The state of e-governance in Africa from the supply and demand points of view

Abstract

This paper takes a critical look at the state of e-governance in Africa from the supply and demand points of
view. The supply side refers to the readiness of African states to practice e-governance while the demand
segment refers to the capacity and motivation of citizens to force e-governance on their representatives in
government, the paper reviewed the state of e-readiness in the continent and concluded that the continent is far
behind the global standards. This problem is blamed in extant literature on the pervasiveness of poverty in the
continent which makes the necessary infrastructure of e- governance to be lacking. The paper moved the debate
forward by arguing that lack of infrastructure is not as weighty in the explanation of the problem as corruption
and lack of the political will for e-democracy. The paper cited some examples to back up this argument. Citizens
of African states are equally not able to boost the state of e-governance in their societies largely because many
of them are still bugged down with how to ensure daily survival in the harsh social, economic and political
environments under which they live. Efforts made by non-governmental organizations to open websites to
promote deliberative democracy have led to different types of problems. To solve all these problems, the paper
made three important recommendations, the dismantling of the secret state, the democratization of the concept
of national security and the integration of the e-democracy processes within broader constitutional structures
and debates of African states.