International Conference on E-Government

UNPAN, the United Nations Online Network in Public Administration and Finance, recently held a conference in Budapest on the topic of E-Government.

Among the more significant papers presented are:

• Understanding and Measuring eGovernment: International Benchmarking Studies by Richard Heeks, University of Manchester: "This paper is aimed at those involved – in planning, in undertaking, in using or in evaluating – the benchmarking or measurement of e-government. It draws on models of e-government and experience of benchmarking to answer four questions: why benchmark e-government? what to benchmark? how to benchmark? how to report? It provides a series of recommendations based on good practice or innovative practice, backed up by a set of conceptual frameworks and statistical findings."
• Overview of E-Participation Models by Nahleen Ahmed, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs: "This paper will undertake to review reports, studies, websites and evaluations of e-government initiatives with a view to highlighting good practices and lessons learned for the express purpose of making suggestions and recommendations for the future direction of [United Nations] e-Readiness Reports, particularly focusing on e-participation. Based on the research, the paper will attempt to identify issues for the future direction of the UN’s review of e-government and eparticipation models, as well as draw upon lessons learned for governments contemplating e-participation endeavors."
• eGovernance and eParticipation: lessons from Europe in promoting inclusion and empowerment by Jeremy Millard, Danish Technological Institute: "This paper examines the relationship between eGovernance and eParticipation from a European perspective in terms of promoting inclusion and empowerment. This will include an examination of current and future challenges, especially the socalled democratic deficit and the need to create a future around a new understanding of citizen inclusion, empowerment, openness, transparency and trust. How does and can ICT support these developments, and how can we understand and measure them?"

When it comes to initiatives on e-government, various studies give Canada very high marks.