Global Index of E-Government Development

In the last few years the topic of e-government and the readiness of the Bulgarian administration to utilize contemporary information and communication technology are on the agenda both in public speaking and in political rhetoric.

Up until now we have seen political will to work towards the introduction of the principles of e-government, but the practical results are fare from the expected, if we take into account the enormous amount of money (about 224 million from the state budget[1]), set aside for investment in technology and building human capacity.

Below, I would present the results and conclusions of the recent UN report about the index of e-government readiness on a global scale.

The index is based on the measurements, according to specific methodology, of three basic components:

1) web based study of the status of the services offered – this is an analysis of the practical functioning of the internet pages of separate government structures and the level of services offered. Whether there is information, if there is such, than whether the user could exchange information with the institution and finally whether it is possible to execute real time transactions; 

2) index of the existing and operating telecommunications infrastructure – the second component analyzes the existing telecommunications infrastructure and how it is practically used to provide services based on e-government principles. The index consists of several sub-indexes: 1) people using internet per 100 persons; 2) computers per 100 persons; 3) mobile telephones per 100 persons; 4) access to telephone per 100 persons; 5) wide band connection per 100 persons.

Each one of these sub-indexes represents 20% of the total index.

3) human capital – this index represents the technological literacy of the population within the specific region under study;

In addition, the index uses one more measurement, which is called e-participation. It represents information about the degree of influence of society with respect to decision making by the government, through the internet pages of the institutions, various blogs, special forums etc.  

The index of e-participation accesses the quality and usefulness of the information and services provided by the state, with the aim to include society in the process of policy formulation.

The methodology of studying the e-participation index includes evaluations based on the results obtained from three fundamental categories:  

• 1) E–information – each institution provides information on its internet page about the structure, functions, policies, decisions, various reports, documents, contact information etc.;
• 2) E–consultancy – actual possibility for the people to communicate with the institutions by asking questions, entering documents and receiving responses, respectively;
• 3) E–formulation of decisions – the institutions take into account the proposals and recommendations submitted by the people and businesses and jointly formulate policies and decisions about specific cases

What are the results?

Practically the index study 20 services provided by the government to the people and businesses. The scope of the study includes 189 countries.

For 2008 the top places are taken by the Scandinavian countries. On first place is Sweden, on second is Denmark and on third – Norway. Bulgaria has moved two places forward and in 2008 it is at 43rd place. Ahead of Bulgaria are Poland, Ukraine, and Slovakia.   

In the Eastern European region leading is Czech, followed by Hungary and Poland, while Bulgaria is sixth in the region. 

From the global point of view, Bulgaria's place on the index is relatively acceptable (for the moment) but when we take into account the amount of time and money spent on building the e-government, the assessment is changed to negative.  Very important, besides building the infrastructure is the existence of qualified and capable human capacity. It is about time that the Bulgarian administration optimizes the work processes and become knowledgeable and utilize effectively the achievements of the information and communication technologies.  

[1] According to the calculations in the plan for implementing the strategy for electronic government.