Lessons Learned from an e-Government Implementation: The Case of Ethiopia

E-Government implementation failure in low-income countries is reported to be as high as 85% where 35% being classified as total failures, the project never started or was started but immediately abandoned, and 50% are partial failures, major project goals are not attained or there were undesirable outcomes (Heeks, 2003). Given this rate of failure we wanted to investigate a successful project and draw lessons learned that can be replicated in other projects. We use Design-Reality gap model as a theoretical framework to assess the project status. Primary data were collected from four different groups involved in the project. Our analysis shows lower gaps in `process'; `management systems and structures' dimensions; and higher gaps in `information', `technology', `staffing and skills', `objectives and values', and `other resources' dimensions. Based on the implementation experiences of this project, list of recommendations are provided for successful execution of possible related initiatives in the future.