Services For Citizens Research Articles

Governance Reforms in Digital Era: Issues with Digital India Programme

The digital era has witnessed significant advancements in technology and has brought transformative changes in various aspects of society, including governance. In this context, the Digital India Program, initiated by the Government of India, aims to harness the power of digitalization to create a digitally empowered society. The programme encompasses various initiatives such as digital connectivity, infrastructural development, and citizen services. However, the programme encounters several challenges and issues during its implementation; which impact governance reforms in the digital era such as digital illiteracy, inadequate infrastructure, coordination gaps among departments, and taxation issues. These challenges hinder the programme’s successful implementation and impact governance reforms in the digital era. This research paper explores main objectives of the programme, and also identifies the challenges faced during implementation, analyses the impact of these challenges on governance reforms, and proposes recommendations to overcome the identified issues. The data has been collected from secondary sources such as published papers, articles, reviews, scholarly books and government reports to examine the subject matter comprehensively. The research study contributes to the existing knowledge on governance reforms in the digital era and provides insights for policymakers, stakeholders, and researchers. This paper aims to facilitate effective governance reforms in the digital landscape, contributing to the goal of creating a digitally inclusive and empowered society.

Innovative management of the social sphere in the context of digitalization

The paper investigates the implementation of digital solutions and technologies in the social services for senior citizens in terms of the national project “Demography”. Current changes, according to the author’s position, form a new and problematic area for the management of social processes at the stages of planning, forecasting, control, and exchange of information. The development of information systems and electronic services is only one aspect of the multifactorial nature of the current situation. The main task is to solve the problem of interdepartmental fragmentation of participants in the system of long-term care for senior citizens and regulatory legal acts. Therefore, modern tendencies of studying and introduction of the positive experience of regions, search and systematization of information on effective methods of working with the population were analyzed, and examples of successful practices of innovative management were given. In addition, information products for different types of organizations were analyzed, and the modern system of interdepartmental interaction between healthcare and social service organizations in the provision of social services and medical care for senior citizens was assessed. Moreover, major problematic issues of interdepartmental interaction between healthcare and social service organizations in the provision of social services and medical care for senior citizens and the prospects for the effective development of resources of social service providers in the implementation of strategic sectoral development were identified. Consequently, recommendations on improving the efficiency of interdepartmental interaction in the system of social services and ways of exchanging information were offered. Particular attention was focused on the factors that inhibit innovation processes in the implementation of digital solutions and technologies in the activities of social services. In conclusion, the guidelines for the formation and development of innovative potential in the system of social services were specified.

Graph Neural Networks and Open-Government Data to Forecast Traffic Flow

Traffic forecasting has been an important area of research for several decades, with significant implications for urban traffic planning, management, and control. In recent years, deep-learning models, such as graph neural networks (GNN), have shown great promise in traffic forecasting due to their ability to capture complex spatio–temporal dependencies within traffic networks. Additionally, public authorities around the world have started providing real-time traffic data as open-government data (OGD). This large volume of dynamic and high-value data can open new avenues for creating innovative algorithms, services, and applications. In this paper, we investigate the use of traffic OGD with advanced deep-learning algorithms. Specifically, we deploy two GNN models—the Temporal Graph Convolutional Network and Diffusion Convolutional Recurrent Neural Network—to predict traffic flow based on real-time traffic OGD. Our evaluation of the forecasting models shows that both GNN models outperform the two baseline models—Historical Average and Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average—in terms of prediction performance. We anticipate that the exploitation of OGD in deep-learning scenarios will contribute to the development of more robust and reliable traffic-forecasting algorithms, as well as provide innovative and efficient public services for citizens and businesses.

Smart City Transformation: An Analysis of Dhaka and Its Challenges and Opportunities

Cities worldwide are experiencing rapid urbanization and an increasing population, creating a pressing need for smart infrastructure to enhance citizen services. Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, faces similar technological and socio-economic challenges, making it crucial to transform it into a sustainable smart city. This research analyzes the opportunities and challenges of smart cities and Dhaka through SWOT and PESTEL analyses. The study employs a fuzzy rule-based inference system in a MATLAB simulation to calculate the smart city index based on parameters such as governance, transportation, waste management, utility management, healthcare, and industrial automation. The findings reveal that good governance has the highest impact on the smart city index, followed by transportation. The paper proposes a sustainable smart city transportation framework and management technique, outlining future research directions. The proposed framework is expected to impact socio-economic, technological, and environmental aspects positively.

