Educação pode mudar sua vida

Technology is only half the battle

The municipal administration of America’s District of Columbia was once a byword for bad government, with a cocainesnorting mayor, corrupt police and incompetent and demoralised bureaucrats. Now, under a go-ahead mayor, Adrian Fenty, it has become a model practitioner of e-government. The public face of this is a single portal, dc.gov, which allows residents to do almost anything that in the past would have involved either picking up the phone (and hanging on and on) or going to an office and waiting. The site not only lets them find out about every imaginable aspect of the city, but also provides them with a means of acting on the information. This is not just a matter of printing out forms, but often of filling them in and submitting them online too. It is possible to renew a driving licence, pay a parking fine, report broken traffic lights, request a visit from the rubbish-collection service, get all manner of permits, see planning applications and pay local taxes.