The Macao SAR Government (MSARG) has since 2000 continued to prioritize the modernization and reform of its internal government management and transformation of its public service delivery machinery. As part of this effort, the e-Macao Project was proposed and jointly developed between MSARG, UNU-IIST and local institutions initially involving University of Macao (UM) and Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores de Macau (INESC-Macau) and later, Macao University of Science and Technology (MUST) and Macao Polytechnic Institute (MPI).

The project aims to build a sustainable foundation for the effective use of Information Technology by government agencies in the production and delivery of public services, and the modernization of the Macao SAR Public Administration.

The e-Macao initiative is a major e-government initiative undertaken by the Macao SAR Government. The first phase of the initiative (e-Macao Project) which commenced in July 2004 and ended in June 2006 focused on survey and assessment of 44 government agencies to establish the state of e-government readiness in these agencies and government as a whole, and extensive training of public officers in technical and, to a lesser extent, managerial aspects of e-government. The first phase also aimed at providing the required experience and know-how on large-scale development of electronic public services and software infrastructure for e-government to IT officers at the various agencies, through training and various prototype projects on public services of common interest. Outputs from the first phase of the project include a series of policy recommendations to guide the development of e-government in Macao, and consequently the design of the next phase of the e-Macao initiative.

The second phase of the project (ongoing) focuses on both agency-centric and government-wide projects managed as a single program (e-Macao Program) to provide mature electronic public services which delivers concrete benefits to the public as well as to government agencies. The current phase also aims to strengthen the overall IT governance (management) capabilities of government agencies – from planning, through acquisition and implementation, to operations and control of e-government initiatives. About 20 projects have been defined so far in this phase (over 5 projects already completed) of the e-Macao program including survey, strategy, standards, software development and research activities, contributed and managed by program partners and coordinated by the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP) on behalf of MSARG.

The aim of the e-Macao program is to raise the maturity of Electronic Government in Macao through a well-planned framework of initiatives to further improve the application of Information Technology by Macao SAR Government and its agencies, focusing on cross-agency, government-wide initiatives spanning technical, managerial, organizational and human aspects of technology use in the public sector.

The objectives of the e-Macao program includes:

1. Support the Macao e-Government Development Program and Macao Public Administration Roadmap
2. Facilitate the adoption of government-wide standards to guide the planning, implementation and management of technology-oriented projects in government
3. Build human capacity in government agencies through the provision of training, mentoring and development of skills to meet project requirements
4. Promote Macao as one of regional leaders in research and practice on Electronic Government and technology in government in general

The impact of the initiatives has continued to be felt by government agencies in terms of their significantly increased technical capability in implementing e-government initiatives and understanding of the major organizational and management issues involved in e-government implementation.

Traditional barriers to communication and exchange between agencies have been lowered mainly due to the long interaction between public officers from different agencies cooperating on the same projects in a learning environment created as part of the initiative. In line with the vision of the initiative, trainees are now serving as champions and focal points at their agencies for e-government projects, and assisting in interfacing with other agencies on e-government issues. Yet another striking impact of the initiative is the emergence of self learning culture in government. After the first phase of the initiative, government agencies have initiated a number of seminars and other events.

Since most of the deliverables of the projects are in the open domain, the initiative as a whole is strongly contributing to global knowledge base in e-government, accessible to other countries or regions that require such valuable experience. This directly addresses the paucity of useful knowledge and resources from leading e-government nations with most of their e-government resources in the closed domain.

With emphasis in the past four years on foundation and strengthening internal capacity of government agencies, the focus of the initiative is gradually shifting to generating direct benefits to the public by accelerating the provisioning of electronic public services through various channels.