A push for ‘Digital’ and e-Governance
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 31st Dec. 2017
What India’s diplomacy need to be able to push in the years going forward is a push for e-Governance based products and services in emerging markets. Basically, the way emerging markets tend to grow is a focus on ‘infrastructure’ which involve huge outlays including sponsorship from ‘foreign banks’ and multilateral institutions. This also goes on to support the sizeable imports of capital goods, projects & equipment. Improving domestic service sector in emerging markets is hardly a focus area and weaker entities in the sector have hardly have any concern of anyone either within these markets or on outside. Support to update technology of these relatively small service sector enterprises in these emerging markets might still be risky proposition. However support to improve e-Governance especially in areas like improving tax collection or utility bills collection (of public utilities) or say fee collection for public transportation (e-ticketing) are areas which would be in line with public consumption trends within many of these economies, and give rise to sustainable projects that can be considered for financing. Domestic experience in India which itself is an emerging market with near similar infrastructure, education levels and access related issues form a rich base to be built along. Perhaps an improved engagement of hugely competitive domestic enterprises in such markets may open further opportunities as the trend gets bolstered further.
The falling prices of the technologies and increased reach on the back of technology trends like SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) would go on to ensure that the domestic companies would remain agile and competitive as long as they continue to hone their skills and maintain ‘Hi touch’, with the customers/markets. The ability of political leaders in these emerging markets to evolve some of these projects might be a concern but some element of bilateral financing should help overcome such resistance to a great extent. What might be precursor is not the technologies which got developed a bit earlier by the fact that ‘intent’ of such moves including visible involvement of technology, helped India as an emerging market to attract foreign investments and many of the emerging markets might just be trying to do the same to grow nascent domestic industry sectors. The ability of ‘technology’ to not only open new ways of doing work but to ‘open up’ domestic population to ‘new ways thinking’ might be the key, that perhaps seems not to be utilized in these markets to a desired extent. While the enterprises from the country may already be involved in some of these markets but that might only be an engagement at tactical level rather than some strategic level involvement, or at level to bring about any transformational change for any of the units of governance. As far as India’s bilateral assistance is also concerned, it has mostly followed the developed markets templates of going for infrastructure projects, rather looking at area where domestic competitive sectors could make some meaningful difference to these markets. Let’s see the ‘Game’ evolve…