Executive Summary of the Asia-Pacific Panel 2004

Ms. Yuko Kaneko,
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Government of Japan & Program Coordinator of the Asia-Pacific Panel

July 17, 2004

The Asia Pacific Panel has been organized as an annual series of reviewing the experiences of national governance in the Asia and Pacific countries. This time, with the focus on NGOs in e-governance, three speakers from Korea, Hong Kong, China and Japan presented the case studies in their respective countries. The panel was fortunate to have three prominent experts, Dr. Demitrios Argyriades from the United Nations, Prof. Fannie Cloete from South Africa and Dr. Oladipupo Adamolekun from the World Bank as discussants

The keynote speaker, Dr. Hiromitsu Kataoka set the “Asian” tone by sketching the common portrait of the traditional Asian society still observable now in China, Korea and Japan. Ruled and developed by strong centralized bureaucratic systems, even in modern era, they did not experience much of the growth of NGOs/NPOs in their governance systems.

From the Korean case, Prof. Jai Chang Park extracted his in-depth analysis of the particular experience of the Korean Council of YMCAs, one of the four biggest NGOs in local movements. Hong Kong experience presented by Dr. Jin Wook Choi was the case of NGOs working in the Social Welfare Sector. Mr. Takahiro Nanri focused on the search of effective use of ICTs in CSO operation particularly to improve their accountability, legitimacy and transparency.

After the presentation and discussion by the speakers and discussants, the panel reached the common understanding of devolution of e-governance in the civil society organizations. Key emerging issues of NGOs were identified when they work in e-governance.

In conclusion, the panel felt that there is a need to improve the knowledge and information on the experiences of NGOs in e-governance by learning more cases. To facilitate such learning, organizing a global network of information on the roles of NGOs in e-governance was suggested and this was supported by the panel unanimously. It is expected that the knowledge and expertise from the meetings of the Asia-Pacific Panel held in 2000, 2001 and 2002 should be utilized fully in constructing this global network.