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CANADA
and the Philippines has launched the Electronic
Governance for Efficiency and Effectiveness project, or
E3, aimed at improving the delivery of government
services in the Philippines.
In an
interview with reporters last week, counselor and head
of aid for the Canadian Embassy Tom Carroll said the
five-year E3 aims to use information and communications
technology (ICT) to enhance the delivery of services of
the government, particularly local government units.
“Basically, it is an attempt to use ICT to provide
better social services for the poor here in the
Philippines working with those government offices that
provide social services such as the Department of Social
Welfare and Development, Department of Education,
National Antipoverty Commission, among others,” said
Carroll during the interview at the residence of
Canadian ambassador to the Philippines Peter Sutherland
in Dasmariñas Village, Makati City.
The E3
project is funded by the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA), to the tune of P420 million.
The project is expected to be completed in 2012.
The
project is designed to assist social services agencies
in the Philippines that are pursuing implementation
plans for e-governance projects.
Carroll
said e-governance pilot projects will be implemented in
selected rural areas of the country, to demonstrate and
improve the delivery of social services, among them
credit assistance, welfare, health, employment,
education, microfinance, disaster relief and
agriculture.
He said
the ultimate goal of E3 is to develop efficient,
responsive, transparent and accountable governance at
all levels, especially social services. Further, the
program aims to help the Philippine government provide
indigent men and women equitable access to social
services.
To get a
real view of the situation, Carroll said the Canadian
government will get recommendations from different
agencies to determine what areas are in need of
assistance.
“Precisely, [the] Canadian government will get the
recommendations of the different agencies on what
projects to pursue. Our partner here is the Commission
on Information and Communications Technology (CICT)
under Commissioner Ramon Sales,” he said.
“The
first project of our steering committee is to chart the
project implementation plan over the five-year period.
The annual work plan defines specific projects to be
done,” he added.
“Once
the project begins and gets its own momentum, we are
going to have our own work plan and we’ll be working
with the different agencies as we go along defining it,”
he said.
He said
that E3 will also bring in Canadian experts to monitor
the projects of the bilateral undertaking. At this time,
Carroll said the two countries will still have to define
the experts it needs. “Precisely what expertise other
than ICT remains to be seen,” he said.
Canadian
consulting company Bearing Point Trading will be the
consultant of the project.
Canada
has been regularly active providing development
assistance in
Mindanao and
Western Visayas for the past 15 years, focusing on private sector
development in business advisory and strengthening SMEs
so they can provide better services to their members.
Further,
it has also worked with 400 local government units in
Mindanao and Western Visayas in their capacity building
program called Local Government Support Program.
“What we
are bringing to this program is the governance framework
so the programs can be planned and coordinated,” he
said. |
