizens
        Building trust between government and citizens is considered to be
        fundamental to good governance. E-government provides the means to
        increase participation of citizens in policy process.For instance, e-government
        can provide opportunities to citizens to express themselves, that their voice
        can be heard, through web comment forums as well as to provide them
        with the possibility to submit suggestions, ideas. Ultimately, this approach
        in turn can help government to better understand citizens’ needs which
        will consequently increase the accountability of the government itself and
        prevent corruption (Blind, 2006).


2.7      Adoption Phases of E-Government


Several stages can be noticed in the implementation of e-government. This section
will give an overview of some existent models of different stages as proposed by
different authors.The process of establishing an e-government system passes through
different stages, until it reaches its final stage and regardless the different stages of
each proposed model, there are many similarities between these approaches. For
example, it starts from the immature to the mature where the latter provides full
integration of government information and services within different government
agencies at different levels. For example, it starts with simple information posted
on the web, then two-way communication facilities, transaction process at a later
stage until it reaches a stage where it seamlessly ties together different ministries.
The various models of the stages of e-government can be summarized below:

•	 Chandler and Emanuel’s Model
•	 Layne and Lee’s Model

       2.7.1     Chandler and Emanuel’s Model

       Chandler and Emanuel (Geoffrey K.  Louise Y.) broke up e-government
       implementation process into four stages:
       1.	 Information stage: where it displays the availability of government
           services on the web.
       2.	 Interaction stage: where the interactions between government and
           citizens are enhanced, represented in two way communication.

Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                            25
Chapter 2

        3.	 Transaction stage: transactions are possible at this stage. For example a
            citizen can submit a form online.
        4.	 Integration stage: integration of services is fully realized across different
            government entities.


       2.7.2     Layne and Lee’s Model


       Layne and Lee (Karen Layne  Jungwoo Lee, 2001) developed e-government
       implementation to go through four stages. Layne and Lee study proposes a
       ‘stages of growth’ model in order to reach a fully functional e-government,
       see figure (2.1).

       •	 Cataloguing phase: in this phase, initial efforts are taken to make
          government information and its services available to the public through
          the creation of websites.
       •	 Transaction phase: further efforts are considered to enable citizens to
          interact with their government electronically.
       •	 Vertical integration phase: This level and last level focuses on the
          differentiation between government functions and government levels.
          This phase takes into account the integration of different government
          levels within the same functional areas.
       •	 Horizontal integration phase: this last level, in contrast to the previous
          phase, focuses on integrating different government systems across
          different functions.




                         Figure (2.1) - Layne and Lee Model
                         (Karen Layne  Jungwoo Lee, 2001)

Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                            26
Chapter 2

Based on the above two models presented and their similarities, there are some
differences. For instance, Layne and Lee (2001) divide integration phase into vertical
and horizontal phases, which in turn gives more focus on the level of integration of
data and services. This enables the citizens to access government services without
to worry about which agency is responsible for. This model also focuses on the
levels of organizational and technological aspects.

It can be noticed that Layne and Lee (2001) move to the transaction phase without
mentioning the interaction phase. On the other hand, Chandler and Emanuel’s model
mentions the interaction stage. In addition, the model gives little consideration to
the technical security aspect at the transaction stage.




                        Figure (2.2) - Web measure index


As countries move upwards in developing their e-government systems to become
more sophisticated in terms of content delivery and user satisfaction, they face a
lot of challenges. According to the United Nations, (DESA, 2008), see figure(2.2),
the progress towards a solid e-government system is classified into five stages
are Emerging, Enhanced, Interactive, Transactional and connected, based on the
functionalities, facilities and services available on the web. Figure (2.3) shows the
availability of e-government around the world and as it can be noticed that most
Arab countries still at early stages of e-government maturity.




Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                         27
Chapter 2




             Figure (2.3) - Illustration of e-government maturity around the world


 The stages are a method for measuring progress of e-government implementation.
 They represent how a country is successful socially, economically and in its political
 will. In this research, the five stages of e-government development are presented
 with some web illustrations and are as follows:

 1.	 Emerging Stage
 2.	 Enhanced Stage
 3.	 Interactive Stage
 4.	 Transactional Stage
 5.	 Connected Stage




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Chapter 2


1.	 Emerging Stage:

The first level of e-government is the Emerging stage. At this level, governments
start creating websites and provide basic information about the different types of
government agencies. These websites provide links to Ministries, regional and local
authorities and diplomatic missions abroad.

The content of such websites is static and provide information about the type of
services being offered, working hours, contact information and etc.




             Figure (2.4) - Illustration of e-government emerging stage (D.C., 2004)




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Chapter 2


2.	 Enhanced Stage:

This is the second level of e-government strategy; it focuses on providing means for
individuals to communicate with government agencies and search for information
which is regularly updated.

At some point, a home page may act as a point of entry to other governmental
agencies and provide some features like downloading some useful documents for
greater interaction between citizen and agencies.




      Figure (2.5) - Illustration of e-government enhanced stage (Stockholm, 2005)




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Chapter 2


3.	 Interactive Stage:

At this level governments start to create a national government website that acts
as a point of entry to a wide variety of services and information, users may look
up into the databases to retrieve specific information.  At this moment, some
enhanced features begin to emerge like securing sites, user log-in and password
and downloading applications with the possibility to submit them online.




     Figure (2.6) - Illustration of e-government interactive stage (Government S. , 2012)




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Chapter 2


4.	 Transactional Stage:

At this advanced level of e-government maturity, individuals can perform transactions
electronically like, for example, making processing payments, submitting application
forms, applying for visas and passports just to name a few. The outcome of this
e-government stage is to try to minimize the interaction with government staff and
automate these processes as best to improve the efficiency of the services offered.




       Figure (2.7) - Illustration of e-government transactional stage (Canada, 2011)
Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                             32
Chapter 2


5.	 Connected Stage:

This stage is considered to be the most sophisticated level of e-government
implementation. During this phase, governments transform themselves into a
connected entity using a fully integrated ICT and back office infrastructure that
responds to the needs of its citizens. Data is either exchanged vertically between
different levels of government or horizontally between different Ministries. In
addition, the integration takes place across all government sectors from local,
regional authorities and external institutions. Connected government can be
summarized as follows:

•	   Horizontal connection among different agencies
•	   Vertical connection among central and local agencies.
•	   Infrastructure connection.
•	   Connection between governments and citizens.
•	   Connection among stakeholders.




     Figure (2.8) - Illustration of e-government connected stage (Government S. L., 2009)




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Chapter 2


    2.8        Descriptive Analysis of E-government in the Arab Region


    There are numerous surveys showing how governments are progressing in the
    adoption of e-government in terms of the previous five stages discussed earlier.  
    According to the UN survey conducted in 2010 (UN2010), most of these countries
    indicate that they fall within the enhanced and interactive stages. This survey
    measures the significant differences between developed and developing countries
    in terms of the quality of online services.

    Professor West (West, 2005) observes, “Most governments around the world have
    gone no further than the billboard or partial service-delivery states of e-Government.
    They have made little progress at portal development, placing services online, or
    incorporating interactive features onto their websites. Not only are they failing to
    use technology to transform the public sector, their efforts mostly consist of no
    meaningful change or small steps forward”.

                              E-government development      World e-government
     Country                  index value                   development ranking
                                  2010          2008            2010          2008
     Bahrain                      0.73          0.57             13             42
     United Arab Emirates         0.53          0.63             49             32
     Kuwait                       0.52          0.52             50             57
     Jordan                       0.52          0.54             51             50
     Saudi Arabia                 0.51          0.49             58             70
     Qatar                        0.49          0.53             62             53
     Tunisia                      0.48          0.34             66            124
     Egypt                        0.45          0.47             86             79
     Oman                         0.45          0.46             82             84
     Lebanon                      0.43          0.48             93             74
     Libya                        0.37          0.35            114            120
     Morocco                      0.32          0.29            126            140
     Algeria                      0.31          0.35            131            121
     Syria                        0.31          0.36            133            119
     Iraq                         0.29          0.26            136            151
     Sudan                        0.25          0.21            154            161
     Yemen                        0.21          0.21            164            164
 
             Table (2.1) - E-government development in the Arab world (UN2010)




    Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                         34
Chapter 2


2.9     Barriers to E-Government Implementation in Arab Countries


Up to now this literature review has examined the basic principles of e-government
and its impact on a country’s development. In this section, focus is moved towards
the challenges that most Arab countries are facing in establishing e-government
system.

Like many other developed countries around the world, Arab countries which
represent 5% of the world population, are putting efforts in implementing
e-government. Such efforts may help them to support accountability and
transparency, and at some phases to be competitive with other developed countries.
One of the most common complaints that Arab citizens are now suffering is the
quantity and complexity of government formalities and paperwork (UNDP, 2001).

So the first step towards a successful implementation of e-government is to make
plans to simplify the organizational and administrative aspects as a whole.
Many technical and non-technical issues emerge as e-government becomes broader
in scope and its complexity increases, such issues have to be closely monitored and
controlled, as they are considered to be crucial to the successful implementation
of an effective e-government.

According to Heeks (Dada), most developing countries fail to implement
e-government and the main reason to such failure is the presence of a gap between
the current reality and the plans to implement a future e-government system. This
is due to the inconsistency in the physical, economic and social aspects.


2.10     Access Issues

Many users feel that using websites to carry on transactions with e-government
agencies (such as, name, ID number, credit card details and personal information)
are not safe. They feel that websites are not enough secured as their information
may be manipulated or misused by other third parties or hackers. This lack of
security has created less willingness to go for online services.
In order to overcome security challenges, governments must provide the means
to protect their websites as well as associated data - repositories (archives) and to
provide a secure access point to citizens to gain citizens trust, this can be achieved
partially through public awareness by using TV, campaigns, seminars, etc.


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Chapter 2

In today’s world, when it comes to secure critical data, there is a significant and
increasing demand for information security based on the concept of applying
cryptographic services and consequently using cryptographic keys. So it all
comes to securing the keys so the overall system can be secured and assured.
Some critical keys for instance must be securely generated and imported at a
corresponding crypto node. This cannot be done without the proper handling of
the key management so the outcome can be reduced.

