Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 7
Weaknesses of the E-Government
Development Index
Eltahir Kabbar and Peter Dell
7.1
Introduction
Although initially conceived in the relatively narrow context of Business Process
Outsourcing (BPO), particularly to offshore locations, IT-enabled Services (ITeS)
has matured and increasingly emphasizes innovation of conventional services
(Uesugi
2008
). An example of this in practice is the growth of e-government, in
which conventional government services are provided in online environments.
However, as Weerakkody et al. (
2009
: iv) note, efforts to transform the public
sector have largely resulted in “reinforcing old practices”, rather than the innovation
ITeS increasingly supports. For IT to fulfill its potential to enable true transformation
of government, attention must be paid to the new and innovative services it enables.
Thus, ITeS lie at the core of transformational government by allowing new practices,
rather than simply automating inefficient and undesirable old ones.
E-government can promote economic development and encourage participation in
service delivery processes (United Nations
2012
). Consequently, there have been a
number of efforts to monitor the state of e-government development in countries
worldwide, the most widely reported of which is the United Nations E-Government
Survey. This survey produces a regular series of rankings of countries' e-government
development, based on a metric known as the UN E-Government Development
Index (EGDI).
The importance of these rankings cannot be underestimated. They are widely
cited and discussed, perhaps not least because as a product of the UN they are
highly regarded by default. Yet there has been little critical examination of the
index itself. One notable exception is the identification of statistical flaws in the
manner in which the index is calculated (Whitmore
2012
). However, even were this