Ayush grid: Digital health platform

Innovative use of Information Communication Technology in the Ayush sector enables achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC), health emergency protection, and healthier populations in the integrative health-care acumen. Ayush Grid (AG) is an Ayush-centric Digital Health Platform (DHP) created by the Ministry of Ayush, Government of India in the year 2018. It works in sync with the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM)-India's national digital health infostructure platform. The components of the AG cover all the verticals of the Ayush Sector, namely Health Services, Education, Ayush Research, Central Sector and Centrally Sponsored Schemes, Training Programmes, Citizen Centric Services, Drug Licencing Portal, and Media Outreach through four distinct layers namely The core layer, National Layer, State Layer, and Citizen access. The significant contributions of AG so far are the implementation and maintenance of the National Ayush Morbidity and Standardized Electronic (NAMASTE) portal, Ayush Research Portal, development and implementation of Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) enabled Ayush Hospital Information Management System (AHMIS), Ayush Sanjivani app (during COVID-19 pandemic), assisting the World Health Organization (WHO) in the development of mYoga app, Ayurveda Siddha and Unani International terminologies and morbidity codes (as Module-2, Chapter-26, ICD-11), development of benchmarks for the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the field of traditional medicine under the “Artificial Intelligence for Health (AI4Health)” initiative by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and WHO, etc. The paper discusses the role of AG as an enabler to integrate Ayush systems in the national and international health-care setting.

BEYOND PERFORMATIVE TRANSPARENCY: LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE EU CODE OF PRACTICE ON DISINFORMATION

The EU Code of Practice on Disinformation has attempted to approach the issue of disinformation through a self-regulatory model, but this has seen limited success. We analyse 1114 self-reported actions from Code signatories (Google, Meta, Microsoft, Mozilla, TikTok and Twitter) taken from 47 monthly transparency reports addressing Covid-19 related disinformation. While the transparency reports were designed to provide clear, meaningful reporting, in reality the process of assessing each platform’s disinformation actions was difficult due to repetition, vague descriptions and a lack of quality data. Platform actions were often reported using a promotional tone and some were irrelevant to COVID-19 or disinformation. We argue that the way in which we understand the role that social media platforms play in both the collection of data and the social outcomes that result from these data extraction processes needs to be questioned. Drawing upon the concept of data colonialism, we call for transparent access to data based on the idea that what platforms view as property is based on a “commercially motivated form of extraction” rather than a “naturally occurring form of social knowledge”. European debates about regulating online disinformation need to be set against a broader perspective on regulating the digital environment as a public infrastructure. Policymakers can achieve better civic and democratic outcomes by focusing on regulating the digital environment through, for example, robust competition, data portability, and interoperability rules. Such actions have the potential to break the dominance of Big Tech while incentivising better and new services for citizens.

Territorial patterns of open e-government: evidence from Chilean municipalities

ABSTRACT This article analyses the development of open e-government between 2019 and 2021 in Chile’s 345 municipalities. We aggregated an e-government index (EGi) to measure the provision of local digital services for citizens. We then combined this with indicators of transparency and access to public information to create an open e-government index (OEGi). Our empirical strategy is based on geospatial econometric analysis in two stages: first, we describe and georeference our index, estimating the level of spatial autocorrelation and then fit different econometric models to measure the impact of the degree of Internet use, socioeconomic dynamism and management capacity on the municipalities’ development of open e-government. Our main findings indicate that monetary poverty has a negative effect on the index, while the municipal government’s budget has a positive effect.

Citizen Service Quality Standard: Its Levels of Implementation and Satisfaction as Perceived by Clients, Deped-Tagbilaran City

Service Quality Standards (SQSs) mean the level of management and organization service unit requirements. The study investigated the Department of Education (DepEd) Tagbilaran City Division frontline services. The study is descriptive-comparative in gathering data through modified tools to measure the levels of implementation, satisfaction, and problems encountered by internal and external DepEd stakeholders in its service transactions. With the overall number of 956, a sample size of 536 was randomly selected (2.81% margin of error at 95% confidence interval). It used Spearman Rank Chi-Square, Mann Whitney Test, and Kruskal Wallis. The Chi-Square test results revealed that an association exists between the position of respondents (X2 (14) =24.396, p<0.05) and the classification of respondents (X2 (2) = 10.568, p<0.05) with their level of satisfaction. The Spearman Rank test showed a significant positive correlation between implementation and satisfaction (rs (534) =0.657, p<0.05). The Mann-Whitney test results revealed that internal stakeholders (Mdn = 3.25) have higher satisfaction as compared to external stakeholders (Mdn = 3.00), U (267,269) = 31380.500, z = -2.532, p<0.05. Although it fully implemented its service quality standard, it falls short in some service domains in that clients were moderately satisfied with their frontline services.

