the connectivity agenda five years of success in colombian e-gov initiatives

8/7/2019 The Connectivity Agenda Five years of success in Colombian e-gov initiatives

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The Connectivity Agenda Five years of success in Colombian e-gov initiatives

Univ. Empresa, Bogot (Colombia) 5 (11): 142-162, diciembre de 2006

The Connectivity AgendaFive years of success in Colombian

e-gov initiatives

Diego Fernando Cardona*

Recibido: septiembre de 2006 - Aprobado: octubre de 2006

ABSTRACT

In this article the author try to emphasize how the Connectivity Agenda, enacted in 2000 as the

Colombian policy to move the country toward the knowledge society trough the intensive use of

Information and Communication Technologies ICT, has been a successful electronic go-

vernment initiative. To achieve it, the author describes first the general policy outline and then

the proposed benefits comparing them to the ones already obtained, and explaining how there

is no gap between planning and execution. To complement this exposition, the author presents

the results of an evaluation model applied, which focused on determining what the citizens

expect from the electronic administration and how they perceive it. Finally, the author states

how both approaches conclude that the Connectivity Agenda can be considered as a successful

electronic government initiative.

Key words:Electronic Government, IT in Public Administration, IS Success, Public Policy,

Governmental IS, Citizen Access.

RESUMEN

En este artculo el autor intenta mostrar cmo la agenda de conectividad, presentada en el 2000

como la poltica colombiana para llevar el pas a la sociedad del conocimiento mediante el uso

intensivo de las Tecnologas de la Informacin y las Comunicaciones TIC, puede ser conside-

rada como una iniciativa exitosa de gobierno electrnico. Para lograrlo, el autor presenta de

manera general la poltica, para continuar con los beneficios esperados, comparndolos con los

logros obtenidos, encontrando que no existe una diferencia importante entre lo propuesto y lo

alcanzado. Para completar esta presentacin, se describen los resultados de aplicar un modelo de

evaluacin que se focaliza en determinar las expectativas ciudadanas frente al gobierno electrni-

co y cmo ste es percibido. Finalmente, el autor concluye que usando ambas aproximaciones la

agenda de conectividad puede ser considerada una iniciativa exitosa de gobierno electrnico.

Palabras Clave: gobierno electrnico, TI en la administracin pblica, polticas pblicas, SI

exitosos, SI gubernamentales, acceso ciudadano.

* PhD. ESADE Ramon Llull University. UNESCO scholarship holder. Research Assistant,

Information System Department. April, 2005. E-mail: [email protected].

7. Diego Fernando Cardona.p65 11/12/06, 10:39 p.m.142


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Diego Fernando Cardona


1. INTRODUCTION

The Connectivity Agenda (Mincomu-nicaciones, 2000) was enacted in 2000by the Colombian government as thepolicy to move the country toward theknowledge society trough the intensiveuse of Information and Communica-tion Technologies ICT by implement-ing different projects under sixstrategies distributed in four fields aswill be explained later on. Each pro-ject produces some benefits that, slowly

but firmly, have been reached duringthese five years of development.

First, the reader will find the objec-tives of the policy with the projectsdistributed by strategy. Then, in a se-cond part, there are proposed benefitsfollowed by the ones obtained, accord-ing to the progress reports preparedby the Colombian CommunicationsMinistry. Additionally, there is a pre-sentation of results of the evaluationmodel applied in Colombia to obtain

the citizens expectations and percep-tions towards the electronic adminis-tration initiatives (Cardona, 2004).Finally, it is possible to conclude, basedon the exposed facts and the statisti-cal data from de referenced study, thatthe Connectivity Agenda can be con-sidered as a successful electronicgovernment initiative.

2. OBJECTIVES

The Connectivity Agenda is the Co-lombian policy to move the countrytoward the knowledge society troughthe intensive use of ICT approved

by the Council of Economic and So-cial Policy (CONPES)1 under thedocument 3072 issued on February9, 2000. The objectives of this policycan be classified in four differentdomains:

Transparency Citizen participation Effectiveness Efficiency

At the first domain, the agenda tries

to increase the visibility of public mat-ters, the trust in public administrationand to improve the public administra-tion control. At the second one, theagenda is working in order to facili-tate citizen access to public informa-tion, procedures and services and alsois obtaining the citizens feedback inthe decisions making process.

In relation to effectiveness, this policyseeks to improve the quality of theresults obtained and the attention inthe interaction among the public ad-ministration and their internal andexternal clients in order to increasetheir satisfaction. Additionally, theidea is to simplify the transactionsthat citizens should carry out withthe public administration. Finally,in the efficiency aspect, the idea isto improve the quality and accessi-bility in real time to the informationfor decision making, to reduce thepublic administration operative costs,and to optimize the Governmental in-vestment in ICT.

1 Consejo Nacional de Poltica Social y Eco-

nmica CONPES by its Spanish initials.



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Note: Free translation based on (Agenda de Conectividad, 2004).

