A very key report has recently been published by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations. This publication is entitled the “E-Government Survey 2012, e-Government for the People” and its main objective is to understand and present the degree to which each UN member country has managed to utilise e-government services as a means to help it achieve its economic, social and environmental goals.
The UN believes that e-government can be an engine of sustainable development for the people. In delivering e-government to the people, public services are designed to be responsive, citizen-centric and socially inclusive. E-government should also help national administrations engage citizens through participatory service delivery processes.
The UN report defines an e-government development index (EGDI) which is a composite indicator that measures the willingness and capacity of national administrations to use Information and Communication Technologies to deliver public services. This index is actually derived from three other dimensions of e-government, namely the scope and quality of online services, the development status of telecommunications infrastructure and the quality of human capital in the country.
The Online Services index assesses the quality of the national central portal as well as the websites of main ministries such as education, social services, health, finance and environment. The Telecoms Infrastructure index measures, as a percentage of the population, indicators such as the number of internet users, number of fixed telephone lines, number of mobile users and number of broadband subscriptions.
The final and arguably most critical index is the Human Capital index. This is a weighted average of two indicators; the adult literacy rate and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio.
It is interesting to see how Malta fares in this survey. Unfortunately, our country does not perform too well. Out of the UN member nations, Malta finishes in overall 35th place behind the majority of European countries. What is of particular interest is to analyse how our country performs in the different areas covered by each index. In the Telecoms Infrastructure index Malta performs quite well finishing in overall 18th place. However, in the Online Services index it does not fare so well, finishing in overall 41st place. Where our country’s performance becomes truly abysmal is in the Human Capital index. Here we finish in 89th place.
What does this tell us? It is clear that in the area that is the responsibility of the private sector, namely the telecommunications infrastructure, we perform acceptably well. It is only in those areas that are mainly government responsibility such as education and the quality of online government services that we perform miserably. This should be an eye-opener.
I do not believe that services delivered by the private sector are, by default, better than those delivered by the state. However, proper governmental management of resources and a professional, structured approach to the delivery of e-government services needs to urgently take the place of political spin and empty posturing. I am sure we can expect no less from a Labour government.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Godfrey Vella
Quelle/Source: maltastar, 22.02.2013
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