We examine the results of the latest global e-government development survey, which includes 16 Caribbean countries, and compare the 2024 results with those recorded in previous exercises.
Last week, on 17 September, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) published the results of its latest e-government development survey, which covers all 193 United Nations member states. The exercise included 16 Caribbean countries, which are listed in Exhibit 1.
In this article, as we have done for the past several editions of the survey results, we highlight and discuss the performance of the Caribbean countries included in the exercise.
Determining the EGDI
The United Nations e-Government Development Index (EGDI) measures “a country’s readiness, capacity and progress in using e-government for the provision of public services”. Similar to previous years, the EGDI consists of three key indices, as outlined in Exhibit 2, but as needed the subindices are refined to better align with the evolving environment.
The OSI assessment questions are categorized into five discrete thematic areas reflected in five subindices – institutional framework (IF), services provision (SP), content provision (CP), technology (TEC), and e-participation (EPI) – with the OSI calculated based on the normalized values for each subindex.
The TII comprises four subindices: the estimated number of Internet users per 100 inhabitants, the number of mobile subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, the number of wireless broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, plus a newly added affordability indicator
The HCI seeks to capture the human dimension of e-government by evaluating the ability of citizens to utilise digital government systems. The factors examined are the expected years of schooling, the mean years of schooling, the gross enrolment ratio (%), adult literacy, and e-government literacy (EGL).
Finally, the scores for the OSI, TII and HCI are valued between 0 and 1, and the weighted average of the three is used to arrive at the EGDI for each of the 193 countries examined.
How did Caribbean countries perform in the 2024 survey?
Across most Caribbean countries included in the survey, the 2024 EGDI scores were lower than in 2022, which is also reflected in their drop in global ranking, as shown in Exhibit 3. Further, no Caribbean country is ranked among the top 50 for the 2024 exercise, though only The Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago would be among the top half of the global ranking.
Over the past two reporting periods, The Bahamas has been the highest-ranked country in the sample group. In previous survey exercises, Barbados tended to be the highest ranked. However, between 2022 and 2024, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, in particular, appear to have made some marked improvements in some of the subindices measured under the EGDI.
At the other end of the list, the lowest-ranked Caribbean countries have remained the same, though their order has changed between 2022 and 2024:
As a point of reference, Exhibit 4 lists the top 10 ranked countries globally in 2020. Based on the scores and ranking, the Caribbean region is still far behind.
In breaking down the EGDI scores each Caribbean country received, Exhibit 4 shows the scores for the sub-indices that comprise the EGDI. Unlike previous years when most countries would have received their highest score for HCI. The 2024 results seem more of a mixed bag with countries either performing their best for the TII or HCI. Consistently, the OSI scores are markedly lower than for the other two indices.
The top three Caribbean countries with respect to
- OSI, were the Dominican Republic (0.6405), followed by Trinidad and Tobago (0.5999); Jamaica (0.5677), and
- TII, were Suriname (0.8714); followed by Saint Kitts and Nevis (0.8675), and The Bahamas (0.8652)
- HCI, were Barbados (0.7845), followed by Grenada (0.7550), and The Bahamas (0.7376).
What do these results suggest about e-government in the region?
In comparing the 2022 and 2024 results, it appears that generally, e-government development in Caribbean countries is not keeping pace with that occurring globally, evidenced by the fact that their global ranking dropped. However, some countries, such as Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, had better EGDI scores in 2024 than for the previous recording period, which reflects improvements being made.
When the performance of Caribbean countries is examined across the past five reporting periods, as reflected in Exhibit 5, their performance has been uneven, with few countries demonstrating consistent improvement. However, it ought to be kept in mind that e-government development is highly dynamic globally, hence Caribbean countries may need to accelerate or increase the trajectory of their work in that space to keep pace with that of the rest of the world.
Image credit: Gerd Altmann (Pixabay)