3.1. InfrastructureAccess

This strategy includes six projects,the first one is COMPARTEL, cre-

ated to obtain wide telephony cov-erage at the country farthest regions,

and the second one, Computers forEducation works to improve the PCinfrastructure at school nation wide.

3. STRATEGIES

The Connectivity Agenda is basedon six strategies:

Infrastructure access Education

On Line Industry Information Technology IT In-

vestment Contents On Line Government

FIGURE 1. Connectivity Agenda



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Besides COMPARTEL, the govern-ment is creating also computer class-rooms at schools to take advantageof the physical infrastructure all overthe country. As a complement, thereis a project to create Internet accesspoints at military facilities, to takeadvantage of the physical infrastruc-ture at the country farthest regions.

Another important project is focus-ing on the creation of ICT measure-

ments, to generate real indexes toknow and analyze the ICT Colombiansituation. In the last project the gov-ernment is investing in new researchprograms to obtain low cost access,creating innovative fare frames inorder to improve Internet access, andin addition making evaluation con-nectivity projects. The governmentis also preparing the general law forcommunications to regulate and pro-mote the new technology use.

3.2. Education

This strategy requires the strategymentioned above to create a Networkservice website. There are also ef-forts to include IT inside math cur-ricula at secondary level, to improveEnglish skills and to provide basicinformatics education.

This strategy also explores new IT

educative possibilities, as virtual edu-cation, which creates a closest rela-tionship with community based on an

intelligent project and with a completeConnectivity Agenda divulgation.

3.3. On line Industry

The third strategy includes projectsthat search the incorporation of In-ternet and electronic commerce inSmall and Medium-sized Enterprises SME, that requires an electroniccommerce regulation and promotionand an IT innovation at SME by

means of, for example, quality as-surance projects and use of Elec-tronic Data Interchange EDI andbar code technology.

3.4. IT Investment

As IT is fundamental to the policydefined by Connectivity Agenda, itis necessary to create an IT nationalinfrastructure information systemand to improve the creation of ITtax free areas, which supports theinvestment on local contents andsoftware industry.

3.5. Contents

In relation to the last project of theabove strategy, the contents strategyis oriented to produce contents andservices on line for Colombian citi-zens by means of the creation of best

practices database, a national obser-vatory on science and technology, theCultural Colombian patrimony digi-



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talization, the improvement of virtualcollections, a health national system,and a National University Network.

3.6. On LineGovernment

In order to develop this strategy, thepresidency of the country promul-gated the No. 02/2000 order thatforces governmental institutions tooffer, at specific dates and via Inter-net, On Line information, electronicservices and procedures and an OnLine purchase system. The NationalPlanning Department is the institu-tion inside the government in chargeof the definition of the operation andmanagement model that allows theelectronic purchase via Internet.

4. PROPOSED

BENEFITS

4.1. Citizens

The ICT has experienced a signifi-cant progress in the last years inColombia. Different sectors of thesociety, the economy and the publicsector began to incorporate IT intheir activities at a different inten-sity and speed. Due to the necessityto assume actions, as soon as pos-sible, to drive the country inside the

cultural and technological changesthat are transforming the XXI cen-tury, the national Government estab-

lished, as explained before, the Con-nectivity Agenda as a long term policyto achieve a massive penetration ofthe ICT in Colombia with the missionof impelling the massive ICT use asa support tool to the social and eco-nomic development of Colombia.

As it will be explained later on, theConnectivity Agenda strategies areclosely related among them. For thePublic sector, the strategic guidelinesare aimed to modernize the Public

Administration and to support thedemocratic security policy. With thePrivate sector and Community, theseguidelines are aimed to increaseproductivity and competitiveness andto facilitate the ICT citizens access.Finally, in the Academy, the guide-lines are supporting the developmentof the country education sector.

To support the policy implementation,the Connectivity Agenda formulatedprojects of high impact that have beenapproved by the Inter sector Com-mission of Policies and Administra-tion of Information for the PublicAdministration COINFO.2 ThisCommission was created by the Law3816 of 2003 (Mincomunicaciones,2003) that has among its objectivesto optimize the investment in ICT inpublic administration. This Commis-sion is presided by the Republic Vice-

2

Comisin Intersectorial de Polticas y Ges-tin de la Informacin para la Administra-

cin Pblica COINFO by its Spanish

initials.



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president and it is also integrated by adelegate of the Republic President, theMinister of Treasury and PublicCredit; the Minister of Communica-tions; the Director of the NationalPlanning Department; the Director ofthe National Administrative Depart-ment of Statistic, the Director of theAdministrative Department of PublicFunction and the Director of the Con-nectivity Agenda, as permanentguest.

To optimize the public resources des-ignated for the On Line Government,the Connectivity Agenda defined awork architecture that allows the ar-ticulation of actions properly as it isdescribed in figure 3.

