Opportunity and overview of SMS-based e-government in developing countries

Abstract

Despite the large number of e-government initiatives in developing countries, most of the initiatives have failed. Possible causes of the failures include: low Internet penetration, high Internet costs and Internet illiteracy. Rather than forcing citizens to upgrade their current devices and knowledge by promoting e-government through PCs and Internet access, this paper proposes a bottom-up development approach utilising the currently popular communications technology in developing countries, mobile phones and the Short Message Service (SMS) application.