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Improving Technology Utilization in Electronic Government around the World, 2008
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| Source: | Brookings |
| Date added: | 2008-09-30 |
| Sector: | Governance |
This report by Darrell M. West reviews the current condition of electronic government and makes practical suggestions for improving the delivery of information and services over the Internet. Using a detailed analysis of 1,667 national government websites in 198 nations around the world undertaken in Summer 2008, this report studies the types of features available online, the variation that exists across countries, and how current e-government trends compare to previous years, as far as 2001.
Significant findings include:
• Countries vary enormously in their overall e-government performance. In technology utilization, the United States has fallen behind countries such as South Korea and Taiwan. The most highly ranked e-government nations in this study are South Korea, Taiwan, the United States, Singapore, Canada, Australia, Germany, Ireland, Dominica, Brazil and Malaysia. At the other end of the spectrum, countries such as Tuvalu, Mauritania, Guinea, Congo, Comoros, Macedonia, Kiribati, Samoa and Tanzania barely have a web presence.
• Across the world, 50 percent of government websites offer services that are fully executable online, up from 28 percent last year. Ninety-six percent of websites this year provide access to publications and 75 percent have links to databases.
• Only 30 percent of government websites show privacy policies and 17 percent have security policies. Visible statements outlining how a website secures visitors’ privacy and security are valuable assets for encouraging people to use e-government services
and information. Few global e-government websites offer policy statements dealing with these topics.
• Only 16 percent of government websites have some form of access for disabled persons.
• Only 57 percent of government websites provide foreign language translation to nonnative readers. Eighty percent offer at least some portion of their websites in English.
• Fourteen percent offer the ability to personalize government websites to a visitor’s area of interest, while three percent provide PDA accessibility. E-government offers the potential to bring citizens closer to their governments. Regardless of the type of political system that a country has, the public benefits from interactive features that facilitate communication between citizens and government.
The remainder of this report reviews these findings in greater detail and closes by making recommendations for more effective use of digital technology.