Adoption of ICTs for Service Delivery Improvement by Local Governments in Uganda: Communication Tools

Abstract

Provision of public goods and services to the communities remains the mandate of governments, which in most developed and emerging economies has been decentralized to local governments. Guided by the assumption that Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) creates faster communication which enables local governments to serve the communities better; this paper examines how local governments in Uganda have adopted the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) especially emails and telephones as communication tools in their day to day operations. Three districts in Eastern Uganda were selected for this study. Cross-sectional design was used employing mixed methods for data collection. Quantitative data was collected form 225 respondents, while qualitative data was obtained from 5 key informants. The results revealed that very few respondents used emails for communication, slightly a bigger number used telephones and the majority used face to face discussions – informal meetings, formal meetings and memos to communicate. In the concluding remarks, the paper point out the challenges faced by local governments in an attempt to adopt ICTs and also suggests some remedies to enhance the ICTs adoption.