The United Nations Survey 2008 on e-Government in the world, which "has great potential for public sector transformation" according to Guido Bertucci, Director of the Division for Public Administration and Development Management of the DESA (Department of Economic and Social Affairs), ranked the threee Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Denmark and Norway) in the three leading countries, surpassing the United States. In this year's global e-Government readiness rankings, the European countries made up 70 % of the top 35 countries while the Asian countries made up 20 % of the top 35.
The Survey 2008 presents a comparative assessment of the 192 UN members States' response to the ever-pressing demands of citizens and businesses for quality government services and products.
Top 10 Countries in the 2008 e-Government Readiness Index:
1. Sweden
2. Denmark
3. Norway
4. USA
5. Netherlands
6. Republic of Korea
7. Canada
8. Australia
9. France
10. United Kingdom
A large part of the success of the European countries has been their investment in infrastructure and connectivity, most notablu in broadband infrastructure. They have invested heavily in deploying broadband infrastructure, coupled with an increase in the implementation of e-Government applications for their citizens. Yet, according to the ITU, the European countries make up none of the top ten countries in broadband subscribers per hundred, with Denmark, the Netherlands and Iceland being the top three countries in the world (more than 30 %), just behind the Republic of Korea.
The Northern European region was the strongest region in Europe, with the Nordic countries, baltic countries, UK and Ireland. Over the past year, the United Kingdom has revamped its government online system, through an initiative to pare down the numerous (hundreds) of government web sites available to the public. The UK's main government portal (www.directgov.uk) was redesigned in 2008, which appears to have resulted in a drop in the web measure rankings for the UK (n°4 in 2005 to n°10 in 2008).
In South, Spain has improved tremendously since 2005 and has taken the lead of this region by moving up 19 positions thanks to the deployment of broadband infrastructure which increased the number of Internet users per 100 from 24 to 43.
In West, The Netherlands, France and Luxembourg have made tremedous progress since 2005. Germany as result of a lower web measure score dropped from 11th to 22th this year.
France's national web site www.premier-ministre.gouv.fr scored the highest in the region. The site has a strong e-participation presence and has features for online consultation, has a separate e-government portal and has instituted a timeframe to respond to citizen's queries and e-mails. The site also contains a number of news feeds and RSS to continuously update citizens with information from the media and blogs.
The Netherlands' national web site (www.overheid.nl) provides its citizens with a robust portal that has all of its information available on the front page. One of the interesting features is the history of the Netherlands, which offers an historic background to the country.
- Download the e-Government survey 2008 (257 pages, .pdf)
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