The discussion thus far has revealed a number of insights about gender-responsive e-government design.
Firstly, it is important to establish basic ICT infrastructure at the initial stage, but it is also important to make targeted efforts to address the digital divide faced by vulnerable and disadvantaged groups such as women, disabled and older persons. The RoK government undertook a lot of efforts to improve the national IT literacy levels, also targeting women in the early 2000s.
Secondly, women’s machinery can play a key role in leading efforts to provide women-directed e-government services and ICT trainings. While national infrastructure has been in place in RoK thanks to national informatization and e-government efforts made by the government, the impetus to use the infrastructure for women’s empowerment undoubtedly comes from a dedicated agency that leads such efforts. Conversely, a well-established ICT infrastructure provides a breakthrough for the women’s machinery to overcome limitations in their budget and human resources. The RoK s MOGE (currently MOGEF) initially started with limited budget and human resources, but was able to overcome these limitations by actively using ICTs from the early days and opening its portal website.
Thirdly, smart phones and innovative web platforms and SNS can be harnessed effectively to provide a new momentum for e-government. In RoK, Government 3.0 uses these latest ICT developments, for citizen participation in service delivery, openness of public information, and greater personalization of interactions between citizens and the state. Since women tend to use mobile-based e-government services more, the use of mobile phone applications for services becomes an important strategy to reach out to women.