Out of Africa: A Story of Information and Communication Technology Implementation in Swaziland

Much prior research on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) implementation has been conducted in western countries that have different social and organizational cultures from countries in Africa. In this study, we examined the implementation of a centralized financial management system (CFMS) in the Kingdom of Swaziland, a country in Southern Africa. The Swazi government decided to implement a CFMS to address the over-indebtedness of its government employees. We studied the role of socio-economic and political dynamics during the implementation of CFMS. We found that the Swazi economy benefited immensely from CFMS. However, a certain type of financial organizations (i.e., cooperatives) declined to use CFMS a few months after the implementation resulting in significant financial loss for other financial institutions that were still using CFMS. Based on our findings, we suggest that proactive government decision making, and stakeholder support and commitment are key to the post-implementation success of centralized ICT initiatives in developing countries.