Maturity Assessment of Local E-government Websites in the Philippines

Abstract

E-government is seen to have the potential to improve government services. Developing countries, for instance, are still in the process of adopting. In particular, the context in these countries posed challenges for the implementation and its potential use. In the Philippines, the national e-government initiatives continue to progress. However, there is a lack of empirical studies on the local e-governments level. Thus, in order to determine the country’s current local e-government development, this paper examined the maturity level of websites in the municipal and city governments in the country and identified the issues associated with its e-government development. Using the United Nation (UN) e-government maturity model, 150 local government websites were assessed based on the model’s online service component. Through a stratified sampling method, the population was divided into sub-groups based on income classifications of municipalities and type of cities. Interviews were also conducted to key informants from local offices to determine possible issues associated with e-government development. The results show that several of the local governments are still on a basic (emerging) stage. The highly urbanized cities, on the other hand, showed that most of their websites are already on stage two (enhanced), in which it can accommodate simple one-way communication services. Moreover, among the reasons behind the lag of e-Government progress are the lack of technological infrastructure and skills, organizational issues and lack of government regulations among others. This study can be used to develop a plan to improve e-government services as well as supporting evidence on the status of e-government websites in the Philippines.