Transition to E-Governance in Laos

Abstract

Since the late 1990s, the Government of Laos (GOL) has attempted to computerize major leading ministries in the country and has maintained a steady movement toward the digitalized governance. However, as Heeks (2003) pointed out [1], the switching or transition attempts to e-government in developing countries had been failed in many cases, and only 15% of them could be evaluated as a successful attempt. The main idea of the study was that the gap between the national capabilities at the time of the project and the design in the plan is often not easy to narrow down and lots of countries eventually failed due to the ‘design-reality' gap. Even though the Laotian government also could not dodge from the gap issue, their willingness itself could be highly rated at the point of its continuous effort over the past 20 years, especially regarding steadily maintained ties with the various foreign donors to provide better government services and to build up their IT infrastructure. In the 2010s, government agencies in Laos have made a wider variety of informatization attempts than before. Still, there has been very little researches focusing on the GOL's national level strategies from the scratch. This study is planned to figure out the current e-government status of Laos, to analyze the previous e-government projects and to identify the factors that can be helpful for preparing the next national e-government plan.