Following-up E-government Performance in Andean Countries as Development Process

Abstract

Twenty years have passed since the E-government Landscape of 2001 was published by the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) and the United Nations Division for Public Economics and Public Administration (UNDPEPA) as an effort to improving and perfecting the governing process into UN Member States. In this context Andean countries have undergone some similar transformation processes as a block that has allowed them to improve their governance course with the use of technologies. However, there are certain peculiarities that have allowed some countries to succeed more than others in this group. This research follows the work done by Aniscenko (2017) and Dias (2019) to analyses how E-government is developed in this region from 2001 to 2020 considering the factor of measurement used by the E-government Development Index (EGDI) with both a descriptive and a correlational statistical analysis together with a context study in two important axes was approached: i) Socioeconomic Context and ii) Impact of the Global Crisis in these countries to generate a deeper understanding of the dynamics aroused. The main findings show a generalized growth in the behavior of the region with respect to the EGDI, going from an average value of 0.41 to 0.70 between 2003 and 2020, where the group has presented a small expansion of its variance value from 0.002 to 0.007 in the same period, which is indicative that convergence has not been achieved in the general aspect of the behavior of this index. Also, there is a strong correlation (r = 0.75) between economic development and the performance of this group into EGDI. In addition, with a detailed and contextual analysis it is possible to explain why some countries have achieved better result in the implementation of E-government. The strategies adopted by Colombia have significantly contributed to its location as the reference in progress of E-government in the region. However, Ecuador is the country that shows the biggest progress in these twenty years with the implementation of infrastructure and technology projects focused on citizens, involving simplifying procedures and improving related institutions. By the other hand, Venezuela shows the worst index performance despite its governmental structure with regulatory mechanisms to imposing enforce implementation strategies, its evolution within EGDI is directly linked to the crash of sub-index of online services due to poor ability of its national administration in offering online services to citizens.