SINGAPORE TOPS GLOBAL E-GOVERNMENT SURVEY BY BROWN UNIVERSITY

Introduction
Singapore topped the Global e-Government 2003 study released by Brown University, Rhode Island, US in September 2003. The Brown University report analysed 2,166 Government websites in 198 different nations.

Singapore's top score of 46.3% meant that every Singapore Government website analysed had nearly half of the features deemed important by the study for information availability, citizen access, portal access and service delivery. The report highlighted Singapore's eCitizen portal as the website with the best access to services:

Singapore and the United States are two countries that are especially impressive in the range of e-services provided. The website with the best access to services (and with the most number of services of all websites evaluated) was the "eCitizen" site of Singapore (www.ecitizen.gov.sg). The site offers a total of 104 services ranging from inquiring about housing loans to applying for a visa.
(Darrell M. West, Global E-Government, 2003, September, 2003)

Assessment
Each Government website was assessed based on the criteria of 22 selected features. The same criteria was employed regardless of a nation's politico-social system i.e. only the key agency websites were analysed; websites for subnational units, obscure boards and commissions, local Government, regional units, and municipal offices were excluded.

One new feature was "PDA accessibility" which was not on the list the previous two years that the report was conducted. This reflects governments' growing awareness of this device as a medium to access information.

Conclusion
The report has recognised the progress Singapore has made in the area of e-government, specifically in areas of accessibility and usability of e-services, currently being addressed in Singapore's e-Government Action Plan II (eGAP II). The summary of the Brown University's study is available here.