The architecture is based on threefundamental components; the first

of them is the political and controlfield, the second one is the techno-logical planning field as complement

to the third component, the techno-logical development, and all three aresupported in a project of knowledgemanagement developed by the Con-nectivity Agenda.

In the first component and due to theneed to guide strategically the work,there is a first element, the strate-gic planning. On the other hand, theuse of the ICT should be a facilita-tor to the political, normative and ju-ridical field of the country, which isthe second element of this component.Additionally, ICT are tools that allowsthe control organisms and the citizen-ship in general, exercise the work ofaudit in the daily action of the entities,their officials and the public servantsin general, as the third element of thiscomponent.

In the second of the components, thetechnological planning field, it is im-portant that Colombia can not ignore


FIGURE 2. Action Plan



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the norms, standards and ICT bestpractices and has to accept that newimprovements will be generated con-tinually. On the other hand, and assecond element, at global level it still

exists reasons to distrust the secu-rity that ICT represents, so it is nec-essary to manage it properly since itis possible to have technological so-lutions. Supplementing this topic, andas a third element of this component,it is required an appropriate riskmanagement that allows to maintaina high level of readiness of On LineGovernments services.

The third and last component, thetechnological development is planned

via layers which permits to defineand to delimit with clarity the needsas for the technological infrastructure,

the interoperability among entities andinformation systems, and the servicesto the community and the entities thatwill be developed and implemented;each layer defines a group of services

to be provided at the superior layers,achieving in this way the use of allthe previous efforts on behalf of thecurrent ones.

With this perspective, a proper com-munications infrastructure that facili-tates the flow of information throughmultiple channels should exist, like In-ternet, multimedia interaction centers,and points of service concentration.In a complementary way, it is requiredthe existence of a storage infrastruc-

ture as a data center so that the com-mon services, such as electronic mailfor public servants, authentication of


FIGURE 3. Architecture for on line government



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the same ones and their respectivedigital signatures, the publishing of in-formation by means of the lodgingmodality, among many others, can beprovided in a centralized way, to ho-mologate them and to obtain the scaleeconomy benefits.

One of the On Line Governmentsobjectives corresponds to the achie-vement and consolidation of standardof communication among processesand information systems, becausethrough the interaction with the infor-mation systems of the different gov-ernmental entities, it will be possibleto present to the whole community thenew On Line services. Then the OnLine Government corresponds to theinteroperability among the systems ofall the government entities. Theinteroperability makes sense by theexistence of a transactional serviceskernel, such as the electronic pay-ment, the authentication and digital

signature, the verification of the fis-cal situation of a citizen, etc.

The upper layer of the architecturecorresponds to the specific servicesthat are offered. Inside this group ofservices, there are, for example, thesingle window purchasing service,the Colombian Governmental Portal,with all the On Line Services, amongmany others.

Finally, in the architecture it is nec-

essary to maintain coherence amongthe different actions, therefore it isrequired a project management to

guarantee the conductive thread of thedifferent activities and also a properknowledge management that allowsthe knowledge and the experienceappropriation, regarding the develop-ment and application of ICT for mod-ernization the State.

4.2. Business

Keeping in mind that the Connec-tivity Agenda must promote the useof the ICT in order to support theeconomic growth and the competi-tiveness increase, the access to mar-kets for the productive sector, andto reinforce the employment gen-eration policy, a change is requiredin the pattern of business based onthe electronic trade, to bring thecountry toward the new economyat international level. Additionallythe Agenda has strengthened the in-dustry of the ICT in the country, cre-

ating new employment sources. Inthis topic the PRYMEROS3 projecttry to improve the competitiveness ofthe SME through the application ofthe ICT as a tool of business man-agement and with the developmentof the electronic trade, supported byColombian Confederation of Com-merce Chambers CONFECA-MARAS,4 the Bogot Commerce

3 http://www.prymeros.com (31 July, 2005).4

Confederacin Colombiana de las Cma-ras de Comercio Confecmaras by its

Spanish initials. http://www.confecamaras.

org.co/ (31 July, 2005).



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Chamber,5 and the Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank IADB.6

The PRYMEROS project is directedto the SME, which play a fundamen-tal role in the Colombian economy,because according to recent reports(Forero, 2004), they generate near4500.000 employments that repre-sent 62% of the Gross DomesticProduct GDP and they have a par-ticipation of 31% in the exports of theCountry. The PRYMEROS project

centers its efforts in supporting thistype of companies with the purposeof improving its levels of competitive-ness through the use of ICT. The ben-eficiaries of the project can be thoseColombian companies constituted le-gally that generate between 11 and200 permanent direct employmentsand whose total assets are among US$55 thousand and US $1,5 million inthe precedent fiscal year 2003.

Since the Project promotes the ICTuse at managerial level, it is requiredthat the participant SME conformsmanagerial communities for strate-gic economic sectors, in such a waythat the PRYMEROS project canidentify the common necessities todetermine the action plans to con-tinue with the implementation of thetechnological solution that adaptsbetter to each community. Under thisoutline, the managerial communities

that can be beneficiaries of the Pro- ject must be conformed by a mini-mum of 10 and a maximum of 20companies.

