Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
These correlations make intuitive sense: of course wealthy countries are more
likely to have the ability to invest in online services, telecommunications infra-
structure and education. However, the EGDI does not provide an easy basis for
comparisons between countries that are not roughly equivalent in terms of GDP.
For example, Qatar, the world's richest country in terms of per capita GDP, has an
EGDI of 0.6405. In contrast, Zimbabwe, one of the world's poorest countries, has
an EGDI of only 0.3583. Is one therefore to conclude that Qatar is “better” at
delivering e-government than Zimbabwe? Or more efficient? Or something else
entirely?
To resolve this difficulty we calculated the scores one would expect of each
country based on per capita GDP, termed here Expected EGDI (EEGDI). These
scores were calculated using the regression equation for overall EGDI above.
In order to determine if a country's actual performance as assessed by the UN
(EGDI) was above or below their expected performance based on GDP (EEGDI)
we then calculated a calculated the difference between these two scores. As this
score is a reflection of a country's e-government development performance relative
to what would be expected by GDP, we term this E-Government Development by
GDP (EGDGDP):
EGDGDP
¼
EGDI
EEGDI
(7.5)
1. In the best possible case a country
has an EGDI of 1 but an EEGDI of 0, resulting in an EGDGDP of +1. On the other
hand, in the worst possible case they have an EGDI of 0 and an EEGDI of
EGDGDP has a theoretical range of
1to
þ
þ
1,
resulting in an EGDGDP of
1. A summary of the original EGDI scores and these
differences is presented in Table
7.1
.
Analysis of these EGDI differences reveals some very interesting - and unexpected -
results. When per capita GDP is taken into account Zimbabwe would only be
expected to have an EGDI score of 0.0981, yet that country's actual score of
0.3583 is much higher. On the other hand, Qatar is expected to score 0.8791, but
has an actual score of only 0.6405.
By providing an indication of whether a country is performing above or below
expectations, these differences are arguably more useful than the “raw” scores that
are published by the UN; we therefore consider these to be a better measure of
E-Government Development Performance than raw EGDI on its own.
7.2.2
Implications of Considering Economic Factors
Analysis that only considers the raw EGDI values and does not take into account the
level of wealth in a country can be misleading. One such example can be drawn
from the UN report itself, which describes the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a
“best practice case” (p. 23).
Prima facie
the UAE does look like a good example;
the EGDI having increased from 0.5728 in 2008 to 0.7344 in 2012.
