Adopting eGovernment as a strategic tool for economic development: Insights from Governmental websites in Egypt

Electronic Government services (E-government) play a vital role in measuring the economic development in any country. Public administrations pursue online existence to provide services and information to their stakeholders. Challenges in implementing these E-government services have always been of great interest for research studies in the field. This explains why government websites are under continuous evaluation, from different perspectives, worldwide. The Egyptian government has acknowledged the importance of providing E-government services since 2004. By applying E-government services amongst its public administration, the Egyptian government has been seeking economic and social development. This research paper will provide a comprehensive evaluation of the online progress of the Egyptian ministries using the five staged E-government Model outlined by the United Nations - UN Web Presence Measurement Model (2001). The new application of the model is considered the benchmark to evaluate the progress of these E-government websites. Findings revealed that out of the thirty four ministries, and other government agencies functioning under cabinet, in this administration, a total of four ministries have reached the "Transactional presence", stage four, while fifteen ministries have reached the "Interactive Presence", stage three, in the model provided. The remaining fifteen ministries are still in stage two, "Online Presence", and stage one, "Emerging Presence" with no real services provided to the citizens. Finally, the results also revealed that none of the governmental websites have reached the "Seamless Interaction", stage five. Thus, the Egyptian government websites are considered an undeveloped websites. They are still incapable of effectively interacting or delivering services to the citizens. Furthermore, reaching the "Seamless Interaction" stage is foreseen as unattainable in the near future. the evaluation the web development of government websites in Egypt has been done through the application of a five stage model defined by the United Nations. In order to assess the level of readiness of Egyptian government websites. The researchers had visited all the official government websites and used a checklist to all the model elements in order to apply the model and evaluate the stage that had been reached by each website. Findings reveal that out of the thirty six ministries functioning in this administration, a total of twenty eight have online presence while the remaining eight ministries have no presence at all. It is important to note here, that the online presence of these ministries is only maintained by websites that are located between the first to the fourth stages of the model. This reflects the actual status of not being perceived as fully developed eGovernment websites. As for the absent ministries, they form almost 25% of the Egyptian government online presence, and their absence reveals the incapability of effectively interacting or delivering services to citizens. also; we found that some important ministries as Tourism and Investment has almost no presence which affect the process of growth and development negatively. finally;the “Seamless” interaction; which is the 5th stage in the model, is foreseen as unattainable in the near future.