4.3. Government

The COINFO, already mentionedpreviously, delegates in the Connec-tivity Agenda the function to providethe necessary connectivity to man-age the governmental institutions andto support the function of citizen ser-vice. In this field there are the fol-lowing projects:

National Level On Line Govern-ment

Regional Level On Line Govern-ment

On Line Purchases system Governmental intranet Financial Information Unit Query

System

National University Network

The national level On Line Govern-ment project is aimed to use the powerof the ICT to improve the efficiencyand transparency of the Public Ad-ministration, promoting the electronicoffer of public procedures of highimpact for the governmental institu-tions, citizens and managers. In thisproject, it is necessary to define thecriteria and the technological solu-tion that allow the electronic payment

and to implement the electronic sig-nature. Additionally, is necessary todefine the standard and to provide

5 http://camara.ccb.org.co/default1.asp (31

July, 2005).6 http://www.iadb.org (31 July, 2005).



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the technological platform of ex-change of information for electronicprocedures, carrying out an inven-tory of them, standardizing the elec-tronic offer of information andinteraction to develop the electronicidentified procedures by means of asingle access point. Finally it is nec-essary to design and to develop acampaign to communicate to citizensand managers, the existence andbenefits of the project.

The regional level On Line Govern-ment project is aimed to endow tothe territorial entities a technologicalsolution to support their administra-tive management and administra-tion of public procedures, and tofacilitate the access of the citizens andofficials to On Line Governmentsservices in the regional level. Toachieve this objective the Connectiv-ity Agenda works with the entities ofthe national order that are developingactions directed to improve the ad-

ministration of the municipalities(COMPARTEL, Computers to Edu-cate,7 Ministry of Education, Minis-try of Social Protection, Ministry ofCulture, National Planning Depart-ment, Ministry of Treasury). Theproject is addressed to 1045 munici-palities and 32 regional level govern-ments. The beneficiaries are all thecitizens and officials that interactwith the Government, the publicentities of the national, regional andlocal level, the suppliers of technologi-

cal solutions that support the munici-pal administration and the attention tothe citizens and the entities of the na-tional level that are developing actionsaimed at improving the administrationof the municipalities.

The aim of the On Line Purchasessystem project, is to provide a tech-nological tool for the contractual ad-ministration of the public entities tocarry out the purchases processesfor the acquisition of goods and ser-

vices, including the selection pro-cesses through electronic means, OnLine contracts, to award contractsin electronic form, as well as to al-low the tracking down the contractscelebrated by public entities on be-half of the citizens and the controlorganisms, benefiting the public en-tities and the suppliers.

The Intranet Government projectseeks to create a technological infra-structure that allows the developmentof On Line Governments architec-ture. This infrastructure should allowpublic entities to share resources, toexchange information, to carry outprocesses and combined activities, todevelop procedures and On Line ser-vices, to promote the electronic tradeand to facilitate the citizen access toits information and services. Thisproject implies 4 sub projects:

High-speed network of the Co-lombian Government RAVEC8

7 http://www.computadoresparaeducar.gov.co/

(31 July, 2005).

8 Red de Alta Velocidad del Estado Colom-

biano RAVEC by its Spanish initials.



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to provide proper channels to theGovernmental entities so thattheir systems of information caninteract.

Data Center to place On LineGovernments infrastructure thatallows the entities to obtain properlevels of quality of service, com-puter security and savings whenpurchasing technological solutions

Interoperability Platform to incor-porate standards of informationexchange for the government, and

tools of interoperability that allowto establish a solid technologicalbase for the information exchange,services, and the implementationof On Line procedures.

Contact Citizen Center with mul-tiple channels (call center, portalWeb, electronic mail, chat, andfax) to offer attention and im-mediate answer to the citizen re-quirements.

As it is observed, the beneficiaries

of this project are public entities andcitizens that interact with the gov-ernment to develop procedures andto obtain against Line Governmentservices.

A specific project is the Financial In-formation Unit Query System led bythe Unit of Information and FinancialAnalysis UIAF9 that has proposeda project to exchange information thatallows speeding up the investigations

on Money Laundry. This project co-incides with On Line Governmentsvision and it is a technological modelfor the exchange of information andservices among entities of the gov-ernment, starting from the interoper-ability among information systems andtechnological platforms using WebServices. Initially, the system have theparticipation of 16 public and privateentities.

The last project, but not the less im-

portant one, is the National Univer-sity Network. Its objective is toimplement a data network of newgeneration at national level that con-nects the universities and the investi-gation centers of the country, and theywith the high-speed international net-work and the world developed inves-tigation centers. This communicationfacilitates and promotes the efficientexchange of information and stimu-lates the execution of national projectsof investigation, education and devel-opment, improving the competitive-ness and the progress of all the regionsand participant entities. In addition,there are benefits for the academic,investigative and scientific institutionsof the country and, obviously, to thecitizenship in general who, throughthis type of projects, can find betteraccess options to the education.

