E-government for development: Implementation challenges of Uganda´s national backbone infrastructure project and key lessons

This paper intends to inform implementers and policy makers in developing countries to critically plan and analyse the processes and requirements for ICT projects. The challenges and lessons learnt from implementing the e-government project in Uganda are very key to similar/related projects elsewhere. The paper uses desk review of existing literature including evaluation reports of the implementation of the National Backbone Infrastructure/E-Government Infrastructure (NBI/EGI) project in Uganda. The paper highlights the importance of change management for technology acceptability and stakeholder buy in. Ensuring good contracting processes, supervision, as well as Service Level Agreements (SLA), at the same time, it recommends proper supervision, awareness campaigns and sensitisation for user buy in and systems should be seen to address the real challenges facing the people not only the elite. It concludes with a proposal for an impact evaluation of the implementation.