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Distributed September 8, 2005
Contact Mark Nickel

A study of digital services offered by governments around the world finds that 198 nations are making steady progress at putting services and information online, but movement forward has been slowed because of budget, bureaucratic and institutional factors. The United States ranks third behind Taiwan and Singapore and ahead of Hong Kong and China.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Asian countries took four of the five top spots in a new study of global e-government undertaken by researchers at Brown University. For the second year in a row, the countries of Taiwan and Singapore lead the United States in overall e-government performance. The study also shows that 19 percent of government agencies around the world are offering online services, compared to 21 percent in 2004.

The fifth annual survey conducted by Darrell M. West, director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University, and a team of researchers evaluated each country’s online presence. The researchers evaluated government Web sites on two dozen criteria, including the availability of publications, databases, disability access, privacy, security, and the number of online services. Previous studies of global e-government were released in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004.

This year’s study reviewed 1,797 government Web sites in 198 countries during June and July 2005. Many different sites were analyzed, including executive offices, legislative offices, judicial offices, cabinet office, and major agencies serving crucial functions of government, such as health, human services, taxation, education, interior, economic development, administration, natural resources, foreign affairs, foreign investment, transportation, military, tourism and business regulation.

Researchers found that 89 percent of Web sites have online publications and 53 percent have links to databases. Only 18 percent (up from 14 percent in 2004) show privacy policies and 10 percent present security policies (up from 8 percent in 2004). According to automated software provided by Watchfire Inc., government Web sites are also lagging on disability access. Only 19 percent of sites provide some form of disability access, such as assistance for the vision- or hearing-impaired. This represents a slight improvement since last year, when 14 percent were accessible.

In addition to analyzing particular features, researchers also rated countries for overall e-government performance. Using an evaluation of the number of available services, as well as ease of access to information, disability access, privacy, security and foreign language translation, each country was rated on 100-point scale. The most highly ranked country was Taiwan, followed by Singapore, the United States, Hong Kong, China, Canada, Germany, Australia and Ireland. Some countries had moved up from last year based on new features added to their Web sites; others moved down because of inadequate site maintenance. The following table illustrates the rankings of the 198 countries, based on e-government performance.

In order to improve electronic government, the report suggests that governments take several steps to reach their full potential in terms of accessibility and effectiveness. Governments can make their sites more user-friendly by improving site design. Adding a link to a site map would help citizens locate information. National governments might also consider taking steps to standardize the Web sites of all government agencies so that citizens might become familiar with the layout and location of certain features.

The report also notes that site maintenance has become increasingly important but often overlooked. Webmasters are constantly adding features and services to sites without ensuring that they remain functional. Many sites are under construction or have not been updated for long periods of time. Designers should attempt to keep their sites as current as possible to ensure that all information presented is accurate, complete and functional.

A number of sites provide services revolving around tourism, such as hotel and flight bookings. The report suggests that more agencies should offer services that are fully executable online and target citizens as well as tourists to save on government time, money and labor. To help increase the use of online services, countries could follow the example of Malaysia, which has created financial incentives to complete government services online. Additionally, all of the services offered on the site of a particular agency should be located on the same page in order to make them easy to find and to increase citizens’ awareness of the available services.

For more information, contact Darrell M. West at (401) 863-1163 or [email protected]. The full Global E-Government Study is online at www.insidepolitics.org. The appendix of the report presents detailed profiles of each of the 198 national governments.

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