5. ACHIEVED BENEFITS

As Maria Paula Duque, ColombianCommunications Vice minister ex-

9 Unidad de Informacin y Anlisis Finan-

ciero UIAF by its Spanish initials.



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plained in a conference at Oracle(Duque, 2005), the Connectivity

Agenda has been evolving as ex-plained in the following figure.

Note: Free translation based on (Duque, 2005).

Colombia is, today, in a multi chan-nel interaction level and it is evolv-ing to a transformation and integration

level as a result of the application ofthe Connectivity Agenda policywhich started at 2000. On the otherhand, the governmental web sitehttp://www.gobiernoenlinea.gov.co(15 April, 2005) receives more than550 thousands single monthly hits,ranking this site on the top ten Co-lombian sites (Lpez, 2004).

The Connectivity Agenda has beenconverted in a key element in the com-munications development, and the

Government ratified, last 28 April,2005 its commitment to consolidatean infrastructure of broadband tele-

communications. In a forum organizedby ANDESCO10 with the participa-tion of experts from Colombia, Peru,

Chile and Canada (ANDESCO,2005), the Colombian Communica-tions Minister acknowledged that inspite of the growth of the use ofbroadband present in Colombia, ourcountry possesses one of lower userpenetrations of Latin America, only1.2 users for each 100 inhabitants, byJuly of 2004, according to the reportof the last trimester of 2004 publishedby the Telecommunications Regula-

10

Asociacin Nacional de Empresas de Ser-vicios Pblicos Domiciliarios y Actividades

Inherentes y Complementarias ANDESCO

by its Spanish initials.

FIGURE 4. Colombian e-gov evolution



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tory Commission CRT11 at the be-ginning of 2005. The idea is not onlyto work in the infrastructure develop-ment, but to include actions that fa-cilitate the access to Internet on behalfof the whole population, through thedecrease of the connectivity costs andprograms of massive access to Inter-net, with initiatives like COMPAR-TEL.

Today, 100% of the national levelgovernmental agencies offer the

possibility to use Internet to presentcomplains. The idea is that all thisagencies followed this phases:

Identification of services and pro-cedures.

Classification of this services andprocedures.

Identification of the totally elec-tronic ones.

Identification of the phases thatcan be implemented via Internet.

Definition and solution of require-

ments. Implementation.

This agencies offer more than onethousand procedures via Internet,saving time to the citizens, improv-ing the reception process, avoidingdelays and displacements, transfer-ring the control process to the citi-zen, diminishing direct attention, andoptimizing it.

These achievements are the resultof the IT incorporation in the Colom-bian culture, situation demonstratedby facts like that in December 2002,where 10 of each 100 Colombiancitizens had a cellular phone and to-day there are 16. In the same pe-riod, the number of Internet usersraised from 1.6 millions in June 2002to more than 3 millions in December2003. During 2003 the number of PCreached a 45% of coverage that is

equivalent to more than 3 millions ofPC (Pinto, 2004).

The Connectivity Agenda has carriedout an enormous advance with thecreation, last May 2005, of the Na-tional Academic High Speed Net-work, a project to interconnectregional networks and to connect theLatin-American Cooperation Ad-vanced Network CLARA12 (Utr-eras, 2005). The higher education

institutions and the investigation cen-ters connected are able to use ser-vices and tools of new generation ininvestigation and education processesas virtual laboratories, digital libraries,centers of virtual education, videoconferences of high definition, supercomputation centers, scientific andtechnological instruments not existentin the country, participation of worldteams of advanced investigation,among many other alternatives.

11 Comisin Reguladora de las Telecomuni-

caciones CRT by its Spanish initials.

12 Cooperacin Latinoamericana de Redes

Avanzadas CLARA by its Spanish initials.



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As for May 2005, there are in Co-lombia three academic regional ad-vanced networks formally constituted:

Caucas Valley High Speed Uni-versitary Network - RUAV13

Bogotas Metropolitan Universi-tary Network RUMBO14

Bucaramanagas Metropolitan Uni-versitary Network UNIRED.15

Additionally, there are other networksin development in Medelln, Barran-

quilla, Manizales and Popayn.

The CLARA Network was consti-tuted in June 2003 to integrate a re-gional telecommunications network ofthe most advanced technology to in-terconnect the national academic net-works of the region and to promotethe direct integration with the scien-tific communities of Europe. CLARA Network is connected to the Euro-pean Advanced Network GEANT16

thanks to the project ALICE.17 TheLatin American members of the CLA-RA Network are:18

Argentina: Red TeleInformticaAcadmica / RETINA www.retina.ar.

Bolivia: Red Boliviana de Comu-nicacin de Datos / BolNet www.bolnet.bo/.

Brasil Red Nacional de Enseanzae Investigacin / RNP www.rnp.br.

