CONCLUSION OF THE ASIA-PACIFIC PANEL

Dr. Itoko Suzuki
Professor
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific UniversityJAPANDuring the IIAS Conference on e-governance, this Asia Pacific Panel examined thethree concrete cases of the NGO use of ICTs in Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, China,and Japan; how their roles and operations of NGOs have been impacted by the use ofICTs in their service delivery, and in their relationships with the government, and theclient citizens.
Panel’s keynote speaker, Prof. Hiromitsu Kataoka set the “Asian” tone by sketching thecommon portrait of the traditional Asian society still observable now in China, Korea
and Japan that was influenced by Confucius and Buddhist teachings on the state andfamily orientation. However, as Prof. Kataoka denoted, these countries have been ruledand developed by strong centralized bureaucratic systems, and even in modern era,these countries did not experience much of the growth of NGOs/NPOs in theirgovernance systems; their roles have hitherto been marginalized in governance. Only
recent years these countries initiated policies for the increased role of NGOs/NPOs intheir governance process. Their current ICT policies were strikingly invigorating theirbusiness and government sectors. On the other hand, use of the ICTs in the NGOs has
been of little significance.
As Prof. Kataoka put it, non-governmental sectors are particularly organized aroundinformation and communication networks rather than around hierarchy; then why nongovernment sectors and the civil society take advantage of the advanced ICTs which arevigorously used in other sectors. When government is now delegating many public
service functions to non-government sectors, strengthening of the NGOs can beimagined by the extended use of ICTs. Enhanced e-Governance could be pronounced
for the NGOs/NPOs. Panel cases, however, experienced not so straight –forwardresponse.
From the Korean case, Prof. Jai Chang Park extracted his in-depth analysis of theparticular experience of the Korean Council of YMCAs, one of the four biggest NGOsin local movements: decreasing roles of NGOs as an intermediate between governmentand citizens were evident. Individual client citizens of the NGOs started direct contacts
with professional experts and government, rather than through YMCAs. This changed
pattern of access posed a risk of decreasing the role of these NGOs as intermediary
between the citizens and the government. While NGOs role as gatekeeper filtering
citizen’s opinion and identifying social issues will remain, Prof. Park concluded thedanger of conventional discourse that the ICTs built social capital by enhancing theeffectiveness of community level NGOs as the watchers of the government. The Koreancase also demonstrated the widening gap between the NGOs with advanced ICTs andthose with outmoded technologies.
Hong Kong experience presented by Dr. Jin Wook Choi was the case of NGOs working
in the Social Welfare Sector. He alerted the serious and numerous digital divide issues
arising between the NGOs and other sectors, and the needs for both government and theNGOs to widen the use of ICTs particularly to empower the service recipients and theNGOs involved in social service delivery. Hong Kong’s NGOs increased in number
since the 1997 handover, but their financial resources remained excessively dependent
on the government (90 %). While the financial situation of NGOs demonstrated thegovernance issue itself in Hong Kong, the digital promotion for the citizens and NGOs
are much sought realistically, according to Dr. Choi, by government campaign andtraining programmes of ICTs.
Mr. Takahiro Nanri, from Sasagawa Peace Foundation, an internationally active andleading NGO in Japan, focused on the search of effective use of ICTs in CSO operation
particularly to improve their accountability, legitimacy and transparency. He pointed outthat CSOs in Japan and in several Asian countries must develop their own strategies forbetter use of ICTs to improve not only their operations or relationships with thegovernment, but also their own accountability and transparency. Mr. Nanri pointed out
the existence of serious deficit in governance responsibilities in the NGOs andgovernment in the use of e-governance that could be enhanced to its potential.
Mr. Nanri as well as the panel organizer Prof. Kaneko made remarks on the recent
Japanese experience of local governance reforms which largely opened avenues for thecivil society to participate in local public service delivery. Increased utilization of civilsociety organizations means that CSOs need to tap ICTs to their potential capacity for
CSO’s planning, communication, and administrative tools to improve their roles in thelocal public service delivery. Particularly the Japanese community has to improve thesocial services for rapidly increasing number of older people who now occupy morethan 20 % (65 years of age and over) of the country’s population. In this connection,
Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, in May 2004 announced thepolicy idea of “u-Japan” (ubiquitous Japan), to mean citizens are encouraged to enjoy
the benefits of ICTs every where and any time, for the e-governance to protect safer andbetter quality of life of all people.