Taking into consideration what have been mentioned, so the establishment of
cryptographic infrastructures will demand more than the conventional system
integration which requires ultimately, a profound system-planning and process
integration.1




1
    Source: In Personal communication with Brandtstaetter, T. (2011). Cyber Crime.

Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                                  36
e-government




                CHAPTER III
               Case Study: Iraqi Diplomatic Missions
                                                   3.1	 Introduction
                   Now      days many governments around the globe are
                   considering more and more to develop and to find the
                   best strategies to efficiently deliver e-government services
                   to citizens, in order to support and speed up the process
                   of modernization of public sector.
                   In the previous chapter, I gave an overview of e-government
                   in general, its benefits as well as various issues that affect
                   the implementation of e-government such as the economic,
                   cultural, political and social impacts, which are different in
                   each country; therefore there is no standard model to be
                   applied in all countries.
                   However, utilizing and learning the lessons from other
                   e-government initiatives is indispensable to avoid
                   future problems that might prevent the adoption of
                   e-government. Therefore, this chapter illustrates brief
                   information about Iraq, some statistics about displaced
                   Iraqis around the world, its diplomatic missions abroad
                   which is the main focus of this research, as well as a brief
                   description of the services offered.
Chapter 3


             3.2    Characteristics of the Republic of Iraq


             Iraq is a country situated in western Asia, confined geographically from the northeast
                                                                       He
             by Zagros Mountains, the Syrian Desert from the west and the Arabian Desertof Applied
                                                                        eidelberg University
             from the south. Iraq neighboring countries are Syria,Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait and
             Saudi Arabia see figure (3.1). It occupies 438,317 squaret: Iraqi diplo
              Master Thesis                Towards E-g
                                           T               governmen kilometers. According miss
                                                                                        omatic to sions’ ca
             the Iraqi Central Organization for Statistics, the total population reached 30 million
             in 2009 and a growth rate of 2.6%. (UNdata).




                         Figure (3.1) - - Iraq Neigh countries (Geology, 2007)
                           Figure
                                  (10) Iraq Neighboring
                                                     hboring countries



                               Total population 30 Million
                                                         n
Population
  p                            Annu growth 2
                                          ual            2.6%
             Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                    38
                               Popu     ulation aged 0 – 14 years 40.7%
Chapter 3


                                 Total population 30 Million
 Population                      Annual growth 2.6%
                                 Population aged 0 – 14 years 40.7%

 Area                            438,317 square kilometers
 Currency                        Iraqi Dinar (IQD)

                                 Natural resources: petroleum, natural gas, Phosphates,
 Economy                          sulfur
                                 Nominal GDP (2010): $82.2 Billion

                                 Arabic
 Official language
                                 Kurdish

                     Table (3.1) - Iraqi’s National Profile sources (UNdata)


3.3      Iraqi Foreign Ministry


The ministry of foreign affairs of the republic of Iraq is in charge of the Iraqi’s
foreign policy and diplomacy. It is also in charge of all diplomatic missions abroad.
As of now, Iraq has a diplomatic representation in almost 35 countries around
the world to provide Iraqi citizens with the necessary information and consular
services. Figure (4.2) illustrates the various departments within the Ministry.




Figure (3.2) - Structure of the Iraqi Ministry of foreign affairs (MoFA, Ministry Structure)

Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                                39
Chapter 3


3.4     The Definition of Foreign Missions


Diplomatic Missions abroad are government agencies that are composed of a
group of people (Diplomats) from one state operating in another state. Embassies
and consulates which are government representations in a foreign country operate
under the government sector of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A state can have
only one embassy in another state to represent it. Instead, a country can have
multiple consulates to represent the latter in another country. It can be noticed
that consulates and embassies are different, an embassy is considered to be larger
in representation, generally situated in a country’s capital. While a consulate is just
a small version of an Embassy located in bigger cities but not in the capital city
(Wikipedia).


3.5     Basic Concept


As has been mentioned, Embassies play a significant role in foreign policy as they
represent their government in another country. Embassies main task is to inform
its government about all the events in the host country. In addition, embassies
help in preparing treaties and exchange messages between its government and the
host government. While consulates major task is to promote trade and establish
commercial links between the government it represents and the host government
in which it resides. Given the difference roles addressed to both embassies and
consulates to represent their government, they both provide their own citizens
living in the host country with public services which will be of our interest in this
research (Borders, 2004).

Consular services provided by a diplomatic mission are at the forefront as they
are considered as point of contact for citizens overseas. They didn’t receive that
much of attention by e-government strategy and they only started to be adopted
by different countries in the last few years to take part of the e-government plan.
Development of consular affairs needs to be understood as it contributes in
strengthening the relationship between the government and its citizens abroad.
(Borders, 2004)




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Chapter 3

The continuous growth of citizens implies the ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs)
these days to find the best way possible to assist them anywhere around the world,
as foreign ministries are trying to avoid criticism by the public, they are starting to
appreciate the market value of consular affairs and putting all the efforts to upgrade
the quality of these services as a mean to improve the government image among
the public (Maaike H. and Jan M.).


3.6     Stakeholders


1.	 National citizens: individuals living in the host country are considered the main
    stakeholder in a diplomatic mission residing in that host country as it has a
    direct impact on increasing the quality and efficiency of consular services.

2.	 Foreign nationals: foreigners wishing to stay in the sending country that may
    require a prior visa, have also an impact on the improvement of the consular
    services.

3.	 Diplomatic mission staff: employees of the diplomatic mission can contribute
    directly and indirectly towards a successful and efficient provision of consular
    services.

4.	 Institutions of the host country: the exchange of messages between the
    authorities of the host country and the diplomatic mission as well as the
    embassies and consulates of other countries




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Chapter 3


3.7 Functions of the Missions Abroad

According to the Vienna convention on Consular Relations (Nations, Vienna
Convention 1963), consular functions can be summarized in the table below:



   1       The receiving state has the duty to protect the interests of
           the sending state and its citizens, within the limits granted by
           international low.



  2        To issue passports ( including diplomatic, service and ordinary
           passports) and travel documents to nationals of the sending state
           on one hand and issuing visas or documents to foreign individuals
           wishing to visit the sending state



  3
           Giving appropriate assistance to nationals of the sending state.




  4        Engaging in notary services such as authentication, legalization
           and civil registrar services, provided that such services do not
           contradict with the laws and regulations of the receiving state.




  5        To transmit judicial documents to be used as evidence for the
           courts of the sending state


                        Table (3.2) - Consular functions summary




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Chapter 3


3.8      Iraqi Diplomatic Missions and Citizens Abroad


As discussed earlier in this chapter, foreign missions are considered to be a point
of contact where citizens can get assistance, consular services and further guidance
in case of emergency and so on. Iraqi diplomatic missions are of no difference, they
provide various consular services (MoFA, MoFA consular services) and they can be
summarized as follows:

1.	 Issuance of passport: issuing a new passport in case of previous expired passport
    or passport loss

2.	 Issuance of birth certificate: it is issued when an Iraqi child is born abroad, the
    family’s newborn should present the birth certificate issued by the competent
    authorities in the country in which the birth took place, and the Iraqi mission
    then issues the Iraqi birth certificate in accordance with the foreign birth
    certificate.

3.	 Marriage and divorce registration: foreign countries have their own rules and
    regulations of marriage and divorce. Iraqi missions abroad provide their citizens
    to register a marriage or divorce in the records of the civil affairs department
    in accordance with Iraqi personal status law.

4.	 Issuance of the civil status ID issued in case of renewal or lost.

5.	 Issuance of the civil status ID: issued in case of renewal or lost.

6.	 Iraqi nationality certificate: Iraqi missions provide their citizens with the
    possibility of:

    •	 Issuing an Iraqi nationality certificate.
    •	 Discarding the Iraqi nationality on citizen request.
    •	 Reclaiming Iraqi citizenship

7.	 Issuance of criminal record certificate.

8.	 Issuance of life certificate




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Chapter 3


9.	 Pass document: in case of lost passport and a citizen wishes to return to Iraq.

10.	Issuance of public and private authorizations.

11.	Ratifications.

12.	Issuance of certificate of origin.

13.	Issuance of entry visa to Iraq for foreign nationals.

All these services are part of the functions offered by the Iraqi missions abroad,
it should be pointed out that Iraqi missions face some considerably significant
challenges one of them is the surge in appointments that can take rather long as
well as most of these consular services mentioned previously take considerably
along time to be processed, it takes sometimes up to few months to receive a
passport or an ID. This has created a lot of frustration among the Iraqi nationals to
have to wait up few months to get their documents processed and delivered.

These challenges are arising more and more among the various Iraqi missions
abroad, due to problems in the appointment system and inefficient document
issuing process.

According to some Iraqi diplomats, appointments are taken up weeks in advance,
till they are made available, which is the main reason for the backlog. Another issue
is arising which contributes directly to the backlog, is the significant increase in Iraqi
nationals abroad. The dramatic increase of Iraqi nationals between 1990 and 2011
went far beyond the Iraqi missions’ capacity to meet their citizens’ needs.




Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                             44
Chapter 3

Table (3.3) shows an estimated number of Iraqi citizens living in some countries
around the world, both legally and undocumented and it is continuously rising.
                                    Country                     Estimated Number of Citizens
                                   Syria                                      1,200,001
                                  Jordan                                      750,0001
                                   Egypt                                      100,0001
                                    Iran                                      202,1002
                                Lebanon                                        40,0001
                                  Turkey                                       10,0001
                               Gulf States                                    200,0001
                                Germany                                       150.0003
                                 Sweden                                        70,0003
                                 Norway                                        24,5054
                             United Kingdom                                   250,0005
                                Denmark                                        12,6002
                                    U.S.                                       90,0006
                              Netherlands                                      50,0005
                                Australia                                      11,1001
                   Table (3.3) - Estimated number of Iraqi citizens in various countries


3.9            Comparative Worldwide E-Government Experiences

Many countries around the world have taken major steps in the adoption of
E-government systems. It is not limited to advanced nations but also in developing
countries which are applying best practice solutions to build efficient systems.
Many countries have been successful in implementing e-government solutions in
their relevant Ministries and foreign missions. In this regard, strategies and policies
applied by some successful countries like Australia and Bahrain are assessed. The
ultimate goal is to identify factors and lessons that may serve in the implementation
of e-government system.
•	 Australia
•	 Bahrain
1
    Source retrieved from UNHCR Statistics on Displaced Iraqis around the world as of April 2007. Check www.unhcr.org for updates.
2
    Source retrieved from UNHCR on Iraqi Refugee and Asylum-seeker statistics as of March 2003. Check
www.unhcr.org for updates.
3
    Source retrieved from a survey conducted by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles as of April 2004. Check www.ecre.org
for updates.
4
    Source retrieved from Statistics Norway as of January 2009. Check www.ssb.no for updates.
5
    Source retrieved from the New York Times, published on Wednesday. January 19. 2005.
6
    Source retrieved from the US Census in 2000 by the Population Reference Bureau. Check www.prb.org for updates.

Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                                                                     45
Chapter 3


        3.9.1    Australia


        Australia was one of the first countries which took major steps in developing
        and implementing an efficient e-government. One of its successful projects
        was the E-visa (Gov, 2003) (http://www.immi.gov.au/e_visa/) program
        launched in December 2000, by enabling people from different countries
        around the world to lodge visa applications directly through the website.




       Figure (3.3) - Illustration of the Australian e-government portal (Government A.)



        As it can be seen from figure (3.3) above, the e-Visa website is rich of
        different functionalities, enabling applicants to submit their applications
        online without the need to use paper-based application or to be present
        at the Embassy. In addition, it allows them to know about the status of
        their submitted applications; with some features like printing a copy of their
        application, being notified of any missing documents needed to be upload
        or approval notification via email. Helpdesk is provided either by phone or
        email to further assist applicants. Finally, this program has brought a lot of
        benefits as follows:




Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                            46
Chapter 3

             1.	 Apply for visa anytime, anywhere 24 hours a day- 7 days a week.
             2.	 Making the application process more simplified.
             3.	 Time to process applications was significantly reduced to as little
                 as about 20 minutes.
             4.	 The requirement of sending the passport via post across the
                 border was removed.
             5.	 Paper work was significantly reduced

        In realizing such compact program, the project also had to face some
        obstacles like:

             1.	 Changing the whole paper-work process to electronic process,
                 required legislative change.
             2.	 It took more than the expected time to investigate the best
                 technologies available to achieve the task.
             3.	 Dealing with visas meant to meet an acceptable technical level of
                 encryption while maintaining at the same time a high speed of
                 connection.

        Figure (3.4), illustrates the current website of the Australian Embassy
        in Berlin. It provides audio and visual content, properly marked up, not
        dependent only on colors, very well structured with good navigation
        mechanism and provides clear information with easy guidelines for users as
        well as a lot of options regarding times, services in a very handful way.




Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                       47
Chapter 3




       Figure (3.4) - Illustration of the Australian Embassy in Germany and e-visa processing
       (Embassy)




        3.9.2     Bahrain


        The Bahraini Government started the project e-Visa and was first
        implemented in October 2005 (Bahrain, UN - Bahrain eVisa System, 2005)
        as the first of its kind in the Middle East and one of the best in the world. It
        is an online e-Visa system application service destined for the payment and
        processing of visas.The system is connected in the backend with the General
        Directorate Nationality, passports and residence database to monitor and
        provide clearance for each processed application on individual basis.

        In addition to that, the system is based on workflow-driven mechanism;
        the system also provides various types of visas allowing more and more
        groups of people to benefit from this system: foreign nationals resident in
        Bahrain who intend to have multiple re-entry visas; more opportunities
        for applicants seeking to work within companies residing in Bahrain and
        visitors. See figure (3.5).


Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                                48
Chapter 3




        Figure (3.5) - Shows the Bahraini e-visa website (Bahrain, Bahrain eVisas)



        In addition to this service, the Bahraini Diplomatic missions around the
        world provide a lot of good consular services in a very structured, simple
        and handful way. As in the figure (3.6), which shows the website of the
        Embassy of the Bahrain in London, it provides either national citizens or
        travelers wishing to visit the country with good consular services like:
        passport services; legalization; visas; and traveler guide, all handled and
        processed electronically through the website and via post.
        The website also gives an insight about the country like its foreign policy,
        government structure, economy and tourism just to name a few.This feature is
        useful for companies seeking to invest, individuals wishing to travel, students
        seeking education and valuable information for other governmental entities
        for mutual cooperation
         The website is connected to the main e-Visa website so individuals can
        apply directly without the need to wait, provided with instructions and
        guidelines on how to successfully complete an application.




Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                          49
Chapter 3




       Figure (3.6) - Illustration of the Bahraini Embassy website in London (London)




3.10      Consular Web-Based Services Requirements


To successfully and efficiently deliver consular services to citizens, there are basic
but important requirements that must be fulfilled.These requirements are different
and vary from a country to country. Countries like Iraq, which is still lagging far
behind its developed counterparts in e-government, especially in providing efficient
consular services to citizens abroad. Such countries must make more efforts to
meet these requirements, which are considered a key success factor to improve
the diplomatic missions’ internal workflow process and consequently resulting in a
higher level of citizen satisfaction. The requirements are as follows:

•	 Organizational Requirements
•	 Change Management



Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                             50
Chapter 3


        3.10.1      Organizational Requirements


        Online consular services are not just a technical aspect; providing them
        requires change management. There are several requirements at the
        organizational level which affect the overall provision of such services and
        they are illustrated as follows:

             1.	 Organizational Structure

        In every diplomatic mission, it is essential to consider the organizational
        structure, its objectives and its managerial divisions, based on a form of
        organizational hierarchy, this is necessary when applying e-government
        concept. In addition, modern technology must be able to best fulfill the
        needs of the organizational aspects, as it will lead to enhance and improve
        government performance in meeting the needs of its citizens.



             2.	 Work Procedures

        In order to apply modern technologies and utilize them for better delivery
        of consular services to citizens, the internal workflow process inside the
        organization must be highly qualified and efficient. Both simple and complex
        procedures within the organization are considered important as they
        represent the stages of services from process to delivery. This approach is
        of mutual benefit as for citizens to have more satisfaction with the available
        services and for diplomatic missions as well to help them deliver services
        more easily and with less expense for the state, it also facilitates their internal
        work process. There are some focal points that need to be considered
        as they represent the first steps towards the successful implementation
        of e-government within the diplomatic missions’ framework and they are
        detailed as follows:

        •	 Reforming of administrative work process is the first step towards
           providing online consular services. This means the re-engineering of
           procedures and processes like changing the forms, reports and records
           in a way that it fits in the broad usage of modern technologies.
        •	 Clear scope and definition of the transactions so they can be automated
           or at least monitored automatically.


Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                              51
Chapter 3

        •	 For fast and efficient delivery of service, documents and requirements
           requested from the citizen should be reduced as much as possible.
        •	 Providing guidelines and instructions for citizens before lodging an
           application in websites.
        •	 Keep the organizational work process and delivery of services updated
           with the latest state of technology and innovation.



             3.	 Centralization and Decentralization

        The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is no other than a global organization
        of a country that works for the interests of its citizens abroad through
        its diplomatic missions. So it can be described as a huge network of
        organizations (represented by a central organization which is the Ministry
        and its representatives abroad) and its level of interaction and coordination
        is affected by the degree of centralization or decentralization which requires
        the following:

        •	 Enabling transparency means that roles, tasks and responsibilities must
           be defined for both at the central and local level.
        •	 Defining how information is transmitted between the Ministry and its
           diplomatic missions abroad.
        •	 Define certain priorities and technologies within this network to
           guarantee high quality of performance. In addition, set some monitoring
           mechanisms to maintain it.


        3.10.2     Change Management


        Shifting the services provided by diplomatic missions from its traditional
        way to make them available online using e-government requires great
        efforts and patience. So, Change Management addresses these internal and
        external workflow processes and adapts them to the new environment.
        Within the context of e-government, Change Management takes care of
        how diplomatic staff members make the transition from traditional paper-
        work to a more sophisticated system-aided process. This is achieved by
        providing staff members with the required up-to-date technical education,
        system support, possible training and documentation for computer usage.


Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                         52
e-government




               CHAPTER IV                 Conceptualization
                                               4.1	 Introduction
                So far I have used exploratory research as we have seen in
                the literature review chapter to enrich the reader with the
                basic concepts of e-government. According to Yin (1994),
                the research design is “the logical sequence that connects
                the empirical data to a study’s initial research questions
                and, ultimately, to its conclusion”. The following sections
                outline the research process, chosen data collection, design
                and implementation.The main purpose of this chapter is to
                outline the research strategies that will be used by the
                researcher for the thesis.
Chapter 4


4.2     Research Process


When research problem has been identified, the research objectives and questions
started, it is necessary to indicate how the research objective would be achieved
(Walliman, 2001).

In light of this, the first step towards the accomplishment of this thesis is to identify
the research problem and get reliable information. I have done this by going through
scientific published articles and other sources mainly available on the internet. I have
also studied different e-government initiatives adopted and implemented in different
countries, the challenges they had to encounter. In addition, I have analyzed different
cases of e-government success and failure, the gap between design requirements
and reality. Furthermore, I made a comparative study of different governmental
websites, i.e. advantages and disadvantages (mainly diplomatic missions’ websites)
and their online services provided to the public.

In the second part of the thesis, I have collected enough information regarding
e-government in Iraq and the current status of the Iraqi diplomatic missions’
websites which are presented in this thesis through statistics. The first step to take
when creating a research, according to (Yin 1994), is to make an evaluation of the
research strategy.

Generally speaking, there are five types of research strategies a researcher can
follow when conducting social science research: through experiments, surveys,
archival analysis, history and case studies. For the purpose of this thesis, a survey was
performed on people to understand their needs, as well as some interviews were
made with some diplomatic employees to understand and expand my knowledge
about the internal work process within the diplomatic missions. These interviews
and questionnaires were the main data collection strategies I have used in order to
draw the steps towards the design and implementation of a prototype. Figure (5.1),
the phases of the research process are presented.




Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                            54
Chapter 4




           Figure (4.1) - Phases of the research process. (created by the author)


4.3     Data Collection


Throughout this thesis, different data collection strategies were studied to find the
most efficient strategy that best suits and fulfills the needs of the research problem.
As the choice of a specific data collection method is seldom easy and many factors
have to be considered depending on the nature of the phenomenon in question.
For this thesis I used different data collection methods to gather the information
and they are summarized as follows:

•	 Literature review
•	 The questionnaire
•	 Interviews


        4.3.1     Literature Review


        A continuous literature review was conducted by the author throughout the
        whole project. The main issues addressed were the following focal points:
        1.	 Definition and basic concept of e-government
        2.	 Barriers to e-government implementation
        3.	 Successful stories of e-government projects adopted by different
            countries

Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study                          55
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Thesis- Heidelberg Uni

  • 1.
  • 2. Master Thesis Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study Heidelberg University of Applied Sciences Germany/Heidelberg Faculty of Informatics Master Thesis TOWARDS E-GOVERNMENT: IRAQI DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS’ CASE STUDY Submitted By SAIF AL-SHOKER Supervised by Prof. Dr.Yass Mohammed Prof. Dr. Gerd Moeckel Company’s Supervisor Dipl. - Ing. Thomas Brandtstaetter February 2012 2
  • 3.
  • 4. Master Thesis Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study Towards E-Government: Iraqi Diplomatic Missions’ case study By SAIF AL-SHOKER Matriculation no: m1000859 A thesis submitted as a pre-requisite for the Degree of Master of Science Thesis Advisory Committee Prof.Dr. Mohammed Yass Dipl-Ing. (BA) Prof. Dr. Gerd Möckel Thomas Brandtstaetter Heidelberg University BÜROTEX of Applied Science Synargos GmbH Ludwig-Guttmann-Straße 6 Max-Eyth-Str. 21 69123 Heidelberg 72622 Nürtingen Germany Germany 4
  • 5. Master Thesis Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study Affidavit Herewith I declare: • That I have composed the chapters for the Master Thesis for Which I am named as the author independently; • That I did not use any other sources and additives then the one’s specified; • That I did not submit this work at any other examination procedure; Heidelberg, (Date)______________________________ (Signature)______________________ 5
  • 6. Master Thesis Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study Table of Contents Abstract ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������13 Chapter One - General Introduction 1.1 Introduction  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������14 1.2 Research Problem and Aims  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������16 1.3 Thesis Outcome  �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������16 1.4 Disposition of The Study ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������17 Chapter Two - E-Government Literature Review 2.1 Introduction  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������19 2.2 The Concepts of State and Government �����������������������������������������������������������20 2.3 Characteristics of E-Government: ������������������������������������������������������������������������21 2.4 Definition of E-Government  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������21 2.5 What Are The Types of E-Government Delivery Services �����������������������������22 2.5.1 Government to Citizen Approach ���������������������������������������������������������������23 2.5.2 Government to Employee Government to overnment Approach 23 G 2.6 How Is E-Government Beneficial To Public Administrators and Society �����24 2.6.1 E-Government Improves Efficiency �������������������������������������������������������������24 2.6.2 E-Government Improves Services ���������������������������������������������������������������24 2.6.3 E-government Helps to Build Trust Between overnment Citizens  5 G 2 2.7 Adoption Phases of E-Government  �������������������������������������������������������������������25 2.7.1 Chandler and Emanuel’s Model  �������������������������������������������������������������������25 2.7.2 Layne and Lee’s Model ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������26 2.8 Descriptive Analysis of E-government in the Arab Region �����������������������������34 2.9 Barriers to E-Government Implementation in Arab Countries  �������������������35 2.10 Access Issues ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������35 Chapter Three - Case Study: Iraqi Diplomatic Missions 3.1. Introduction  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������37 3.2 Characteristics of the Republic of Iraq  �������������������������������������������������������������38 3.3 Iraqi Foreign Ministry  ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������39 3.4 The Definition of Foreign Missions ���������������������������������������������������������������������40 3.5 Basic Concept ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������40 7
  • 7. Master Thesis Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study Table of Contents 3.6 Stakeholders �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������41 3.7 Functions of the Missions Abroad  ����������������������������������������������������������������������42 3.8 Iraqi Diplomatic Missions and Citizens Abroad  ����������������������������������������������43 3.9 Comparative Worldwide E-Government Experiences  ����������������������������������45 3.9.1 Australia ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������46 3.9.2 Bahrain ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������48 3.10 Consular Web-Based Services Requirements  ������������������������������������������50 3.10.1 Organizational Requirements ���������������������������������������������������������������������51 3.10.2 Change Management �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������52 Chapter Four - Conceptualization 4.1.Introduction  �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������53 4.2 Research Process ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������54 4.3 Data Collection �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������55 4.3.1 Literature Review ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������55 4.3.2 The Questionnaire �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������56 4.3.3 Interviews ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������56 Chapter Five - Design 5.1. Introduction  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������62 5.2 Architecture Prototype ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������63 5.2.1 User Front-End Web Portal ���������������������������������������������������������������������������64 5.2.2 E-Visa ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������66 5.2.3 Online Appointment System �������������������������������������������������������������������������72 5.2.4 Online Passport System ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������74 Chapter Six - Conclusion 6.1. Introduction  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������78 6.2 Discussion �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������79 6.3 Conclusion ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������79 6.4 Thesis Outcomes ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������80 Bibliography ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������81 Appendix A - Questionnaire����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������84 8
  • 8. Master Thesis Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study List of Figures Chapter One Figure (1.1) - shows the thesis structure ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 18 Chapter Two Figure (2.1) - Layne and Lee Model  ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 26 Figure (2.2) - Web measure index ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 27 Figure (2.3) - Illustration of e-government maturity around the world ����������������������������� 28 Figure (2.4) - Illustration of e-government emerging stage ��������������������������������������������������� 29 Figure (2.5) - Illustration of e-government enhanced stage �������������������������������������������������� 30 Figure (2.6) - Illustration of e-government interactive stage ������������������������������������������������ 31 Figure (2.7) - Illustration of e-government transactional stage �������������������������������������������� 32 Figure (2.8) - Illustration of e-government connected stage ������������������������������������������������ 33 Chapter Three Figure (3.1) - Iraq Neighboring countries ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 38 Figure (3.2) - Structure of the Iraqi Ministry of foreign affairs ��������������������������������������������� 39 Figure (3.3) - Illustration of the Australian e-government portal ���������������������������������������� 46 Figure (3.4) - Illustration of the Australian Embassy in Germany and e-visa processing   8 4 Figure (3.5) - Shows the Bahraini e-visa website �������������������������������������������������������������������� 49 Figure (3.6) - Illustration of the Bahraini Embassy website in London ������������������������������� 50 Chapter Four Figure (4.1) - Phases of the research process �������������������������������������������������������������������������� 55 Figure (4.2) - Website of the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm (old version) ���������������������������� 58 Figure (4.3) - The new website of the Iraqi Embassy in Oslo ����������������������������������������������� 58 Chapter Five Figure (5.1) - Illustrates the proposed web-application architecture ��������������������������������� 63 Figure (5.2) - A proposed design of an Iraqi Diplomatic Mission website taking the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin as a sample ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 64 Figure (5.3) - shows the basic view of Bonita soft GUI ��������������������������������������������������������� 66 Figure (5.4) - Shows the Process diagram of e-Visa application ������������������������������������������� 67 Figure (5.5) - A proposed design showing visa selection ������������������������������������������������������� 68 Figure (5.6) - A proposed design showing the user when he/she is prompted to enter personal credentials. ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 69 Figure (5.7) - A proposed design showing generation of reference number �������������������� 70 Figure (5.8) - Shows the Process diagram of online appointment system ������������������������� 72 Figure (5.9) - Shows the Process diagram of online passport system �������������������������������� 75 9
  • 9. Master Thesis Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study List of Tables Chapter Two Table (2.1) - E-government development in the Arab world  ����������������������������������������������� 34 Chapter Three Table (3.1) - Iraqi’s National Profile sources ����������������������������������������������������������������������������� 39 Table (3.2) - Consular functions summary �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 42 Table (3.3) - Estimated number of Iraqi citizens in various countries �������������������������������� 45 Chapter Four Table (4.1) - Illustrates the key findings of some of the old Iraqi Diplomatic missions’ websites���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 60 Table (4.2) - Illustrates the key findings of some of the current Iraqi Diplomatic missions’ websites as part of a recent e-government project partially deployed but not successfully completed������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 61 10
  • 10. Master Thesis Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study List of Abbreviations ICT Information and communication technology G2C Government to Citizen G2G Government to Government G2E Government to Employee E-services Electronic services MoFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs E-Visa Electronic Visa GUI Graphical user interface E-commerce Electronic Commerce BPMN Business Process Model and Notation 11
  • 11.
  • 12. Master Thesis Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study Abstract E-government represents a key instrument in empowering change, fostering technological innovation in the public sector and government structure. A mean to make a crucial change in society, culture by utilizing the best out of ICT to enhance government functionality. E-government has caught the attention of many governments around the world to undertake studies, conduct research in the efforts to identify factors that may play a significant role in the progress of e-government in terms of reducing administrative costs, providing long-term benefits and increasing accountability and effective delivery of e-services to the citizens. Therefore, e-government is identified as a “hot” topic of the day and one of the major priorities in governments’ agenda across the world. However, e-government is not easy to come across because it is not simply a software rather than a framework that reflects government policy and the relationship between a government and its citizens.This consequently, raises many important critical points such as political, social, cultural and technological issues which must be taken into account and treated carefully when adopting e-government. This thesis investigates on how an e-government system can be adopted and applied at a diplomatic mission to provide consular services taking Iraq initiative as a case study by conducting interviews with Iraqi diplomats as well as carrying out a survey intended for ordinary Iraqi citizens. Based on the data collected which served as an input for the initial framework to narrow down the study. The framework was used as a tool to pave the road ahead for designing a web application and prototyping a model to define the internal workflow process of some online services. This thesis has made a contribution to the field of e-government in terms of providing consular services to Iraqi citizens within the diplomatic missions abroad. 13
