Singapore shared top spot with the US in the 55-country study carried out by Waseda University's Institute of e-Government.

Singapore has topped the Waseda University International e-Government Ranking for the fourth year running, sharing the top spot this time round with the United States (US). Korea was ranked third, followed by Finland.

This year’s study, which covers 55 countries, is the eighth to be undertaken by the university’s Institute of e-Government led by its Director, Professor Dr Toshio Obi. The institute is also in charge of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) e-Government Research Centre and has been monitoring the development of e-Government strategies of APEC member economies since 2004.

In the 2012 report, Singapore ranked first in three of the seven indicators used in the study – Network Preparedness, Required Interface-functioning Applications and National Portal.

Network preparedness is the basic infrastructural foundation for effective e-Government implementation, noted the Waseda University report. “Infrastructure has long been available in many countries and became an important tool to connect the citizens and enterprises to government.” The Network Preparedness indicator takes into account the proportion of Internet users, broadband subscribers, PC users and mobile cellular subscribers in the country. The US was second under this indicator, followed by Korea and Denmark which shared third place.

The Required Interface-functioning Applications indicator measures the ability of the government to provide user-friendly and secure electronic services. Sharing the top spot in this area were Singapore, the US and Korea.

A third indicator is the National Portal, which provides the basic interface for stakeholders to contact the government electronically. Factors that were considered under this indicator included navigation, interactivity, as well as the interface and technical aspects of the portal. This year, Singapore overtook the US for the top spot, while Finland and Sweden shared the third position.

Singapore came in second in two other indicators - Management Optimisation which captures the role of ICT in improving internal processes, and e-Government Promotion which measures the activities carried out by the government in order to support the development of e-services and e-Government.

The other indicators are Government Chief Information Officer (CIO) and E-Participation, where Singapore came in third and fifth respectively. The Government CIO indicator acknowledges the importance of the CIO role in ensuring the success of any e-Government implementation, while the E-Participation indicator measures the extent of ICT-supported participation in government and governance processes.

This year, for the first time, the Waseda University study also divided the countries based on international organisational groupings – APEC and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - as well as their population size. The report also covered new trends in e-Government development as well as updates on e-Government activities around the world.