Colombia: Agenda de Conectiv-idad www.agenda. gov.co.

Costa Rica Red Nacional deInvestigacin / CRnet www.

crnet.cr/cr2net. Cuba: RedUniv www.mes.edu.cu Chile: Red Universitaria Nacional

/ REUNA www.reuna.cl. Ecuador: Consorcio Ecuatoriano

para el Desarrollo de InternetAvanzado / CEDIA http://www.cedia.org.ec/.

El Salvador: Red Avanzada deInvestigacin, Ciencia y Edu-cacin Salvadorea / RAICESwww.raices.org.sv.

Guatemala: Red Avanzada Gua-temalteca para la Investigacin yEducacin / RAGIE www.ragie.org.gt.

Honduras: Universidad Tecnol-gica Centroamericana / UNITECwww.unitec.edu.

Mxico: Corporacin Universi-taria para el Desarrollo de Inter-net / CUDI www.cudi.edu.mx.

Nicaragua: Red Nicaragense deInternet / RENIA www.unanleon.edu.ni/renia.

Panam: Red cientfica y Tec-nolgica / RedCyT www.redcyt.org.pa.

13 Red Universitaria de Alta Velocidad del

Valle del Cauca RUAV by its Spanish

initials.14 Red Universitaria Metropolitana de Bo-

got RUMBO by its Spanish initials.15 Red Universitaria Metropolitana de Bu-

caramanga UNIRED by its Spanish

initials.16 Specific information can be consulted at

http://www.geant.net/ (31 July, 2005).17 Amrica Latina Interconectada Con Eu-

ropa ALICE by its Spanish initials.18 As for 15 April, 2005.



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Paraguay: Arandu www.arandu.net.py.

Per: Red Acadmica Peruana /RAAP www.rap.org.pe.

Uruguay: Red Acadmica Uru-guaya / RAU www.rau.edu.uy.

Venezuela: Red Acadmica deCentros de Investigacin y Uni-versidades Nacionales / REAC-CIUN www.reacciun2.edu.ve.

The Social Telecommunications Pro-gram COMPARTEL19 is a clear

example of the efficient use of avail-able resources. With this program,Colombia uses ICT to enhance itseconomic development and its competitiveness. Besides, the Govern-ment is reducing the gap betweenthose who have access to informa-tion and those who do not, by rapidlyadding the most isolated regions of thecountry to telecommunications net-works. By 1998 Colombia was in asituation of total disparity in terms ofaccess to telecommunications ser-

vices between urban and rural areasof the country. In that year, 77% ofthe main telephone lines were con-centrated in the 23 main cities inwhich only 46% of the population waslocated. The rest of the Colombiancities along with the rural areas of thecountry, where 54% of the popula-tion lived, just had installed 33% ofthe lines. This situation becomes evi-dent when the number of rural tele-phone lines installed by that year was

revised. These lines were the 1.25%of the total installed lines, and they didnot meet the needs of the most iso-lated regions of the country (ITU,2003).

In order to address this situation, theNational Government developed astrategy to close the telecommunica-tions gap. According to what wasestablished by the Government,COMPARTEL should focus on pro-

viding ICT services to the commu-nity, rather than financing thepurchase of equipment. Consideringthe policy guidelines stated by theGovernment, COMPARTEL RuralTelephony Program was structured in1999. The objective of the programwas to facilitate universal access toICT services in rural areas through-out the country, by installing Commu-nity Telecommunications Points ofService in rural locations of Colom-bia, as a basis for the development oftelecommunications centers. COM-PARTEL introduced a new conceptin the design and implementation ofthese types of programs in develop-ing countries such as Colombia, notonly because it focused in technicaland social aspects, but also becauseit looked for the active participationof the private sector in operating net-works and providing services.

The program, in a first stage, cov-

ered the installation, operation, andmaintenance of 6.745 Rural Commu-nity Telephony Points of Service in

19 http://www.COMPARTEL.gov.co (31 July,

2005)



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rural locations covering nearly 3.7million citizens that did not have ac-cess to telecommunications services,at affordable rates. In a second stagethe coverage was incremented innearly 1.3 million additional citizens

Representing the most aggressiveInternet initiative in Colombia, aswell as one of the most importantsocial programs of the NationalGovernment, COMPARTEL SocialInternet Program included the in-

stallation of community centers withInternet access in all of Colombiasmunicipal seats. This has providedColombians with the possibility ofaccessing the Internet in their ownmunicipalities.

