Regional E-governance Development Index for Developing Nations

Abstract

E-governance has proven to be instrumental in the expansion and evolution of how governments interact with and deliver services to their citizens. The United Nations (UN) E-Governance Development Index (EGDI) is the most widely used metric for assessment of e-governance development; however, this metric is not appropriate for assessment at the regional level, especially for developing nations. Therefore, the authors have studied various factors in the context of developing nations, such as the Online Availability and Performance Index, Telecommunications Index, Human Capital Index, E-governance-related Infrastructure Index, and E-governance Performance Index, with the aim of analyzing the success and implementation rate of e-governance activities across the different regions of a developing nation like India. The results showed that the UN's EGDI is not suitable for assessment at a regional level and that adding new components to the model helps to achieve better results for around 30% of the regions under study. The rankings, which were calculated through the new model and compared against other standard indices, obtained good correlations, proving the validity of the new model. India, as a developing nation, was the region selected for the experimental work. Central governments, state governments, investors, stakeholders, and government consultants can obtain benefits through this research.