  • 13. e-government CHAPTER I General Introduction 1.1 Introduction Throughout the 18th and the 19th centuries, the world witnessed the industrial revolution which has created the industrial society, whereas during the 21st century, the humanity has progressed to the information revolution. We are living in an era where the world is connected at all levels due to the revolutionary changes in technology, computers are being connected all over the world which consequently, leads to the use of information technology in almost every aspect of our daily activities reaching from banking, trading, learning, teaching, entertainment to government. As we know, one of the major goals and plans being considered in governments’ policy nowadays is to reduce the administrative size and costs on one hand and to increase the productivity and functionality of government body on the other hand. (Leon J. Osterweil, Lynette I. Millett and Joan D. Winston, 2007).
  • 14. Chapter 1 E-government is considered to be a key success factor towards a modernizing government. In this regard, governments are continuously facing new challenges to increase their performance in providing citizens with better access to their services. The nature of government functioning has been going through a fast change due to the impact of technology that made the delivery of services possible over the internet. This has motivated different governments around the globe to conduct research on the topic of e-government, which later has evolved to become a recognized research field. In recent years, many governments around the world have taken initiatives in adopting the concept of e-government as a powerful tool to meet citizens’ needs and moving public services towards higher transparency, accountability and efficiency. Among the main reasons why many governments are starting including e-government in their agenda are to gain trust, confidence and credibility from their citizens. However this vision that e-government is promising in improving the overall functionality of any government cannot be accomplished without encountering several serious obstacles. The degree of complexity of implementing and maintaining good provision of online services is high. Countries such as Iraq facing many obstacles is the best example that can be applied for this research thesis. This research thesis contributes to the issue of the Iraqi diplomatic missions to citizens’ relationship in providing Iraqi citizens living abroad with good consular services by addressing the current situation of Information Technology and the degree of awareness within the Iraqi community living abroad and Diplomatic member staff. In recent years, many electronic Government projects were launched in Iraq, like computerizing all MoFA’s internal processes and creating an intranet. For instance, in 2004, (UNDESA, 2008), the Iraqi Ministry of Science and Technology has launched an initiative in conjunction with the Italian Ministry of Innovation and Technologies in providing technical support to construct an intranet connecting different Ministries and even recently (Iraqi Missions overseas), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has launched an e-government program to link all its diplomatic missions abroad through a web portal but all projects have been largely unsuccessful, or even close to having been achieved. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 15
  • 15. Chapter 1 1.2 Research Problem and Aims Iraqi citizens should be able to obtain consular services or information in minutes or hours as compared to the current situation which is in days, weeks or even months. Diplomatic member staff should be able to deliver their work more efficiently and this cannot be done without a proper organizational structure. Before conducting this thesis, I started interviewing different Iraqi Diplomats and Iraqi citizens abroad (who most of them at least went to an embassy once before) and after gathering enough information, the result showed that the general public considers consular affairs as the most important mission of the whole foreign ministry. Furthermore, Iraqi diplomats may still be a bit confused about the significance of consular affairs as part of the whole agenda of the MoFA, but indeed, citizens do not share that sense of perspective. Now days, citizens have more demand for their time, as distances to work have increased, rate of dual-income families has increased too. Thus, citizens are less flexible to visit any Diplomatic Mission during normal working hours. Citizens want to have access to consular services at their convenience and this thesis discusses a solution to overcome such obstacle. 1.3 Thesis Outcome This thesis proposes a framework strategy to adopt and implement e-government within the Diplomatic Missions. In addition, it presents a proposal for a sample web design layout to replace the current one. Furthermore, it reviews the current issues in providing good consular services to citizens and suggests a model presented in three case studies: E-visa program (along with web illustrations to give the reader clearer vision of the process), online appointment system program and an online passport system using an evaluation framework based on questionnaire and interviews results. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 16
  • 16. Chapter 1 1.4 Disposition of The Study The remaining chapters of this thesis are organized as follows: Chapter two gives a brief description about the company profile in which the author has conducted some research on the topic of e-government. Chapter three explains some general concepts of government, state and e-government, in order to prepare the reader to gain further insights about the topic.Then, it reviews different definitions, perspectives and benefits of e-government. It also gives an overview of the maturity levels of e-government, provided with some web illustrations. Finally, it identifies some major issues that may prevent the achievement of e-government. This is then, followed by short description about Iraq and its foreign policy in chapter four. Furthermore, this chapter also presents an overview about Diplomatic Missions as a general concept and some examples of worldwide e-government implementation with some web illustrations related to the same topic. At last, this chapter is concluded with a list of consular web-based requirements that contribute in the successful delivery of services to citizens. Chapter five provides the research plan on data collection methods and presents the methods were used in this thesis. In addition, it shows how information was collected from questionnaire and interviews to bring together all findings from previous chapters to be served as an input to identify the problem and develop a framework to propose a model to build a web application for the Iraqi diplomatic mission in chapter six. Finally, chapter seven presents a conclusion for this thesis with recommendations for future prospects. A simple framework is shown in figure (1.1) to give the reader an illustration of the thesis structure. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 17
  • 17. Chapter 1 Figure (1.1) - shows the thesis structure Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 18
  • 18. e-government CHAPTER II Literature Review 2.1 Introduction A literature review will be conducted in this chapter, to introduce the reader to the core of this thesis, starting with the definitions and concepts of government, state and e-government.Then, it is followed by discussing the models of implementing e-government and the barriers to its implementation. In addition, this chapter will introduce the maturity level of e-government development presented with some web illustrations to give the reader a clear idea about the research topic as a basis for later chapters.
  • 19. Chapter 2 2.2 The Concepts of State and Government A state can be defined as an organized political community, residing in a territory and possessing external and internal sovereignty which has internationally recognized boundaries and recognition by other countries. The scope of a state is much more beyond its structure and it consists of several elements which can be summarized as follows (Rosenberg): A defined territory: is a geographical area fixed by definite frontiers, under the authority and jurisdiction of a government, in which the functions of a state take place to exercise such sovereignty and no other state should have power over the country’s territory. Government: is the supreme authority by which a state is governed at a given time. It has the role to administer and organize the organs of a state in the following aspects: political, social, cultural, environmental protection, national defense, foreign and internal affairs and enforcing of state policy (Duursma, 1996, pp. 110 - 119). Permanent population: population is the collection of human beings living together as a community. The population of a state represents all people who, in principle, live in a territory on an ongoing basis. Sovereignty: is the authority to govern or rule a group of people over a geographical area. The definition of the “Sovereignty” is quite similar to the “Independence” and they can interchangeably be used together (Chanhchom, 2010). It’s important to keep in mind that state differs from government. As a matter of fact, the nature of state is permanently while the nature of government serving that state is temporarily and changes over time. Each successive government is composed of a body of individuals whose role is to enforce laws and legislate new ones. They are concerned with administering many areas of human activity such as trade, education, medicine, war and etc (Duursma, 1996, pp. 110 - 119). Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 20
  • 20. Chapter 2 2.3 Characteristics of E-Government It all started few years ago,when the world witnessed the explosion in communication technology, which has influenced the society in a spectacular way, especially with the emergence of the internet. Now that technology has become an integral part of everyday life, it is seen to be as a solution to major problems for governments, in fact, many government agencies around the world started to use ICT tools and internet to support governance and to have a better relationship with citizens by delivering more modern services and improving the quality and responsiveness of these services to their citizens. Only recently the public sector has come to realize the importance of ICT as a means to provide high-quality and efficient public services and today, many government agencies around the world are facing challenges to set up the prerequisites to enable citizens to have a better and transparent form of access to their services. A brief history of e-government shows that, in the 1990s, some governments took some initiatives in adopting e-government solutions, ranging from simple web presence and one-way communication to two-way communication with citizens. Finally, this moved on with time to more integrated web presence like offering the possibility of online payments, downloading or filling online applications, online documentation and email communication (Leon J. Osterweil, Lynette I. Millett and Joan D. Winston, 2007). 2.4 Definition of E-Government For one to fully realize the idea of E-Government one must first understand what government stands for, as we stated before that the role of a government is to administer and organize the organs and structures of a state and only when the government starts to use the ICT in their day-to-day activities it moves to e-government. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 21
  • 21. Chapter 2 E-government, however, is a term for which there are multiple definitions among different governments and organizations. For instance, (Ndou, 2004, p. 3) emphasized that the failure of some e-government adoptions is due to the narrow definition given to it. According to OECD (2003), e-government is the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and particularly the internet to achieve better government. However this definition is quite general and doesn’t focus on a specific aspect of how to achieve a better government, while the (World Bank) defines E-government as the use of information technologies ( such as internet) by government agencies to transform relations with citizens and other governmental branches as such to provide better delivery of public services to citizens, improve interactions with business and industry and come up with a more efficient government management, consequently resulting in less corruption, increased transparency and/or cost reduction. This definition stated above has focused on the desired goals without an emphasis on the tools should be used to achieve such results. 2.5 What Are The Types of E-Government Delivery Services E-government offers quite a lot of services to facilitate transactions between government and other key stakeholders. It focuses on four main customers to be served: citizens, government agencies, employees and businesses, however, our main focus in this research will be mainly the interactions between government and citizens, other government entities and employees and they are summarized as follows: • Government to Citizen Approach • Government to Employee Government to Government Approach Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 22