Liability for illegal execution of activities on provision of consumer credit (loans): current status and perspectives for improvement

Consumer lending services are among the most demanded in the financial market. The high socio-economic significance of the activities of entities providing consumer loans is increasing in the context of regional imbalances in the implementation of banking services and the focus of credit institutions on clients with a certain income and stable income. Solving the problems of the availability of financial services for citizens living in small settlements, as well as persons who cannot receive funds from credit institutions due to low income, negative credit history, lack of collateral, microcredit organizations increase the purchasing power of the population, maintain the standard of living socially vulnerable citizens, stimulate the country's economy, involving (through investment) low-income strata in economic processes, making tax payments. The increased requirements for professional lenders determined the expansion of the illegal financial services sector, supported by high consumer demand. In order to counteract the illegal activities of illegal creditors and protect the interests of consumers of credit services, the legislator established administrative and criminal liability.The analysis of the current norms, which provide for liability for illegal activities for the provision of consumer loans (loans), carried out in the course of the study, made it possible to identify technical and legal flaws in the content of Art. 14.56 of the Administrative Code and enshrined in 2021 Art. 171.5 of the Criminal Code.Having identified the problems arising in the implementation of Art. 14.56 of the Administrative Code in practice, the author proposes to exclude from the disposition of this norm the signs that specify the subject of an administrative offense (legal entity, individual entrepreneur). The inevitability of the liability of illegal usurers will be ensured by changing the approach to determining the moment when illegal professional activities for the provision of consumer loans (Art. 14.56 of the Administrative Code) are concluded from the date of the conclusion of the consumer loan agreement on the day the creditor submits executive documents for organizing the enforcement of court decisions on the collection of the corresponding debt.Having determined the disposition of Art. 171.5 of the Criminal Code casually, with a triple reference-blanketness, the legislator not only deviated from the rules of legal technique, but also disoriented the law enforcement officer in the content of the criminal law prohibition. The author substantiates the proposals to state Art. 171.5 of the Criminal Code in a new edition, excluding the name of the violated law and detailing the signs of the subject of the crime. As crimi-forming signs, the composition covered by Art. 171.5 of the Criminal Code, it was proposed to determine alternatively: the large size of consumer loans (loans) issued by an illegal lender (over 2 million 250 thousand rubles); administrative punishment of a person under Art. 14.56 of the Administrative Code.

Tax compliance behavior of taxpayers in Ethiopia: A review paper

This review paper attempted to assess the tax compliance behavior of taxpayers in Ethiopia. The objectives were specifically to identify determinants and challenges of tax compliance behavior of taxpayers in Ethiopia. Taxes are the most important sources of the government that make it possible to finance infrastructure, investment, and the provision of services for citizens. Tax compliance involves being aware and complying with tax laws and regulations set by the government and tax authorities. Tax non-compliance is an unwillingness in obeying tax laws and regulations. Tax non-compliance has been a challenge to the government and tax authorities in collecting as much tax as required for the nation. Failure to comply with tax prevents adequate revenue collection of the state. The major challenges of tax compliance in Ethiopia are the complexity of the tax system, inefficiency of tax authorities, lack of tax knowledge and awareness, negative perception of taxpayers, a negative act of tax assessors, absence of tax training, lack of transparency of tax system, arbitrary estimation of taxes, personal financial constraints, political instability and lack of timely tax audit.

Current challenges to health care access in Guatemala

Guatemala is an upper-middle-income country in Central America, with a high poverty rate and significant inequality. The health care system is divided into three large sectors: the private sector, the Guatemalan Social Security Institute, and the public sector. However, the government's health care expenditure is low, which has resulted in inadequate access to medical services for many citizens, especially for the indigenous population, who face disproportionately high poverty levels and limited health care services compared to non-indigenous individuals. Over the past 63 years, various international efforts have tried to address the inequity in health care access, with one example being the Behrhorst program. This program aimed to offer basic medical care to impoverished rural communities in the late 20th century and was a success but faced significant challenges due to the widespread violence and oppression that took place in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. Despite many efforts, significant challenges remain, particularly in addressing the health disparities between urban and rural areas.

СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ОБУСЛОВЛЕННОСТЬ СОВРЕМЕННОГО РОССИЙСКОГО ЗАКОНОТВОРЧЕСКОГО ПРОЦЕССА

The article is devoted to the analysis of changes in the Russian legislative process through the prism of changes in the social structure of society. Using the example of the current legislation of the Russian Federation regulating social services for citizens, the methodological design of the study of the social conditionality of the modern legislative process through the definition and assessment of social factors, subjectivity, forms of citizen participation, appeals to expert and public opinion, scientific and analytical justification is proposed. Conclusions are drawn regarding the need for sociological support of the legislative process, the possibilities of using sociological methodology to improve it towards a social orientation through the organization of forms of broad public discussion to ensure a civilized dialogue between the state and society, as well as the achievement of public consent.

The functioning of Ukrainian public administration under a state of war

Introduction: The article deals with Ukrainian public administration activity in the face of the full-scale Russian military invasion. The article emphasizes the role of the impact of digital public sector development and the aid solutions introduced after the start of the invasion. Discussed are the conditions for the functioning of the social security system in a state of war.Objective: To present information about the actions taken by the Ukrainian government to maintain the effectiveness of public administration. A number of digital reforms have been identified.Materials and methods: Review of websites and legislation regulating the functioning of Ukraine during the war.Results: The conclusions indicate that despite the positive impact of digitization on the possibility for the efficient functioning of public services, it is fundamental to maintain the balance between national security and the availability of services for citizens. An additional challenge is the very short time to implement aid solutions.

Citizen Service Satisfaction in Government Service Delivery System of Karnataka- Sakala

This study aims at exploring new directions for research on Government of Karnataka’s role in enhancing Quality of Life (QOL) of people through better service delivery process. Citizen Service delivery is one of the most important functionaries of the government. Various governments to deliver better services have tailored Citizen Charters and Acts. However, the effective implementation and gauge of measurement is still questionable. Although Governments can have a greater impact on Citizen’s happiness, very few studies have been able to systematically examine the qualitative and quantitative attributes of Governing bodies in happiness enhancement through service delivery, compared with greater volume of researches carried on economic, political and cultural attribute’s impact on quality of life of citizens. Existing studies have focused on quantitative sides of Government, there are still various attributes that needs to be focused upon. Social surveys on happiness, citizen well- being has provided new stimulus to utilitarian political-theory through statistical reliable measure of happiness that can be co-related to various variables. One of the general findings define that happiness does not strongly co-relate with increase in wealth above modest level, this has led to governments to shift priorities towards other social values which contribute to Citizen happiness and well-being. Moreover, in this research we consider composite & non-linear attribute to gauge the happiness defining factors of citizens in service delivery system. The question of how much happiness research findings can contribute to happiness maximization in public service delivery policy and hence increasing the volume of happier population within the state of Karnataka is the main objective of this research.

Relationship between social network and individual performance of core members from aged care services social organizations: cross-sectional study

BackgroundThe social network of core members can affect the performance of the organization, while there is a lack of research on the relationship between the social network of core members of social organizations and individual performance in the field of aged care services. This study aimed to explore the relationship between social network and individual performance of core members from social organizations engaged in aged care services and explore measures to promote the development of aged care services.MethodsWe used a multi-stage stratified sampling method to conduct a cross-sectional study and collected the required data in six cities in Anhui Province, China. Univariate analysis and binary logistic regression were used to estimate the relationship between social network and individual performance.ResultsOur results indicated that core members with higher social network scores were more likely to yield better individual performance, including receiving awards or recognitions related to aged care services (AOR=2.534; 95% CI: 1.397-4.596). Moreover, teams led by the core members were more likely to receive awards or recognitions related to aged care services (AOR=2.930; 95% CI: 1.740-4.933). The core members or the teams led by them were more likely to be reported by the media (AOR=1.748; 95% CI: 1.030-2.966) and participate in the drafting or discussion of local aged care service standards or service specifications (AOR=2.088; 95% CI: 1.093-3.911). In addition, demographic variables such as gender, marital status, and education of core members were significantly related to their performance (P<0.05).ConclusionsThe social network of core members of aged care service social organizations has an impact on their individual performance. To improve the performance of the core members of senior citizens services and organizations, relevant measures should be taken from the government, social organizations and core members to strengthen the social network construction of core members.

Healthcare-seeking experiences of older citizens in Bangladesh: A qualitative study.

