Effect of Public Sensitization and Awareness Campaigns on Adoption of e-government Services at Local Government level in Uganda

The successful adoption of e-government systems leads to efficient delivery of government services. Despite several e-government initiatives by the Uganda government, there has been limited success, with the levels of adoption and use remaining generally low. Countries like Uganda are facing challenges like lack of up-to-date technology, but the biggest challenges raise from non-technical issues to include lack of public awareness and sensitization in regards to the benefits of e-government, availability of different e-government services and systems together with a low e-readiness index. Therefore, for a developing country like Uganda much energy and efforts by government should mainly focus on more sensitization and mobilization of the citizens to embrace e-government and its challenges. Different customized e-government models have been developed for Uganda but there is more need to sell them out to citizens through mobilization and sensitization as this increases awareness amongst the community. This study therefore justified the need for sensitization and awareness creation in order to increase participation and implementation of e-government at local level, because different models and designs are in place, different eservices available but still low usage by citizens which is a bigger challenge that needs government to focus resources at sensitization and awareness campaigns. Sensitization campaigns can be conducted through radio and television programmes and adverts, face to face group trainings, schools and institutions trainings, social media, conferences and workshops.