Towards a Regional Ontology for E-Participation

This chapter shows the need to enhance global understanding of how the transformational government artifact is unfolding as the concept of e-Government continues to gain greater visibility in developing countries of Africa. The interest in this chapter is not to question the global commitments to the notion of transformational government but to bring to the fore inadequacies of universal conceptualization and interpretation of e-government, evidenced through the various evolutionary models and frameworks, and argue that a focus on regional ontologies is inevitable in realizing transformational government. The authors see the quest for a regional ontology as urgent, since most African governments are currently involved in e-Government initiatives as part of a broader set of governance reforms that date back to the 1980s. Therefore, the aim of the chapter is to provide a rationale for a transformational government vision for developing nations, rooted in an ecological perspective, particularly taking into account the socio-cultural context.