NEWARK, N.J., Nov. 17, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- This survey was conducted jointly by the E-governance Institute of Rutgers University-Newark and the Global e-Policy e-Government Institute of Sungkyunkwan University, Korea, and was co-sponsored by the UN Division for Public Administration and Development Management, and the American Society for Public Administration. This is the first research effort to evaluate digital governance in municipalities throughout the world.
This survey examined the largest city in each of 98 countries with the highest percentage of Internet users, and Hong Kong SAR and Macao SAR were included. This research evaluated the official Web sites of each city in their native languages. Our instrument for evaluating municipal Web sites consists of 92 measures over five core areas: 1. Security and Privacy, 2. Usability, 3. Content, 4. Services, 5. Citizen Participation. Each measure was coded on a scale of four-points (0, 1, 2, 3) or a dichotomy of two points (0, 3 or 0, 1). Then, an overall score for each municipality (on a 100-point scale) was derived by giving equal weight to each of the five categories.
Professor Marc Holzer, Chairman of the E-Governance Institute said, "This joint research was helpful for reducing cultural bias in our survey methodology. During the design of the 92 measures in our e-government index, we identified some terms which people in various cultures might not understand. So, we developed an index which was 'culture-neutral'."
Each Web site was assessed by two independent evaluators between June and October 2003, and in cases where significant variation existed on the raw score between evaluators, websites were analyzed a third time. Based on the evaluation of 100 cities, the top 10 cities are as follows;
Top 10 Cities in Digital Governance Worldwide RANKING CITY SCORE 1 Seoul 73.48 2 Hong Kong 66.57 3 Singapore 62.97 4 New York 61.35 5 Shanghai 58.00 6 Rome 54.72 7 Auckland 54.61 8 Jerusalem 50.34 9 Tokyo 46.52 10 Toronto 46.35
New York City was ranked No. 1 worldwide in terms of content. Among the top 20 cities, three are from developing countries: Tallinn (Estonia) 14th, Dubai (United Arab Emirates) 18th, and Jakarta (Indonesia) 20th. This research identified a digital divide gap between developed and less developed countries. Although the average score for all cities is 28.10 out of 100, the average score in OECD countries is 36.34; however the average score in non-OECD countries is only 24.26. In addition, 67% of cities selected in Africa have not established official city websites, whereas only 3% in Europe have no city Web sites.
Sungkyunkwan University is holding an international conference to present best practices cases based on this survey and is giving a "World Cities Best Practices E-Government Award" to the top five cites on November 21 in Seoul. Professor Seang-Tae Kim, President of the Global e-Policy e-Government Institute said, "Government services can be improved remarkably by E-government, but the digital divide is a problem to be solved. We can encourage e-government among cities in the world by measuring them and giving this kind of award." (Tel 82-2-760-0374, e-mail kimst@skku.edu)
Scores and ranking of all 100 cities are online at http://www.andromeda.rutgers.edu/ egovinst/Website/.