Despite improvements in many health indicators in the last few decades, providing access to affordable and quality healthcare for older citizen remains a considerable challenge in Bangladesh. This study aimed to understand individuals 'experiences regarding their healthcare-seeking, treatment cost, accessibility and coping mechanisms for the promotion of appropriate strategies to enhance the quality of life of the older citizens of Bangladesh.A qualitative descriptive approach was used in this study. A total of 27 In-Depth Interviews (IDIs) were conducted in a district in Bangladesh with older people between January and February 2020, where gender distribution was equal. Face-to-face interviews were conducted by trained and experienced interviewers regarding healthcare-seeking and accessibility, affordability, and healthcare coping strategy. Thematic analysis was conducted to analyse the data. It was found that the health condition of the older population is not satisfactory. Most of them had been suffering from several diseases such as benign tumor, chronic kidney disease, body aches, gastric ulcers for a longer period of time. The majority of the participants were suffering from multiple non-communicable diseases while diabetes and hypertension were the foremost of all diseases. This study provides insight into the challenges of managing healthcare services for older citizens in Bangladesh. Healthcare facilities were available, but high out-of-pocket payments, lack of caregivers, and time distance created a barrier to the service provision. The findings indicated that geriatric care policymakers and service providers should prioritize the older-friendly health infrastructures with affordable cost of treatment for the betterment of the health status of older citizens in Bangladesh.

ROZWÓJ E-URZĘDU NA PRZYKŁADZIE ZAKŁADU UBEZPIECZEŃ SPOŁECZNYCH

The Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) is a leading office developing digital services for citizens and an important element of e-government in Poland. Its digital reforms are part of the process of building the e-government. For several years, ZUS has been implementing strategies and projects aimed at increasing customer satisfaction. It is possible thanks to the innovative solutions in customer service, as well as a transparency and efficiency in managing public funds. The implemented modern reforms brought measurable financial benefits and positive qualitative changes, which resulted in the improvement in the public opinion of the institution. The strategic plans of ZUS, including the “Strategy of the Social Insurance Institution for the years 2021–2025” and the “IT development strategy in ZUS for 2021–2025”, envisage the continuation of the direction of reforms and projects, mainly related to the expansion of the scope of application of modern IT solutions.

Online information seeking during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-country analysis

The aim of this study was to investigate the coronavirus-related web-searching patterns of people from the 10 most affected nations in September 2020. The authors extracted all searches for the sample nations, consisting of the two words ‘COVID-19’ and ‘coronavirus’ and their variations, from Google Trends for the complete year of 2020. The results showed a discrepancy due to the priority of the language used during searches for coronavirus-related information. The time span of the attention level of citizens towards coronavirus-related information was relatively short (about one month). This supports the assumption of the activation model of information exposure that information which generates a negative affect is not welcomed by users. The findings have practical implications for governments and health authorities in, for example, launching information services for citizens in the early months of a pandemic and them remaining as the preferred source of information for citizens.

Sustainable value creation by adopting an e-government initiative: empirical evidence from the emerging economy context

ABSTRACT Big data in the fourth Industrial revolution can support a government’s e-initiatives to provide improved care, experiences, and services for citizens. However, the effectiveness of e-government systems in the current data era is difficult to prove empirically, especially in emerging economies, due to the lack of an integrated model to measure sustainable value creation. Indeed, the main models used for evaluating e-government values neglect the environmental sustainability construct. To fill this theoretical and analytical gap, this study offers a sustainable value creation model that includes three constructs, namely organizational performance, user satisfaction, and environmental sustainability. We validated our model using structural equations modeling analysis with 320 responses from the Tunisian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Our findings highlight trust as a key factor driving the intention to use an e-government system that leads to sustainable value. The study provides valuable insight for community leaders to help them in the process of adopting an e-government initiative and evaluating its sustainable value.

Digitalization of financial sector in Russia: Key components and concepts

The article is devoted to the study of key components of financial sector in Russia and key concepts related to them. The authors believe these key components are focused on achieving the strategic goals set by the Russian government in the national project “Digital economy” which include; increasing the availability and quality of financial services and services for citizens and businesses; creating a competitive environment; further development of competition in the financial market; increasing the availability, quality and range of financial services; reducing risks and costs in the financial sector; increasing the competitiveness of Russian technologies while ensuring cybersecurity and maintaining financial stability. The authors analyse the economic situation that is developing in the country under the influence of the spread of digital technologies pointing out that Russia is one of the world leaders of digitalization in the sphere of finance. Using diachronic approach, the authors traced the history of digitalization in the world in general and Russia in particular, which allowed them to determine major trends and priorities. Further analysis of the language means representing the key concepts conducted with the help of linguocognitive modelling revealed the nature of the process of digital transformation of financial sector.