2017•06•05     Guimarães

UNU-EGOV organized an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) in Guimarães, Portugal, on 5 June 2017. The purpose of the EGM was to the contribute to the discussion and reflection that has been led by the Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM) of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) concerning the UN e-Government Survey and the e-Government Development Index (EGDI) for 2018.

The biannual United Nations e-Government Index has been in use since 2001, the year when the edition of the Index was first published. The EGDI is developed, maintained and run by the Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM) of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). The biannual E-Government Index has been refocused over time and additional aspects of engagement and transparency (e.g. the UN e-Participation Index) has been included. The model takes an abductive-deductive approach to e-government maturity and consists of two separate indexes, the E-Government Development Index (EGDI) and the E-Participation Index (EPI).

The main objectives of the EGM in Guimarães were:

• To discuss the focus, scope, approach, and methodology of the EGDI;
• To analyse the effective usefulness of EGDI and the Survey for countries;
• To position the EGDI in the ecosystem of existing benchmarks, assessments and evaluations;
• To foster a discussion about how the evolution of the e-government concept/dimensions and the emergence of new technologies may/should/could be incorporated in EGDI;
• To reflect about how EGDI and the Survey may be aligned and reflect the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

The EGM was attended by the research team of UNU-EGOV and Vincenzo Aquaro, Chief of the e-Government Branch, DPADM, UNDESA.