The panel was enriched by three discussants who were outside the Asia Pacific, Dr.
Demitrios Argyriades from the United Nations, Prof. Fannie Cloete from South Africa
and Dr. Oladipupo Adamolekun from the World Bank.
Dr. Argyriades remarked on the powerful potential of the use of ICTs by a nongovernmental and financially handicapped sector that can promote networks among thegovernance actors if this potential is satisfied. E-Governance impact on the relationships
among the government, NGOs and the citizens can be more researched in order to build
better strategies to find adequate public service delivery by the NGOs to the recipient
citizens.
Prof. Cloete emphasized the issues of digital divides (plural) in different social sectors,
and different countries and among NGOs, which are common in many societies. Bothgovernment and NGOs need to tackle the conditions and expectations for egovernment, in order to rectify the digital divides and to promote the potentials of egovernance. Capacity building approach for the e-governance is a needed strategy forthese “divides” issues.
ICTs can make access more direcly to information and knowledge from any place. In a
short term, Prof. Cloete, after having examined the three cases, warned that NGOs needto revise their strategies to create appropriate relations between NGOs and thegovernment, and between NGOs and the client citizens. However, NGOs’ potential inempowerment of the civil society as evidenced in WTO, environment or human rights
issues, globally and locally, can be the essential issues in governance, and hence theissues of e-governance can be more seriously attended by NGOs and other governanceactors .
Dr. Adamolekun made remarks on the social networks to be facilitated by the use ofICTs. ICTs capability to enable direct contact and with speed are changing therelationships to be brought about between the government and the citizens, in which
NGOs if their roles were intermediary, need to be seriously addressed. He pointed out
the danger of such capability, as there is a risk involved by direct communication to bemade available between the citizens and the government in a certain society. He
asserted the basic need of the NGOs to function in a society, and in governance,
whether it is real or virtual. As regards the cost of e-governance, it can be born by tax
payers, as in the case of Hong Kong. In certain country like Democratic Congo, when
the government could not provide public services or e-governance, it was the NGOs (tobear the cost of e-governance). The “divides” of NGOs among countries need to beaddressed in order to make the appropriate use of the e-governance in each country.
In this panel, we learned that e-governance is not devolved as yet in many countries,
particularly in the civil society organizations. The NGOs and CSOs are still in incipient
state in the case countries, despite advanced ICT utilization in these countries in othersectors.
The panel demonstrated three key emerging issues of NGOs when they work in egovernance: (1) inferior position of NGOs among other actors of governance; (2) acuteneed for capacity building for e-governance in both NGOs and the recipient citizens; (3)changing relations among governance actors that are becoming the threats to some typeof NGOs and the civil society. Sound governance, whether real or virtual, need to attend
these issues so that the governance can be improved.
The Panel felt that there is a need to improve the knowledge and information on theexperience of NGOs in e-governance by learning more cases. To facilitate suchlearning, the organizer, Prof. Kaneko made a proposal as a conclusion, to organize a
global network of information on the roles of NGOs in e-governance. This proposal wasunanimously supported by the panel.
The Asia Pacific Panel has been organized as an annual series of reviewing theexperiences of national governance in the Asia and Pacific countries. The first meetingof the panel was held under the theme of “Regional Cooperation and Integration Efforts
in Public Management in the Asia-Pacific Region -A Comparative Approach-” in 2000.
It discussed the experiences and future perspectives in the Asia-Pacific Region under thetheme of “From Government to Governance” in 2001. The third meeting in 2002 wasconvened under “Role Sharing and Collaboration between Governments and NGOs forNational Development.” The panel has always been making efforts to focus on the civilsociety in the governance context, to enrich the knowledge about the Asia-Pacificgovernance and to promote mutual understanding among different countries and regions.

Knowledge and information about the Asia-Pacific governance is very scarce because ofsome political and cultural reasons. Thus, the meetings of the Asia-Pacific Panel havecontributed greatly to accumulate the valuable knowledge and information on the AsiaPacific governance.
By constructing the above-mentioned global network, these knowledge and information
accumulated already and in the future by the meetings of the Asia-Pacific Panel can bebetter utilized for further understanding of the governance situation in the Asia-Pacificregion.