The United Nations e-Government Survey is a biennial report released by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA). It assesses the state of e-government development across all 193 UN Member States at national level using the E-Government Development Index (EGDI). First introduced in 2001, the index has evolved over time to reflect advancements in e-government practices. The most recent edition was published in 2024, with the next report scheduled for release in 2026. E-Government Development Index - indices covered The EGDI is a composite measure that assesses a country’s readiness, capacity and progress in using e-government for the provision of public services. It has become an essential tool for benchmarking the development of e-government services worldwide. The EGDI is a cumulative score of the calculated from weighted average of three normalized indices. One-third is derived from the Telecommunications Infrastructure Index (TII) based on data provided by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) One-third from the Human Capital Index (HCI) based on data mainly provided by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) One-third from the Online Service Index (OSI) based on data collected from an independent online assessment, conducted by UN DESA, which assesses the national online presence of all 193 United Nations Member States, complemented by a Member State Questionnaire (MSQ) Online Service Index (OSI) The Online Service Index (OSI) is a component of the EGDI which is designed to provide evidence-based data on online e-government service provision across the 193 Member States. It measures the effectiveness of national governments in utilizing Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for public service delivery. The OSI serves as a valuable tool for benchmarking progress, identifying improvement opportunities, and fostering knowledge sharing among nations on the path to effective and inclusive e-government. The OSI comprise of the 5 sub-Indices: Institutional Framework: It assesses the presence of a legal and organizational structure that supports e-government implementation. Service Provision: It evaluates the availability, range, and interactivity of online services provided by the government. Content Provision: It assesses the quantity, quality, and accessibility of information provided by government websites. Technology: It assesses the technical sophistication, integration, and use of accessibility features in online government services. E-participation: It measures the extent to which digital tools are used to facilitate citizen engagement, consultation, and decision-making. E-participation is further sub-divided into 3 components: E-Information: Enabling participation by providing citizens with public information and access to information without or upon demand. E-consultation: Engaging citizens by facilitation contributions to and deliberations on public policies and services. E-decision-making: Empower citizens through the co-design of policy options and co-production of service components and delivery modalities. Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (TII) The Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (TII) is a composite metric used to assess the development and availability of telecommunication infrastructure in a country or region. The TII comprise of the 4 sub-components: Internet users (per cent %) refers to the proportion of individuals who used the Internet from any location in the last three months. Mobile-cellular subscriptions per 100 inhabitants is the number of subscriptions to mobile service in the last three months. A mobile/cellular telephone refers to a portable telephone subscribed to a public mobile telephone service using cellular technology, which provides access to the PSTN. Active mobile-broadband subscriptions: It refers to the sum of data and voice mobile broadband subscriptions and data-only mobile-broadband subscriptions to the public Internet. It covers subscriptions being used to access the Internet at broadband speeds, not subscriptions with potential access, even though the latter may have broadband enabled handsets. Broadband Affordability: It assesses how easily citizens can financially access ICT services, particularly in relation to their income levels. It is further sub-divided into 2 components: Mobile broadband data and voice high-consumption basket price as a percentage of gross national income (GNI) per capita: This basket refers to the cheapest mobile broadband plan (and add-on) providing at least 2 GB of monthly data using at least 3G technology, 140 minutes of voice, and 70 SMS messages. Fixed-broadband Internet basket price as a percentage of GNI per capita: Fixed-broadband (wired) Internet traffic is traffic generated by fixed-broadband subscribers and measured at the end-user access point. Such traffic should be measured by tallying up download and upload traffic Human Capital Index (HCI) The HCI is the EGDI component that reflects the human dimension of e-government, underscoring the importance of linking digital government systems to the ability of citizens to utilize them. The HCI comprise of the 5 sub-components: Expected years of schooling (EYS): It is the total number of years of schooling that a child of a certain age can expect to receive in the future, assuming that the probability of his or her being in school at any specific age is equal to the current enrolment