E-Government Status and M-Government Readiness in Malawi

This chapter investigates the readiness of the Malawian government to engage in mobile government (m-government). It explores the exciting potential of mobile technologies to leapfrog the conventional model of e-government in some Least-Developed Countries (LDCs) where e-government has not achieved the desired benefits due to the lack of fixed communications infrastructure and citizen access. The chapter starts with an assessment of the current e-government context and status in Malawi. The research then uses a qualitative approach by interviewing more than 20 important government and non-government stakeholders to assess Malawi’s readiness to embrace m-government. The theoretical framework to assess the Malawi government readiness is a combination of the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework and the Task-Technology Fit (TTF) model. The findings are that although e-government was never fully realized in Malawi, the country is, to a large extent, ready to embrace mobile government and leap-frog e-government model, which is based on a fixed-line communications structure. It is hoped that other LDCs, in Africa and elsewhere, can benefit from the framework factors and themes which are uncovered and determine their mobile readiness.