  • 22. Chapter 2 2.5.1 Government to Citizen Approach This approach focuses on posting the information to citizens online through web pages such as ordering of birth/death/marriage certificates, as well as the possibility to enable the government and citizen to communicate and interact with each other using electronic format. Early stages of e-government web sites design were not organized properly, especially the hyperlinks to other government services. This proved to be confusing to citizens as they would spend time searching and going through a lot of web pages till they reach the information they need. Learning lessons from e-commerce sites, to adopt new approaches to bring citizen into satisfaction by using citizen-centric approach and this includes organizing the content around citizen needs and making the web site more structured to reduce the number of clicks to reach the information (Gant, 2008, pp. 16 - 18). This interaction improves the quality of citizens’ lives by providing good government services and a good example of G2C can be found in Dubai’s web portal (www.dubai.ae). 2.5.2 Government to Employee Government to Government Approach Government to employee approach aims to enhance the performance of both government and its employee and this is done by coordinating the internal operations and improving the business processes among them.While this concept is very closely related to the Government to Government approach, its main objective here is to increase the level of cooperation between different government agencies; it provides the means to facilitate the interconnection and communication between government offices at all levels, in different locations by saving time and eliminating redundancies. A good example to be considered is the communications between diplomatic missions and their diplomats worldwide with foreign ministries as an instrument to enhance diplomacy (Gant, 2008, pp. 16 - 18). Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 23
  • 23. Chapter 2 2.6 How Is E-Government Beneficial To Public Administrators and Society Technology has proved to be valuable in increasing social productivity and economic growth. Embracing e-government will help government to provide better services to citizens as well as increased efficiency within government agencies, leading to an overall environment of more structured government. The benefits to agencies and citizens are outlined below: • E-governement improves efficiency. • E-governement improves services. • E-government can help to build trust between government and citizens. 2.6.1 E-Government Improves Efficiency With the usage of ICTs, e-government can simplify and make processing tasks and public administration transactions more efficient, resulting in less errors and the saving of time and money. Internet-based applications accessed online can bring significant improvement by enabling the share of data within and between government agencies, leading to an increase in their service processing and delivery capabilities as well as the exchange of data with less time and fewer staff. As well as the provision of information and make it available to citizens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (OECD, 2003, p. 2). 2.6.2 E-Government Improves Services Citizen satisfaction is considered to be a core element of e-government strategy, successful services are built on user’s requirements and what they need and this can be done by providing these services on the basis of self-serve and make it almost effortless to find information, as the user should not have to understand the complexity of government structures and its inter-relationships.The internet can achieve this goal by making web sites more user-friendly accompanied by a quick government response and enabling governments to appear as a unified structure (Nations, E-Government Survey 2012, 2012, pp. 112-113). Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 24
  • 24. Chapter 2 2.6.3 E-government Can Help to Build Trust Between Government and Citizens Building trust between government and citizens is considered to be fundamental to good governance. E-government provides the means to increase participation of citizens in policy process.For instance, e-government can provide opportunities to citizens to express themselves, that their voice can be heard, through web comment forums as well as to provide them with the possibility to submit suggestions, ideas. Ultimately, this approach in turn can help government to better understand citizens’ needs which will consequently increase the accountability of the government itself and prevent corruption (Blind, 2006). 2.7 Adoption Phases of E-Government Several stages can be noticed in the implementation of e-government. This section will give an overview of some existent models of different stages as proposed by different authors.The process of establishing an e-government system passes through different stages, until it reaches its final stage and regardless the different stages of each proposed model, there are many similarities between these approaches. For example, it starts from the immature to the mature where the latter provides full integration of government information and services within different government agencies at different levels. For example, it starts with simple information posted on the web, then two-way communication facilities, transaction process at a later stage until it reaches a stage where it seamlessly ties together different ministries. The various models of the stages of e-government can be summarized below: • Chandler and Emanuel’s Model • Layne and Lee’s Model 2.7.1 Chandler and Emanuel’s Model Chandler and Emanuel (Geoffrey K. Louise Y.) broke up e-government implementation process into four stages: 1. Information stage: where it displays the availability of government services on the web. 2. Interaction stage: where the interactions between government and citizens are enhanced, represented in two way communication. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 25
  • 25. Chapter 2 3. Transaction stage: transactions are possible at this stage. For example a citizen can submit a form online. 4. Integration stage: integration of services is fully realized across different government entities. 2.7.2 Layne and Lee’s Model Layne and Lee (Karen Layne Jungwoo Lee, 2001) developed e-government implementation to go through four stages. Layne and Lee study proposes a ‘stages of growth’ model in order to reach a fully functional e-government, see figure (2.1). • Cataloguing phase: in this phase, initial efforts are taken to make government information and its services available to the public through the creation of websites. • Transaction phase: further efforts are considered to enable citizens to interact with their government electronically. • Vertical integration phase: This level and last level focuses on the differentiation between government functions and government levels. This phase takes into account the integration of different government levels within the same functional areas. • Horizontal integration phase: this last level, in contrast to the previous phase, focuses on integrating different government systems across different functions. Figure (2.1) - Layne and Lee Model (Karen Layne Jungwoo Lee, 2001) Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 26
  • 26. Chapter 2 Based on the above two models presented and their similarities, there are some differences. For instance, Layne and Lee (2001) divide integration phase into vertical and horizontal phases, which in turn gives more focus on the level of integration of data and services. This enables the citizens to access government services without to worry about which agency is responsible for. This model also focuses on the levels of organizational and technological aspects. It can be noticed that Layne and Lee (2001) move to the transaction phase without mentioning the interaction phase. On the other hand, Chandler and Emanuel’s model mentions the interaction stage. In addition, the model gives little consideration to the technical security aspect at the transaction stage. Figure (2.2) - Web measure index As countries move upwards in developing their e-government systems to become more sophisticated in terms of content delivery and user satisfaction, they face a lot of challenges. According to the United Nations, (DESA, 2008), see figure(2.2), the progress towards a solid e-government system is classified into five stages are Emerging, Enhanced, Interactive, Transactional and connected, based on the functionalities, facilities and services available on the web. Figure (2.3) shows the availability of e-government around the world and as it can be noticed that most Arab countries still at early stages of e-government maturity. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 27
  • 27. Chapter 2 Figure (2.3) - Illustration of e-government maturity around the world The stages are a method for measuring progress of e-government implementation. They represent how a country is successful socially, economically and in its political will. In this research, the five stages of e-government development are presented with some web illustrations and are as follows: 1. Emerging Stage 2. Enhanced Stage 3. Interactive Stage 4. Transactional Stage 5. Connected Stage Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 28
  • 28. Chapter 2 1. Emerging Stage: The first level of e-government is the Emerging stage. At this level, governments start creating websites and provide basic information about the different types of government agencies. These websites provide links to Ministries, regional and local authorities and diplomatic missions abroad. The content of such websites is static and provide information about the type of services being offered, working hours, contact information and etc. Figure (2.4) - Illustration of e-government emerging stage (D.C., 2004) Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 29
  • 29. Chapter 2 2. Enhanced Stage: This is the second level of e-government strategy; it focuses on providing means for individuals to communicate with government agencies and search for information which is regularly updated. At some point, a home page may act as a point of entry to other governmental agencies and provide some features like downloading some useful documents for greater interaction between citizen and agencies. Figure (2.5) - Illustration of e-government enhanced stage (Stockholm, 2005) Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 30
  • 30. Chapter 2 3. Interactive Stage: At this level governments start to create a national government website that acts as a point of entry to a wide variety of services and information, users may look up into the databases to retrieve specific information. At this moment, some enhanced features begin to emerge like securing sites, user log-in and password and downloading applications with the possibility to submit them online. Figure (2.6) - Illustration of e-government interactive stage (Government S. , 2012) Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 31
  • 31. Chapter 2 4. Transactional Stage: At this advanced level of e-government maturity, individuals can perform transactions electronically like, for example, making processing payments, submitting application forms, applying for visas and passports just to name a few. The outcome of this e-government stage is to try to minimize the interaction with government staff and automate these processes as best to improve the efficiency of the services offered. Figure (2.7) - Illustration of e-government transactional stage (Canada, 2011) Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 32
  • 32. Chapter 2 5. Connected Stage: This stage is considered to be the most sophisticated level of e-government implementation. During this phase, governments transform themselves into a connected entity using a fully integrated ICT and back office infrastructure that responds to the needs of its citizens. Data is either exchanged vertically between different levels of government or horizontally between different Ministries. In addition, the integration takes place across all government sectors from local, regional authorities and external institutions. Connected government can be summarized as follows: • Horizontal connection among different agencies • Vertical connection among central and local agencies. • Infrastructure connection. • Connection between governments and citizens. • Connection among stakeholders. Figure (2.8) - Illustration of e-government connected stage (Government S. L., 2009) Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 33
  • 33. Chapter 2 2.8 Descriptive Analysis of E-government in the Arab Region There are numerous surveys showing how governments are progressing in the adoption of e-government in terms of the previous five stages discussed earlier. According to the UN survey conducted in 2010 (UN2010), most of these countries indicate that they fall within the enhanced and interactive stages. This survey measures the significant differences between developed and developing countries in terms of the quality of online services. Professor West (West, 2005) observes, “Most governments around the world have gone no further than the billboard or partial service-delivery states of e-Government. They have made little progress at portal development, placing services online, or incorporating interactive features onto their websites. Not only are they failing to use technology to transform the public sector, their efforts mostly consist of no meaningful change or small steps forward”. E-government development World e-government Country index value development ranking 2010 2008 2010 2008 Bahrain 0.73 0.57 13 42 United Arab Emirates 0.53 0.63 49 32 Kuwait 0.52 0.52 50 57 Jordan 0.52 0.54 51 50 Saudi Arabia 0.51 0.49 58 70 Qatar 0.49 0.53 62 53 Tunisia 0.48 0.34 66 124 Egypt 0.45 0.47 86 79 Oman 0.45 0.46 82 84 Lebanon 0.43 0.48 93 74 Libya 0.37 0.35 114 120 Morocco 0.32 0.29 126 140 Algeria 0.31 0.35 131 121 Syria 0.31 0.36 133 119 Iraq 0.29 0.26 136 151 Sudan 0.25 0.21 154 161 Yemen 0.21 0.21 164 164   Table (2.1) - E-government development in the Arab world (UN2010) Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 34
