Centralized e-Government needs devolution similar to traditional devolutions in political, administrative and fiscal systems. Devolution in e-Governance leads towards a transformational government that provides opportunity for local governments to participate, take ownership and localize the e-services. In this paper, we present a reference model for devolution in e-Governance based on the Reference Model - Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP). We propose a reference model for devolution in e-Government based on devolution of its major elements - enterprise, information, computational, engineering and technology viewpoints. IT and governance experts may use the proposed approach for effective achieving devolution in e-governance programs.

1. Reference Model for
Devolution in e-
Governance
M Kashif Farooq
Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS),
Pakistan
Presented at
ICEGOV2008
2nd International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance
Cairo, Egypt, 1 - 4 December 2008.

2. Objective
This paper presents
a reference model of devolution
for a e-Government
By using RM-ODP

3. Issues
 Centralized e-Government
 Decentralized e-Government
 Traditional Devolution Types
 Political, administrative, fiscal

4. Centralized Initiatives
 Typical characteristics
 all IT functions centralized in one organizational
unit
 generally limited IT costs but less effective
 impacts IT governance by providing a generally
tight governance model that is easy to enforce.

5. Decentralized Initiatives
Typical characteristics
 policy is required for
 decision making, project management, portals,
services, funding, revenue collection and
operations
 distributes IT functions between the various divisions
or organizations
 generally has a high coordination cost
 IT governance is focused on the coordination effort
between central and local activities

6. eGov Power Devolution
Devolved Powers
P1, P2, P3…….. Service Delivery Channel for local
Centralized government 1
Portal
developed and
managed by Devolved Powers
centralized P1, P2, P3…….. Service Delivery Channel for local
Powers government 2
Devolved Powers
P1, P2, P3…….. Service Delivery Channel for local
government n

7. RM-ODP
RM-ODP: Reference Model of Open Distributed
Processing
Information
Viewpoint
Enterprise Computational Engineering
Viewpoint Viewpoint Viewpoint
Local
Government
Local
Local
Government
Government Technology
Local Viewpoint
Government Federal Government
Local
Government Local
Government

8. Proposed Framework: (1)
Reference Model for
Devolution in e-Governance
based on
RM-ODP

9. Proposed Framework: (2)
 Scale of devolution depends upon
 the size of the Enterprise,
 its resource base,
 human capacity, and
 governance style.
 There are two types of devolution
 Enterprise devolution
 among multilevel governance structure
 Portal devolution
 among different agencies or departments

10. Proposed Framework (3)
Enterprise Viewpoint
 Roles, rights and functions of Federal or central agency
 Roles, rights and functions of each partner local government
and related agency
 Business Model for Devolution in e-Governance
 Business Processes
 Define the e-Governance Devolution Powers: Operations,
Capacity Building, Bridging the Digital Divide and Revenue
Sharing etc.

11. Proposed Framework (4)
Information Devolution
Federal Powers Vs Local Powers
 Data Ownership
 Data Sharing
 Data Integration
 Data Usage
 Data Verification
Federal Powers Local Powers

12. Proposed Framework (5)
Computational Devolution
Federal Powers Vs Local Powers
 Integration with local objects and
applications
 Application Service Providing
 Language Interfaces
Federal Powers Local Powers

13. Proposed Framework (6)
Engineering Devolution
Federal Powers Vs Local Powers
 Local ICT Infrastructure
Development and usage
 Efforts for Value-Added Services
Federal Powers Local Powers

14. Proposed Framework (7)
Technology Devolution
Federal Powers Vs Local Powers
 Integration of heterogeneous local
technologies
 Adoption of technologies for
different local socio-economic,
geographic, culture and literacy
barriers
Federal Powers Local Powers

15. Proposed Framework (8)
Relationships among Devolution Powers
 Dependencies
Many devolved powers are dependent on
other devolved powers of the same
viewpoint or the other viewpoint
 Constraints
Many devolved powers are associated with
some limitations
 Prerequisites
Many devolved powers may be conditional
with some other requirements

16. Conclusion
Proposed Reference Model facilitate and
classified all devolution power in five
groups.
We can identify
 Dependencies,
 Constraints and
 Pre-requisites