The State of E-Government and M-Government Readiness in Malawi

This paper investigates the readiness of the Malawian government to engage in mobile government (mgovernment). The study’s importance derives from the potential of mobile technologies to leapfrog egovernment in some least-developed countries (LDCs) where e-government has not achieved the desired benefits due to the lack of fixed communications infrastructure and citizen access. First the paper presents an assessment of the current e-government status in Malawi. The research then used a qualitative approach by interviewing more than 20 important government and non-government stakeholders. The theoretical framework to assess the Malawi government readiness was a combination of the technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework and the task-technology fit (TTF) model. The findings are that Malawi is, to a large extent, ready to embrace mobile government. However, other LDCs can also benefit from the factors and themes which were uncovered and determine mobile readiness.