  • 34. Chapter 2 2.9 Barriers to E-Government Implementation in Arab Countries Up to now this literature review has examined the basic principles of e-government and its impact on a country’s development. In this section, focus is moved towards the challenges that most Arab countries are facing in establishing e-government system. Like many other developed countries around the world, Arab countries which represent 5% of the world population, are putting efforts in implementing e-government. Such efforts may help them to support accountability and transparency, and at some phases to be competitive with other developed countries. One of the most common complaints that Arab citizens are now suffering is the quantity and complexity of government formalities and paperwork (UNDP, 2001). So the first step towards a successful implementation of e-government is to make plans to simplify the organizational and administrative aspects as a whole. Many technical and non-technical issues emerge as e-government becomes broader in scope and its complexity increases, such issues have to be closely monitored and controlled, as they are considered to be crucial to the successful implementation of an effective e-government. According to Heeks (Dada), most developing countries fail to implement e-government and the main reason to such failure is the presence of a gap between the current reality and the plans to implement a future e-government system. This is due to the inconsistency in the physical, economic and social aspects. 2.10 Access Issues Many users feel that using websites to carry on transactions with e-government agencies (such as, name, ID number, credit card details and personal information) are not safe. They feel that websites are not enough secured as their information may be manipulated or misused by other third parties or hackers. This lack of security has created less willingness to go for online services. In order to overcome security challenges, governments must provide the means to protect their websites as well as associated data - repositories (archives) and to provide a secure access point to citizens to gain citizens trust, this can be achieved partially through public awareness by using TV, campaigns, seminars, etc. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 35
  • 35. Chapter 2 In today’s world, when it comes to secure critical data, there is a significant and increasing demand for information security based on the concept of applying cryptographic services and consequently using cryptographic keys. So it all comes to securing the keys so the overall system can be secured and assured. Some critical keys for instance must be securely generated and imported at a corresponding crypto node. This cannot be done without the proper handling of the key management so the outcome can be reduced. Taking into consideration what have been mentioned, so the establishment of cryptographic infrastructures will demand more than the conventional system integration which requires ultimately, a profound system-planning and process integration.1 1 Source: In Personal communication with Brandtstaetter, T. (2011). Cyber Crime. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 36
  • 36. e-government CHAPTER III Case Study: Iraqi Diplomatic Missions 3.1 Introduction Now days many governments around the globe are considering more and more to develop and to find the best strategies to efficiently deliver e-government services to citizens, in order to support and speed up the process of modernization of public sector. In the previous chapter, I gave an overview of e-government in general, its benefits as well as various issues that affect the implementation of e-government such as the economic, cultural, political and social impacts, which are different in each country; therefore there is no standard model to be applied in all countries. However, utilizing and learning the lessons from other e-government initiatives is indispensable to avoid future problems that might prevent the adoption of e-government. Therefore, this chapter illustrates brief information about Iraq, some statistics about displaced Iraqis around the world, its diplomatic missions abroad which is the main focus of this research, as well as a brief description of the services offered.
  • 37. Chapter 3 3.2 Characteristics of the Republic of Iraq Iraq is a country situated in western Asia, confined geographically from the northeast He by Zagros Mountains, the Syrian Desert from the west and the Arabian Desertof Applied eidelberg University from the south. Iraq neighboring countries are Syria,Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia see figure (3.1). It occupies 438,317 squaret: Iraqi diplo Master Thesis Towards E-g T governmen kilometers. According miss omatic to sions’ ca the Iraqi Central Organization for Statistics, the total population reached 30 million in 2009 and a growth rate of 2.6%. (UNdata). Figure (3.1) - - Iraq Neigh countries (Geology, 2007) Figure (10) Iraq Neighboring hboring countries  Total population 30 Million n Population p  Annu growth 2 ual 2.6% Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 38  Popu ulation aged 0 – 14 years 40.7%
  • 38. Chapter 3  Total population 30 Million Population  Annual growth 2.6%  Population aged 0 – 14 years 40.7% Area  438,317 square kilometers Currency  Iraqi Dinar (IQD)  Natural resources: petroleum, natural gas, Phosphates, Economy sulfur  Nominal GDP (2010): $82.2 Billion  Arabic Official language  Kurdish Table (3.1) - Iraqi’s National Profile sources (UNdata) 3.3 Iraqi Foreign Ministry The ministry of foreign affairs of the republic of Iraq is in charge of the Iraqi’s foreign policy and diplomacy. It is also in charge of all diplomatic missions abroad. As of now, Iraq has a diplomatic representation in almost 35 countries around the world to provide Iraqi citizens with the necessary information and consular services. Figure (4.2) illustrates the various departments within the Ministry. Figure (3.2) - Structure of the Iraqi Ministry of foreign affairs (MoFA, Ministry Structure) Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 39
  • 39. Chapter 3 3.4 The Definition of Foreign Missions Diplomatic Missions abroad are government agencies that are composed of a group of people (Diplomats) from one state operating in another state. Embassies and consulates which are government representations in a foreign country operate under the government sector of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A state can have only one embassy in another state to represent it. Instead, a country can have multiple consulates to represent the latter in another country. It can be noticed that consulates and embassies are different, an embassy is considered to be larger in representation, generally situated in a country’s capital. While a consulate is just a small version of an Embassy located in bigger cities but not in the capital city (Wikipedia). 3.5 Basic Concept As has been mentioned, Embassies play a significant role in foreign policy as they represent their government in another country. Embassies main task is to inform its government about all the events in the host country. In addition, embassies help in preparing treaties and exchange messages between its government and the host government. While consulates major task is to promote trade and establish commercial links between the government it represents and the host government in which it resides. Given the difference roles addressed to both embassies and consulates to represent their government, they both provide their own citizens living in the host country with public services which will be of our interest in this research (Borders, 2004). Consular services provided by a diplomatic mission are at the forefront as they are considered as point of contact for citizens overseas. They didn’t receive that much of attention by e-government strategy and they only started to be adopted by different countries in the last few years to take part of the e-government plan. Development of consular affairs needs to be understood as it contributes in strengthening the relationship between the government and its citizens abroad. (Borders, 2004) Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 40
  • 40. Chapter 3 The continuous growth of citizens implies the ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs) these days to find the best way possible to assist them anywhere around the world, as foreign ministries are trying to avoid criticism by the public, they are starting to appreciate the market value of consular affairs and putting all the efforts to upgrade the quality of these services as a mean to improve the government image among the public (Maaike H. and Jan M.). 3.6 Stakeholders 1. National citizens: individuals living in the host country are considered the main stakeholder in a diplomatic mission residing in that host country as it has a direct impact on increasing the quality and efficiency of consular services. 2. Foreign nationals: foreigners wishing to stay in the sending country that may require a prior visa, have also an impact on the improvement of the consular services. 3. Diplomatic mission staff: employees of the diplomatic mission can contribute directly and indirectly towards a successful and efficient provision of consular services. 4. Institutions of the host country: the exchange of messages between the authorities of the host country and the diplomatic mission as well as the embassies and consulates of other countries Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 41
  • 41. Chapter 3 3.7 Functions of the Missions Abroad According to the Vienna convention on Consular Relations (Nations, Vienna Convention 1963), consular functions can be summarized in the table below: 1 The receiving state has the duty to protect the interests of the sending state and its citizens, within the limits granted by international low. 2 To issue passports ( including diplomatic, service and ordinary passports) and travel documents to nationals of the sending state on one hand and issuing visas or documents to foreign individuals wishing to visit the sending state 3 Giving appropriate assistance to nationals of the sending state. 4 Engaging in notary services such as authentication, legalization and civil registrar services, provided that such services do not contradict with the laws and regulations of the receiving state. 5 To transmit judicial documents to be used as evidence for the courts of the sending state Table (3.2) - Consular functions summary Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 42
  • 42. Chapter 3 3.8 Iraqi Diplomatic Missions and Citizens Abroad As discussed earlier in this chapter, foreign missions are considered to be a point of contact where citizens can get assistance, consular services and further guidance in case of emergency and so on. Iraqi diplomatic missions are of no difference, they provide various consular services (MoFA, MoFA consular services) and they can be summarized as follows: 1. Issuance of passport: issuing a new passport in case of previous expired passport or passport loss 2. Issuance of birth certificate: it is issued when an Iraqi child is born abroad, the family’s newborn should present the birth certificate issued by the competent authorities in the country in which the birth took place, and the Iraqi mission then issues the Iraqi birth certificate in accordance with the foreign birth certificate. 3. Marriage and divorce registration: foreign countries have their own rules and regulations of marriage and divorce. Iraqi missions abroad provide their citizens to register a marriage or divorce in the records of the civil affairs department in accordance with Iraqi personal status law. 4. Issuance of the civil status ID issued in case of renewal or lost. 5. Issuance of the civil status ID: issued in case of renewal or lost. 6. Iraqi nationality certificate: Iraqi missions provide their citizens with the possibility of: • Issuing an Iraqi nationality certificate. • Discarding the Iraqi nationality on citizen request. • Reclaiming Iraqi citizenship 7. Issuance of criminal record certificate. 8. Issuance of life certificate Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 43
  • 43. Chapter 3 9. Pass document: in case of lost passport and a citizen wishes to return to Iraq. 10. Issuance of public and private authorizations. 11. Ratifications. 12. Issuance of certificate of origin. 13. Issuance of entry visa to Iraq for foreign nationals. All these services are part of the functions offered by the Iraqi missions abroad, it should be pointed out that Iraqi missions face some considerably significant challenges one of them is the surge in appointments that can take rather long as well as most of these consular services mentioned previously take considerably along time to be processed, it takes sometimes up to few months to receive a passport or an ID. This has created a lot of frustration among the Iraqi nationals to have to wait up few months to get their documents processed and delivered. These challenges are arising more and more among the various Iraqi missions abroad, due to problems in the appointment system and inefficient document issuing process. According to some Iraqi diplomats, appointments are taken up weeks in advance, till they are made available, which is the main reason for the backlog. Another issue is arising which contributes directly to the backlog, is the significant increase in Iraqi nationals abroad. The dramatic increase of Iraqi nationals between 1990 and 2011 went far beyond the Iraqi missions’ capacity to meet their citizens’ needs. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 44
