Singapore e-Government Scores Again

While Infocomm Technologies (ICT) and the Internet have undoubtedly transformed private enterprises, it has also changed the business of Government. In the recently released United Nations (UN) Global E-Government Readiness Report 2004: Towards Access for Opportunity, Governments around the world are assessed on how willing and ready they are to employ opportunities offered by ICT to improve access and quality of basic social services to the people for sustainable human development.

In this benchmarking report, 191 nations are ranked based on 2 primary indicators, e-readiness¹ and e-participation². Singapore was ranked 8th globally in e-readiness, ahead of countries like Finland, Norway, Netherlands and Germany. In the Asian region, Singapore was ranked second, just behind South Korea and ahead of Japan. This was an improvement from 12th position the year before. In terms of e-participation, Singapore was 4th, behind UK, USA and Canada. This was a huge jump from 13th position in 2003, but more noteworthy in this report is the indication that our efforts to engage our citizens through active consultations are beginning to pay off.

The UN report also cited as best practices, our national portals such as www.gov.sg, eCitizen and e-Consultation portals. Sites like www.business.gov.sg, www.tradenet.gov.sg, and www.cutredtape.gov.sg were also praised as being innovative in the way in which the government was using technology to create efficiencies and transparency in its dealings with the public.

Such high rankings are a result of the government's determination to embrace technology in order to provide customer-centric e-services for citizens. In another international benchmarking report released on May 4, 2004, the global consulting firm, Accenture, ranked Singapore second in the world, for the fourth year running, in e-Government leadership. Significantly, the Government was able to improve in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), one of the critical areas of assessment, by a whopping 19 per cent from the previous year. This is a sure sign that the government has been improving in the way it interacts with citizens.

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¹ E-readiness: The capacity of the public sector to deploy ICT for improving knowledge and information in the service of the citizen. Capacity espouses financial, infrastructural, human capital, regulatory, administrative and systematic capability of the state.

² E-participation: The willingness, on part of the government, to provide information and knowledge for the empowerment of the citizen.