18th e-Government Newsletter - e-Government Achievements

Singapore's e-Government Gains International Recognition

"Being a city-state, it is possible for us to wire up the entire country and give every Singaporean access to a computer. This is our unique strength, which we will leverage upon to provide the best possible Public Service to our citizens and customers."

This was the rallying call from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (then Deputy PM and Minister for Finance in July 2003) at the launch of e-Government Action Plan II (e-GAP II). Under eGAP II, the Government is investing S$1.3 billion over the period of 2003-2006 to upgrade infrastructure, develop capabilities, and further improve electronic public services.

In the final issue of e-Government Newsletter 2005, we look at some of the international accolades which the Singapore Government has garnered in promoting e-Government.

Accolades & Awards

Top Spot in WEF's Global Information Technology Report

According to the World Economic Forum in its latest Global Information Technology Report, Singapore is the world's most successful economy in exploiting infocomm developments. The Report remains the most comprehensive and authoritative international assessment of the preparedness of countries to capture the benefits of participating in the Networked World. It aims to capture new insights and best practices and gleaning policy lessons from various country experiences and also highlights the continuing importance of ICT application and development for economic growth.

The Report uses the Networked Readiness Index (NRI), covering a total of 104 economies in 2004-2005, to measure "the degree of preparation of a nation or community to participate in and benefit from ICT developments".

The NRI comprises three component indexes which assess:

the environment for ICT offered by a given country or community;
the readiness of the community's key stakeholders - individuals, business and governments; and
the usage of ICT among these stakeholders.

Singapore tops the rankings of the Networked Readiness Index 2004-2005 for the first time, overtaking the United States which dropped 4 places to 5th position. Singapore was placed as the best performer worldwide in a number of categories, namely quality of Maths and Science education, affordability of telephone connection charges, and government prioritisation and procurement of ICT, and garnered extremely high scores in other areas, such as affordability of Internet access.

According to Augusto Lopez-Claros, Director of the Global Competitiveness Programme at the World Economic Forum, Singapore is an excellent example of a country that has been able to put ICT at the service of improved living standards within a relatively short period of time. Together with a handful of other economies (Taiwan, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Korea, Estonia, among others), Singapore's experience highlights the increasingly central role played by technology as an engine of growth and competitiveness, even beyond the borders of the rich industrial countries.

Singapore's e-Government Ranked Second in University Study

Singapore was ranked 2nd in a Global e-Government Study by Brown University, United States. Of the 198 countries surveyed, Singapore is one notch behind Taiwan and before the United States. The study focused largely on the information availability, service delivery and accessibility of Government websites. An analysis of the report showed that Taiwan's edge over Singapore was in its offer of PDA options on some of its sites and in terms of designing for disability access. It was also deemed to have scored highly in the ease of navigation, user-friendliness and usefulness of their websites.

Singapore Ranked Third in Accenture e-Government Survey

Singapore was ranked 3rd in Accenture's 2005 annual e-Government Ranking, which is based on a survey of 22 countries. Singapore shared the same ranking as 6 other countries including Denmark, Australia and Japan. Canada and US took 1st and 2nd position respectively. One of the weighted components in Accenture's methodology was Customer Service Maturity. This component measures how government agencies manage interactions with their customers and deliver services in a multi-channel, cross-agency manner. Amongst the 22 countries surveyed, Singapore was ranked 3rd.

United Nations Recognises OBLS e-Service

The United Nations (UN) lauded Singapore for its Online Application for System for Integrated Services (OASIS). The project covers three areas, namely licence review, Business Re-engineering (BPR) and development of Online Business Licensing Service (OBLS). OBLS represents an inter-agency effort to streamline business licensing services with the aim of allowing businesses to sign up, renew and pay for their business licences over the Internet. This year, Singapore is the only country in Asia-Pacific to receive the UN award in this category, with Mexico and Canada being the other two winners.

This project was led by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) as well as the Ministry of Finance (MOF), and project-managed by IDA. It was launched in 2001 and involved the participation of more than 30 government agencies.