E-government Experience in Mexico

In just four years, Mexico prepared, launched, and implemented an e-government strategy that put the country among the top performers of online services in the world. For President Vicente Fox Administration, innovation is a priority. Citizens have been placed at the center of government daily activities in order to regain their trust, and the challenge is that every public institution has to contribute to build a government that works like all Mexicans want. This creates a gap of need for methods, procedures, and new culture to drive the changes. The Mexican government is searching for ways to integrate e-government in a broader reform that defines e-government as a tool to improve the quality, transparency, and efficiency of government and public services. The government’s vision: “A Government that works how we all want” seeks for modernization of delivery of government services and information, and, more importantly, transformation of the citizen-government relationship. The objectives set were: transparency and accountability, quality, and efficiency that would facilitate the strategies of anti-corruption, public service improvement, regulatory reform and cost efficiency, all of which will create a sustainable e-government. Mexico began by focusing on the widespread application of ICT, the dissemination of information and the production of as many online services as possible. This contributed to an international recognition of Mexico’s performance and e-government development. But it also led the government to raise new questions as unexpected and more complex challenges emerged. The vehicle for accomplishing these objectives is called Sistema Nacional e-México. Government has created the National System to ensure that the majority of its citizens will have access to new information, as well as education, health, business, and governmental services.

The general strategy for funding the project was commissions from 90% private sector, 10% from federal government; fiscal incentives; secretariat budgets and foreign loans. The initial launch of e-México cost the government 673,500,000 pesos (approximately $52,211,748), which was lent by the World Bank.

State and local governments expend large amounts of money to introduce ICT in operational tasks, as well as in the provision of public services. Many of these governments have created Web pages, which provide information about government agencies and, in some cases, allow transactions. In a short period of 2001 to 2006, online services on Mexican e-government portal rose from 170 to 1846. The Internet sites integrate all high-impact services of the Federal Government, with links to services of State and Municipal governments of the country. In 2005, the growing recognition and popularity led to some 600,000 unique users a month, more than was initially expected. Such a leap forward was mainly accounted to the marketing campaign of e-government, with its promises to become an anti-corruption tool, making complex processes easy-to-understand online, thus reducing bureaucracy. E-México also founded Digital Community Centers (DCCs) that connects all municipalities in Mexico with a broadband satellite network, allowing access to different services and contents not only in one municipal unit, but any other across the country. By 2005, E-México has already deployed 7 500 Digital Community Centers (DCCs) covering all 2 445 municipalities, reaching more than 10,000 DCCs by the end of 2006. This network serves more than 65% of Mexican population. This simple solution overthrew the problem of public accessibility, as now every citizen may register for the use of DCC in a public place. From 2443 seats of DCCs in 2001, Mexico reached for 25,000 in 2006, covering almost 95% of the population. The DCCs feature subdivisions of e-economics, e-health, e-learning, e-government, Ministry of Justice portal and even Migration Office portal. There exist 3631 DCCs at schools and libraries, 167 at municipal offices, 1033 at health care centers, 1875 at town hall, 61 at federal facilities and more than other 500 at various publically accessible points. The DCCs are a participation tools for all citizens, disregarding age, sex, health, class and race; they reach out for entrepreneurs, students, seniors, farmers, indigenous groups, migrants, and children. Creating a communal platform with chats, forums and discussions of e-government, the DCCs encourage people to become part of it. To fully assess the goal of integration into people’s daily lives, federal government made it mandatory to pay taxes online. Many traditionally costly educational programs emerged, allowing free access to trainings from the World Bank and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico. These endorsements led to the trend of 20% annual growth rate was detected from 2005, which increases the users of e-governmental services to 40 million today. The Federal Institute for Information Access (IFAI) operates and manages the unique system to handle information requests made by citizens (SISI) based on the Freedom of Public Information and Transparency Act (2002). General public information is also posted on government web sites including areas of budget, salaries, organizational issues, directory, contracts, regulations, mechanisms for citizen participation, main programs and objectives, services, formats, auditing activities and others. Since June 2003, more than 120,000 citizen requests have been placed and more than 95% were handled online. Another unique tool used in Mexico is the National ID and Service Card. It is one single smart-card for multiple services, resembling an ordinary credit card. Accessing DCCs with the card shows all medical history, consulting, criminal history, driving license, electronic signature and other personal information of the cardholder. Almost 30 million such cards were issued from 2007 to 2009. Mexico completed the initial phase of setting up and delivering e-government services successfully, but the continuing public demands to improve government have made the country realize the importance of refocusing the strategy to find a way of making e-government improve the overall quality of government.

Unfortunately, in Mexico, there is still no systematic or rigorous research program that measures and assesses the evolution and impact of e-government, as in the USA. As an initial step of a broader research effort, this study focuses on the functionality of state portals, looking at technical aspects, as well as their potential to improve the quality of the services provided by states. Therefore, these portals contain an interesting mixture of applications and are good examples of current e-government efforts. Accordingly, taking an evolutionary approach, certain studies provide an initial assessment of e-government at the state level in Mexico. There still remain several challenges for e-Mexico. Unlike the USA, the federal government of Mexico should not stay as aware of cyber terrorism and other disastrous outcomes. The population of Mexico is willing to follow the electronic reforms led by the president, so the funding of such foundations is a relatively easy matter to solve. The several challenges that still remain, while others are emerging, are the speed of response of e-government to social needs; transformation of bureaucracies into team networks; expanding of trust and participating in democracy; information management across government institutions, integration of ICTs into existing systems, and, most importantly, e-governmental benefit realization.