The main objective of this programwas to allow the Internet to be usedby all the population, developing a tele-communications infrastructure thatmakes it possible for IT to attain masslevels of usage in Colombia, throughinstallation of Community InternetAccess Centers in the main munici-pal seats. In addition, this program hasprovided Local Switched InternetAccess services in medium size mu-nicipalities. The maximum rate thatthe operator is actually allowed tocharge is about US $ 75 cents perhour of use of the services. The pro-gram covered the installation, opera-tion and maintenance of CommunityInternet Access Centers installed in

670 municipal seats with a populationof less than 10,000, and 270 centersin municipal seats with a population

over 10,000. In addition, thePrograms operator was forced to provide Local Switched InternetAccess services in 40 medium sizemunicipalities. This initiative benefitsapproximately 2.5 million Colombi-ans, mainly in the rural areas. Tak-ing into account that the previousstages of COMPARTEL InternetProgram was not covering all themunicipal seats of the country andthat there are important populationcenters that do not have access to

the Internet, the National Govern-ment formulated COMPARTELTelecenters Program. Today it is possible to say that a CommunityInternet Access Center is operatingin every municipal seat of Colombia.The operator has installed 372Telecenters serving a population ofmore than 1.8 million Colombianswith different types of Telecenters,depending on each towns needs.

Additionally, there is COMPARTELBroadband Connectivity Program forPublic Institutions. The purpose wasto provide Internet connectivity ser-vices in public education establish-ments, mayors Offices, hospitals andmilitary bases. The program has beenin line with the policy guidelines es-tablished in the National Develop-ment Plan in terms of:

Development of physical infra-structure for rural communities

Access to ICT, which involveseducation and training in its use,as well as the generation of rel-



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20 The research demonstrates, that the citizen

Perception and the Expectative towards its

evant content for community de-velopment

Building social equity through ac-cess to the IT infrastructure inrural areas.

The aim has been to guarantee In-ternet access in 3.000 public educa-tional establishments which havecomputers with certain minimumcharacteristics in operation but whichlack connectivity services. With the

participation of the Ministry of Edu-cation, the objective has been to gen-erate educational contents to attainmaximum impact and efficiency inthe use of the ICT, thereby improv-ing the level of education of the stu-dents. Currently, 624 mayors officesare served as 120 public hospitalssupporting the tasks of the medicalpersonnel and hospital administration,as well as telemedicine projects. Inrelation to military bases, the aim has been to strengthen the democratic

security strategy of the NationalGovernment, the civic-military tasksand the virtual training programs ofthe Military Forces in 30 militarybases; furthermore, the program hascontributed to the strengthening ofState presence in the conflict zonesand has facilitated soldiers commu-nication with their families. This Pro-gram has defined the installation,operation and maintenance of 3.774public institutions, serving a popu-lation of nearly 2.5 million students.

The project PRYMEROS (Agendade Conectividad, 2004) has supported

2.000 companies assigning an expertconsultant in e-commerce and tradi-tional consultancy to detect the truenecessities of managers such as elec-tronic trade and to outline a proposalof improvement that serves as inputfor the implementation phase. Thediagnoses has been developed inMedelln with the managerial commu-nities of underwear industry, construc-tion, fruits, milk industry, tourism andforest industry; in Cartagena with themetal mechanic communities, navy

and car parts; in Cali with health andleather; in Manizales with the tour-ism community; in Bucaramanga withthe supply chain and finally in Bogot,with the pharmacist industry.

Science and IT are a piece on thedevelopment puzzle, and has beena very useful tool to obtain sustain-able solutions of high impact andwith a wide social coverage; in otherwords, science and IT has been a

way to country development. Forthis reason, this policy is movingfrom the national level to the localone, where there is a direct inter-action with citizens, whom have per-ceptions and expectatives towardthe electronic government that mustbe measured in order to improve thistype of projects.

The success grade of the policy issupported also with a recent research(Cardona, 2004)20 that implies that



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using a confidence interval for trust,there is enough statistical evidenceto conclude that the Colombian popu-lation represented by the sample con-

siders that there is higher trust withthe electronic services than with thetraditionally delivered services. Be-sides, the Colombian population

relationship with the public administration through the use of ICT can be evaluated via five (5)

different independent and latent constructs, Attitude, Aptitude, Trust, Relevance and Satisfaction,

under the effect of illustrative variables related to citizens, institutions and ambit in a model as

formulated as follows.

Per_Relacion = 3,376 0,447*Ap + 0,229*Ac + 0,041*C + 0,227*R 0,024*S

Exp_Relacion = 3,508 + 0,048*Ap + 0,232*Ac + 0,051*C + 0,120*R 0,062*SPer_Relacion = - 1,185 + 1,048*Exp_Relacion

With:

Per_Relacion Level of agreement with the phrase: I consider that the services offered by thepublic administration via Internet has improved my relationship with the

public administration

Exp_Relacion Level of agreement with the phrase: In case of interaction with the PublicAdministration via Internet, I expect an excellent relationship

Ap Aptitude, citizens skills to use ICT at her / his relationship with the publicadministration

Ac Attitude, citizen disposition to use ICT at her / his relationship with the publicadministration

C Trust

R Relevance

S Satisfaction

FIGURE 5. Expectative and Perception Evaluation Model

Specific results of the research applied at the Colombian ambit, for the interested readers, can be

reached at http://dsi.esade.edu/dcardona/tesis (31 July, 2005).



