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Gartner Advises South African Government on E-Government Transformation
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Pretoria, Republic of South Africa, July 31, 2000 — Following the most successful Gartner African IT Conference and Expo ever, senior Gartner analysts met with South African government officials in Pretoria to provide advice on the use of information technology (IT) to transform government.
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The South African government is formulating an IT policy with government-to-citizen communications as the main objective. The goal is to provide communications to citizens in remote villages as well as to those in larger towns and cities. This is a technology opportunity despite the low levels of Internet access in rural areas of Africa.
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As South African officials begin planning their IT deployment, a heavy emphasis is being placed on the Internet and Internet applications, according to Gartner analysts. Because South Africa, like many other regions, is experiencing a severe IT skills shortage, planning and implementing maintenance support for large proprietary back-end systems is difficult. Instead, Gartner recommends individual software applications that work with the Internet in a plug-in structure. That approach reduces the need for massive investments in training, maintenance and large-scale redeployments when the government upgrades the systems.
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"South Africa has challenges as they build up their technology infrastructure in an area with very few IT professionals," said Dan Miklovic, Gartner vice president and research director. "However, the lack of legacy issues and integration problems creates a refreshing opportunity for South Africa to truly obtain a world leadership position in IT among emerging nations."
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Gartner conducted workshops for representatives from all South African cabinet level departments to share knowledge and best practices. The government, according to Gartner, should become a model citizen on the Internet by demonstrating strong citizen focus within government systems.
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About the Gartner African IT Conference and Expo
The Gartner African IT Conference and Expo, held 23-26 July 2000, in Sun City, South Africa, drew more than 1,100 delegates from six African nations. Attendees representing business, education and government heard more than 40 presentations by 15 senior Gartner analysts from around the globe dealing with topics relating to e-business and e-governance. For more information on the conference or to obtain copies of the program contact Barbara Robertson, Johannesburg, South Africa: telephone 27 (0) 11 803 4706.
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About Gartner
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