This webinar draws on the recent publication Logged On, which looks at mobile and smart phone technology through the lens of managing the delivery of public services, focusing on developing and emerging economies, in particular in South Asia. The book provides examples of how Government can leapfrog over traditional and often unworkable public management reforms, and collaborate directly with citizens to deliver more effective services. The book offers a new approach called Smart Proactive Government and suggests five solutions that are present in every successful mobile and smart phone example that the authors reviewed.

The webinar series will present the main aspects of the smart proactive government approach and how this delivers service delivery improvements on the ground. The first webinar will put the approach in the context of traditional models of public sector management and shows both how this approach complements these models and where it adds new thinking and value. A further element of the discussion is on ‘what is different’, i.e. why the kind of approach set out in Logged On can work in today’s world when it could not have done so a decade ago. Here we will focus on improved opportunities to get real time date on service delivery performance (including growing access to communication and information technologies), the open government revolution, the enhanced role of social media and the emergence of a new generation of political leaders. Then we will move on to review the five core elements of smart proactive governance and how these can be implemented in practice. Finally, we will focus on potential risks to the successful application of the model and how these can be mitigated.