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represented by the sample considersthat the information transmitted hasbeen confidentially managed, thereis no violation of her / his privacy,the process has been secure, the re-sult obtained electronically has beenequivalent to the one obtained tra-ditionally, and the process has beenequivalent to the one developed tra-ditionally.

Additionally, using a confidence in-terval for relevance, there is enough

statistical evidence to conclude thatthe Colombian population repre-sented by the sample considers thatthe services provided by the publicadministration are the relevant ones.Besides, there is enough statisticalevidence to conclude that the Colom-bian population represented by thesample considers that the processhas been developed by an identifi-able responsible. Another conclu-sion is that there has been higher

perception of easy of use, publicadministration innovation has beenimproved, and integration amongpublic administration agencies has been improved. But there is notenough statistical evidence to con-clude that the Colombian populationrepresented by the sample consid-ers that the public administrationcredibility has been improved.

Finally, at the perceptions aspect, andusing a confidence interval for satis-

faction, there is enough statisticalevidence to conclude that the Colom-bian population represented by the

sample considers that there is ahigher level of satisfaction with theelectronic delivered services thanwith the traditionally delivered ser-vices. Besides, there has been re-duced the time spent and the costwhen the electronic services are used,the information quantity has been in-creased, and there has been a 24X7public administration availability.But, there is not enough statistical evi-dence to conclude that the Colom-bian population represented by the

sample considers that the electronicservices are excellent and that therehas been a public administrationtransparency increment.

On the other hand, in relation to ex-pectative, and using the data obtainedin the survey, it is possible to con-clude that the Colombian sample sur-veyed considers that the most desiredinteraction system with the publicadministration is Va WEB -email-Internet. It is not possible to con-

clude that the most desired processis the procedure accomplishment;and that the most desired area is theemployment one. The measurementsof central tendency for the benefitsexpressed at the citizen expectative,show that the most desired benefiton behalf of the citizen is the costreduction and the easy of use

5. CONCLUSION

As can be observed, the achievedbenefits are very near to the pro-posed ones for each project devel-



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oped by the Connectivity Agendapolicy. This accomplishment is dueto the work developed by the gov-ernmental institutions based on astrong policy document.

Additionally, in relation to citizen per-ception, there is enough statisticalevidence to conclude that the Co-lombian population represented bythe sample considers that the ICTimpacts their perception that the ser-vices offered by the public adminis-

tration via Internet have improvedtheir relationship with the public ad-ministration and in case of interac-tion with the Public Administrationvia Internet, they expect an excel-lent relationship.

Then, if the accomplishment of theproposed objectives and the citizenperception are measurements of thesuccess, it is possible to conclude thatthe Connectivity Agenda Project atColombia has been an electronicgovernment initiative project successand can be used as a best practiceto be applied at the Latin-Americanregion countries.

6. REFERENCES

Agenda de Conectividad. (2004)Agenda de Conectividad, Infor-me de Avance 2003-2004 [WebPage]. URL http://www.directiva

02.gov.co/ [2004].Andesco. (2005) Promocin de la

Banda Ancha Experiencias

regulatorias exitosas [WebPage]. URL http://www.andesco.com/c4evento.php [2005].

Cardona, D. (2004). Las tecnolo-gas de la informacin y las co-municaciones - TIC. En: Larelacin administracin pbli-ca-ciudadano La declaracinelectrnica de impuestos enuna evaluacin comparativadel caso colombiano y perua-no. ESADE - URL, 265.

Duque, M. P. (Viceministra de Co-

municaciones). (2005)Poltica degobierno electrnico del gobier-no nacional [Web Page]. URLhttp:/ /www.agenda.gov.co/documents/fi les/eGov%20-%20ViceMinistra%20VD.ppt[2005, May].

Forero, F. (Director MercadeoACOPI). (2004).El perfil de laPYME colombiana. (p. 123).Bogot: ACOPI.

ITU. (2003) Perfiles por pases -Colombia [Web Page]. URLhttp://www.itu.int/ITU-D/CDS/Country_Data.asp?Country=COL[2003].

Lpez, A. (2004) Lineamientos de gobierno digital[Web Page].URL http://www.agenda.gov.co/eventos/articulos/97/ [2005, May].

Mincomunicaciones. (2000).Agen-da para la conectividad - do-cumento CONPES 3072. (p.23). Bogot: Departamento Na-cional de Planeacin.

Mincomunicaciones. (2003).Decre-to 3816/2003. (p. 15). Bogot:Congreso Nacional.



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Pinto, M. E. (Ministra de Comunica-ciones). (2004) Palabras de aper-

tura, V Encuentro de CiudadesDigitales [Web Page]. URL http://www.iberomunicipios. org/docs/col_06_04.pdf [2004]. &

Utreras, F. (Secretario General).(2005)Red CLARA [Web Page].URL http://www.redclara.net/contenido.php?ncategoria1=101&ncategoria2=108&ncategoria3=126 [2005].


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