Municipal E-Government Services in Emerging Economies

Abstract

This chapter examines and discusses the approach taken by local governments in developing countries to using the Web as a means of providing e-services. In particular, we focus on the capital cities of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries to discover whether their public administrations are using the Internet to transform how they interact with citizens through the delivery of online public sector services, thus advancing a benchmarking process. An empirical study was carried out of e-government services in these cities, focusing on the content of e-services by applying the CapGemini (2009) methodology, which has been widely used in prior research. Our findings confirm the existence of a wide variety of e-services among the cities examined, with many of these local administrations remaining unaware of the possibility of using Internet to facilitate the delivery of public sector services. Therefore, there is great scope for improvement in the field of e-government. Reforms in public administration are needed in order to make government more participative and open. Likewise, setting effective policies to ensure e-inclusion is the key to the future of LAC’s new empowered societies, with a more visible voice and more chances to express their concerns.