Blog by Mohamed Shareef: “…For two decades, Asian governments have counted broadband subscriptions, celebrated connectivity percentages, and commissioned policy frameworks.
Meanwhile, fishing communities in the Maldives still can’t afford 1GB of data, Pakistani e-government services crash during internet disruptions, and Tongan government operations collapsed for five weeks after a volcanic eruption severed their only submarine cable.
The gap between digital strategy documents and actual service delivery has never been wider. Here’s how Asian governments can close it.
Measure what citizens actually experience
Your ministry reports 85 per cent internet penetration. But can your citizens actually access government services during monsoon season when submarine cables fail? Can rural hospitals use your telemedicine platform on 3G networks? What percentage of median household income does meaningful connectivity actually cost? For Asian governments, this means replacing vanity metrics with citizen-centered measurements:
Instead of: “Fiber deployed to 500 district” . Measure: “Healthcare centers in 500 districts can access national health records during extreme weather events”
Instead of: “75 per cent smartphone penetration”. Measure: “Percentage of citizens who can afford data plans sufficient for essential government services”
Instead of: “E-government portal launched”. Measure: “Government services accessible to citizens using entry-level devices on congested networks”
Bangladesh’s experience with biometric identity systems, India’s Aadhaar implementation challenges, and Indonesia’s struggles with connectivity in remote islands offer lessons. The question isn’t whether you have digital infrastructure. It’s whether that infrastructure delivers services when citizens need them most…(More)”.