  • 44. Chapter 3 Table (3.3) shows an estimated number of Iraqi citizens living in some countries around the world, both legally and undocumented and it is continuously rising. Country Estimated Number of Citizens Syria 1,200,001 Jordan 750,0001 Egypt 100,0001 Iran 202,1002 Lebanon 40,0001 Turkey 10,0001 Gulf States 200,0001 Germany 150.0003 Sweden 70,0003 Norway 24,5054 United Kingdom 250,0005 Denmark 12,6002 U.S. 90,0006 Netherlands 50,0005 Australia 11,1001 Table (3.3) - Estimated number of Iraqi citizens in various countries 3.9 Comparative Worldwide E-Government Experiences Many countries around the world have taken major steps in the adoption of E-government systems. It is not limited to advanced nations but also in developing countries which are applying best practice solutions to build efficient systems. Many countries have been successful in implementing e-government solutions in their relevant Ministries and foreign missions. In this regard, strategies and policies applied by some successful countries like Australia and Bahrain are assessed. The ultimate goal is to identify factors and lessons that may serve in the implementation of e-government system. • Australia • Bahrain 1 Source retrieved from UNHCR Statistics on Displaced Iraqis around the world as of April 2007. Check www.unhcr.org for updates. 2 Source retrieved from UNHCR on Iraqi Refugee and Asylum-seeker statistics as of March 2003. Check www.unhcr.org for updates. 3 Source retrieved from a survey conducted by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles as of April 2004. Check www.ecre.org for updates. 4 Source retrieved from Statistics Norway as of January 2009. Check www.ssb.no for updates. 5 Source retrieved from the New York Times, published on Wednesday. January 19. 2005. 6 Source retrieved from the US Census in 2000 by the Population Reference Bureau. Check www.prb.org for updates. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 45
  • 45. Chapter 3 3.9.1 Australia Australia was one of the first countries which took major steps in developing and implementing an efficient e-government. One of its successful projects was the E-visa (Gov, 2003) (http://www.immi.gov.au/e_visa/) program launched in December 2000, by enabling people from different countries around the world to lodge visa applications directly through the website. Figure (3.3) - Illustration of the Australian e-government portal (Government A.) As it can be seen from figure (3.3) above, the e-Visa website is rich of different functionalities, enabling applicants to submit their applications online without the need to use paper-based application or to be present at the Embassy. In addition, it allows them to know about the status of their submitted applications; with some features like printing a copy of their application, being notified of any missing documents needed to be upload or approval notification via email. Helpdesk is provided either by phone or email to further assist applicants. Finally, this program has brought a lot of benefits as follows: Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 46
  • 46. Chapter 3 1. Apply for visa anytime, anywhere 24 hours a day- 7 days a week. 2. Making the application process more simplified. 3. Time to process applications was significantly reduced to as little as about 20 minutes. 4. The requirement of sending the passport via post across the border was removed. 5. Paper work was significantly reduced In realizing such compact program, the project also had to face some obstacles like: 1. Changing the whole paper-work process to electronic process, required legislative change. 2. It took more than the expected time to investigate the best technologies available to achieve the task. 3. Dealing with visas meant to meet an acceptable technical level of encryption while maintaining at the same time a high speed of connection. Figure (3.4), illustrates the current website of the Australian Embassy in Berlin. It provides audio and visual content, properly marked up, not dependent only on colors, very well structured with good navigation mechanism and provides clear information with easy guidelines for users as well as a lot of options regarding times, services in a very handful way. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 47
  • 47. Chapter 3 Figure (3.4) - Illustration of the Australian Embassy in Germany and e-visa processing (Embassy) 3.9.2 Bahrain The Bahraini Government started the project e-Visa and was first implemented in October 2005 (Bahrain, UN - Bahrain eVisa System, 2005) as the first of its kind in the Middle East and one of the best in the world. It is an online e-Visa system application service destined for the payment and processing of visas.The system is connected in the backend with the General Directorate Nationality, passports and residence database to monitor and provide clearance for each processed application on individual basis. In addition to that, the system is based on workflow-driven mechanism; the system also provides various types of visas allowing more and more groups of people to benefit from this system: foreign nationals resident in Bahrain who intend to have multiple re-entry visas; more opportunities for applicants seeking to work within companies residing in Bahrain and visitors. See figure (3.5). Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 48
  • 48. Chapter 3 Figure (3.5) - Shows the Bahraini e-visa website (Bahrain, Bahrain eVisas) In addition to this service, the Bahraini Diplomatic missions around the world provide a lot of good consular services in a very structured, simple and handful way. As in the figure (3.6), which shows the website of the Embassy of the Bahrain in London, it provides either national citizens or travelers wishing to visit the country with good consular services like: passport services; legalization; visas; and traveler guide, all handled and processed electronically through the website and via post. The website also gives an insight about the country like its foreign policy, government structure, economy and tourism just to name a few.This feature is useful for companies seeking to invest, individuals wishing to travel, students seeking education and valuable information for other governmental entities for mutual cooperation The website is connected to the main e-Visa website so individuals can apply directly without the need to wait, provided with instructions and guidelines on how to successfully complete an application. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 49
  • 49. Chapter 3 Figure (3.6) - Illustration of the Bahraini Embassy website in London (London) 3.10 Consular Web-Based Services Requirements To successfully and efficiently deliver consular services to citizens, there are basic but important requirements that must be fulfilled.These requirements are different and vary from a country to country. Countries like Iraq, which is still lagging far behind its developed counterparts in e-government, especially in providing efficient consular services to citizens abroad. Such countries must make more efforts to meet these requirements, which are considered a key success factor to improve the diplomatic missions’ internal workflow process and consequently resulting in a higher level of citizen satisfaction. The requirements are as follows: • Organizational Requirements • Change Management Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 50
  • 50. Chapter 3 3.10.1 Organizational Requirements Online consular services are not just a technical aspect; providing them requires change management. There are several requirements at the organizational level which affect the overall provision of such services and they are illustrated as follows: 1. Organizational Structure In every diplomatic mission, it is essential to consider the organizational structure, its objectives and its managerial divisions, based on a form of organizational hierarchy, this is necessary when applying e-government concept. In addition, modern technology must be able to best fulfill the needs of the organizational aspects, as it will lead to enhance and improve government performance in meeting the needs of its citizens. 2. Work Procedures In order to apply modern technologies and utilize them for better delivery of consular services to citizens, the internal workflow process inside the organization must be highly qualified and efficient. Both simple and complex procedures within the organization are considered important as they represent the stages of services from process to delivery. This approach is of mutual benefit as for citizens to have more satisfaction with the available services and for diplomatic missions as well to help them deliver services more easily and with less expense for the state, it also facilitates their internal work process. There are some focal points that need to be considered as they represent the first steps towards the successful implementation of e-government within the diplomatic missions’ framework and they are detailed as follows: • Reforming of administrative work process is the first step towards providing online consular services. This means the re-engineering of procedures and processes like changing the forms, reports and records in a way that it fits in the broad usage of modern technologies. • Clear scope and definition of the transactions so they can be automated or at least monitored automatically. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 51
  • 51. Chapter 3 • For fast and efficient delivery of service, documents and requirements requested from the citizen should be reduced as much as possible. • Providing guidelines and instructions for citizens before lodging an application in websites. • Keep the organizational work process and delivery of services updated with the latest state of technology and innovation. 3. Centralization and Decentralization The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is no other than a global organization of a country that works for the interests of its citizens abroad through its diplomatic missions. So it can be described as a huge network of organizations (represented by a central organization which is the Ministry and its representatives abroad) and its level of interaction and coordination is affected by the degree of centralization or decentralization which requires the following: • Enabling transparency means that roles, tasks and responsibilities must be defined for both at the central and local level. • Defining how information is transmitted between the Ministry and its diplomatic missions abroad. • Define certain priorities and technologies within this network to guarantee high quality of performance. In addition, set some monitoring mechanisms to maintain it. 3.10.2 Change Management Shifting the services provided by diplomatic missions from its traditional way to make them available online using e-government requires great efforts and patience. So, Change Management addresses these internal and external workflow processes and adapts them to the new environment. Within the context of e-government, Change Management takes care of how diplomatic staff members make the transition from traditional paper- work to a more sophisticated system-aided process. This is achieved by providing staff members with the required up-to-date technical education, system support, possible training and documentation for computer usage. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 52
  • 52. e-government CHAPTER IV Conceptualization 4.1 Introduction So far I have used exploratory research as we have seen in the literature review chapter to enrich the reader with the basic concepts of e-government. According to Yin (1994), the research design is “the logical sequence that connects the empirical data to a study’s initial research questions and, ultimately, to its conclusion”. The following sections outline the research process, chosen data collection, design and implementation.The main purpose of this chapter is to outline the research strategies that will be used by the researcher for the thesis.
  • 53. Chapter 4 4.2 Research Process When research problem has been identified, the research objectives and questions started, it is necessary to indicate how the research objective would be achieved (Walliman, 2001). In light of this, the first step towards the accomplishment of this thesis is to identify the research problem and get reliable information. I have done this by going through scientific published articles and other sources mainly available on the internet. I have also studied different e-government initiatives adopted and implemented in different countries, the challenges they had to encounter. In addition, I have analyzed different cases of e-government success and failure, the gap between design requirements and reality. Furthermore, I made a comparative study of different governmental websites, i.e. advantages and disadvantages (mainly diplomatic missions’ websites) and their online services provided to the public. In the second part of the thesis, I have collected enough information regarding e-government in Iraq and the current status of the Iraqi diplomatic missions’ websites which are presented in this thesis through statistics. The first step to take when creating a research, according to (Yin 1994), is to make an evaluation of the research strategy. Generally speaking, there are five types of research strategies a researcher can follow when conducting social science research: through experiments, surveys, archival analysis, history and case studies. For the purpose of this thesis, a survey was performed on people to understand their needs, as well as some interviews were made with some diplomatic employees to understand and expand my knowledge about the internal work process within the diplomatic missions. These interviews and questionnaires were the main data collection strategies I have used in order to draw the steps towards the design and implementation of a prototype. Figure (5.1), the phases of the research process are presented. Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 54
  • 54. Chapter 4 Figure (4.1) - Phases of the research process. (created by the author) 4.3 Data Collection Throughout this thesis, different data collection strategies were studied to find the most efficient strategy that best suits and fulfills the needs of the research problem. As the choice of a specific data collection method is seldom easy and many factors have to be considered depending on the nature of the phenomenon in question. For this thesis I used different data collection methods to gather the information and they are summarized as follows: • Literature review • The questionnaire • Interviews 4.3.1 Literature Review A continuous literature review was conducted by the author throughout the whole project. The main issues addressed were the following focal points: 1. Definition and basic concept of e-government 2. Barriers to e-government implementation 3. Successful stories of e-government projects adopted by different countries Towards E-government: Iraqi diplomatic missions’ case study 55