ratio age. Mean years of schooling (MYS): It provides the average number of years of education completed by a country’s adult population (25 years and older), excluding the years spent repeating grades. Gross enrolment ratio (%) (GER): It is the total number of students enrolled at the primary, secondary and tertiary level, regardless of age, as a percentage of the school-age population Adult literacy (AL): It is measured as the percentage of people aged 15 years and above who can, with understanding, both read and write a short simple statement on their everyday life. E-government literacy (EGL): It measures the level of e-government literacy within a country by assessing key features on government portals. EGDI - Methodology The EGDI is a weighted average of normalized scores on the three most important dimensions of e government, they are as follows: Online Service Index (OSI) Telecommunications Infrastructure Index (TII) Human Capital Index (HCI) EGDI= 1/3 (OSInormalised + TIInormalised+ HCInormalised) Prior to the normalization of the three component indicators, the Z-score standardization procedure is implemented for each component indicator to ensure that the overall EGDI is equally decided by the three component indices, that is, each component index presents comparable variance subsequent to the Z-score standardization. In the absence of the Z-score standardization treatment, the EGDI would mainly depend on the component index with the greatest dispersion. After the Z-score standardization, the arithmetic average sum becomes a good statistical indicator, where “equal weights” truly means “equal importance. For standard Z-score calculation of each component indicator: Xnew = (x-µ) / σ Where x is a raw score to be standardized. μ is the mean of the population. σ is the standard deviation of the population The composite value of each component index is then normalized to fall between the range of 0 to 1 and the overall EGDI is derived by taking the arithmetic average of the three component indices. Within 0 to 1 range of EGDI values the countries are then grouped into four levels mathematically defined as follows: very high EGDI values range from 0.75 to 1.00 inclusive, high EGDI group values range from 0.50 to 0.7499 inclusive, middle EGDI values range from 0.25 to 0.4999 inclusive, and low EGDI values range from 0.0 to 0.2499 inclusive. The methodology of calculating various sub-components is as follows: Online service Index (OSI) The overall total score for a given country then becomes the sum of the normalized and weighted scores for each of the five subindices: OSIcountry(i)total score = (CP Z-score * CPweight) + (EPIZ-score * EPIweight) + (IFZ-score * IFweight) + (SPZ-score * SPweight) + (TECZ-score * TECweight) + (CPZ-score * CPweight) . In the final step of the process, the weighted actual scores for each country are normalized, yielding each assessed country an OSI value between 0 and 1 according to the following formula: Online Services Index (Country “X”) = (Actual total score-Lowest total score) / (Range of total scores for all countries) where the online index value for a given country is equal to the actual total score less the lowest total score, divided by the range of total scores for all countries Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (Index) Telecommunication infrastructure Index composite value = Average (Internet users Zscore + mobile or cellular telephone subscriptions Zscore + active mobile broadband subscriptions Zscore + affordabilty Zscore) The TII value for each country was then computed by normalizing the TII composite value (taking the composite value for a given country, subtracting the lowest composite value in the same data set, and dividing by the range of composite values for all countries), as follows: TII (Country X) = (Composite value (Country X) – Lowest composite value)/ (Highest Composite value-Lowest Composite value) Human Capital Index (HCI) Human Capital Index composite value = 1/5 × Adult literacy rate Zscore + 1/5 × Gross enrollment ratio Zscore + 1/5 × Estimated years of schooling Zscore + 1/5 × Mean years of schooling Zscore + 1/5 × E~government literacy Zscore The HCI composite value for each country is then normalized by subtracting the lowest composite value among all countries in the Survey from the country’s composite value, then dividing the result by the range of composite values across all countries, as follows: Human Capital Index (Country X) = (Composite value (Country X) – Lowest composite value)/ (Highest Composite Value-Lowest Composite value) India’s status in Index In India, Ministry of Electronics and information Technology (MeitY) is the nodal ministry of EGDI who is responsible for improving the India’s ranking in EGDI along with the following line ministries. The Department of telecommunication is the line ministry for the TII The Department of School Education & Literacy is the line ministry for the HCI The Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) is the line ministry for the Adult literacy rate and Means Years of schooling of HCI and Percentage of internet users of the TII. The Department of Higher Education is the line ministry for the Gross Enrolment Ratio and Expected years of schooling India ranked 97th out of 193 countries in the 2024 edition of the EGDI. Snapshot of India’s EGDI Ranking Year 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 Ranking 118 107 96 100 105 97 Source : UN DESA