Seoul and New York Top the Rankings in Municipal E-Governance

Rutgers-SKKU E-Governance Performance Index Ranks Seoul #1

April 11, 2006 - Newark, New Jersey – An index of municipal websites worldwide found that Seoul, Korea remains as the top-ranked city in e-governance performance. The research was conducted jointly by the E-governance Institute of Rutgers University-Newark and the Global e-Policy e-Government Institute of the Graduate School of Governance, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea. The survey was co-sponsored by the UN Division for Public Administration and Development Management and the American Society for Public Administration. This Rutgers-SKKU E-Governance Performance Index is the only systematic effort to evaluate digital governance in municipalities throughout the world.

Each website was assessed by two independent evaluators during the Fall of 2005. Based on the evaluation of 100 cities, the top 10 cities are as follows;

 <Top 10 Cities in Digital Governance Worldwide - 2005>

Ranking	City	Score
1	Seoul	81.70
2	New York	72.71
3	Shanghai	63.93
4	Hong Kong	61.51
5	Sydney	60.82
6	Singapore	60.22
7	Tokyo	59.24
8	Zurich	55.99
9	Toronto	55.10
10	Riga	53.95

Professor Marc Holzer, Director of the E-Governance Institute at Rutgers-Newark, called the E-Governance Performance Index, “a set of benchmarks that spotlight high levels of performance throughout the world, and high expectations for improved web-based municipal service delivery in the near future, in all countries.”

The Rutgers-SKKU E-Governance Performance Index continues a survey first completed in 2003. The 2005 survey examined 100 municipalities throughout the world, selecting the largest city in each of 98 countries with the highest percentages of Internet users. Also included in the evaluation were the municipalities of Hong Kong and Macao. ‘The Rutgers-SKKU E-Governance Performance Index’ utilizes 98 measures over five core areas: 1. Security and Privacy, 2. Usability, 3. Content, 4. Services, 5. Citizen Participation. An overall score for each municipality (on a 100-point scale) was derived by giving equal weight to each of the five categories.

 <Top 5 Cities in the five Categories- 2005>

	Security & Privacy		Usability		Content		Service		Citizen Participation
Ranking	City	Score	City	Score	City	Score	City	Score	City	Score
1	Seoul	17.60	New York	19.06	Seoul	16.04	Seoul	16.61	Seoul	13.64
2	Sydney	16.80	Shanghai	18.75	New York	14.79(2)	New York	15.76	Warsaw	12.55
3	Zurich	16.40	Seoul	17.81	Tallinn	14.79(2)	Singapore	14.58	Bratislava	10.91
4	New York	16.00	Sydney	17.81	Zurich	13.96	Hong Kong	13.73	London	10.55
5	Hong Kong	15.60	Riga	17.50	Riga	13.75	Warsaw	11.86	Prague	10.18

There were only slight changes in the top five cities when compared to the 2003 study. Seoul remained the highest ranked city, but the gap between the first and second ranked municipalities has closed slightly. Based on the 2005 research, there remains a wide divide in digital governance throughout the world. Among the five categories, Seoul ranks top in four categories: Security & Privacy, Content, Service, and Citizen Participation. New York ranks at the top in the category of Usability.

<Average Score by Score of Cities in OECD and Non-Member Countries -2005>

The average score for digital governance in municipalities of OECD member countries has increased to 44.35, well above the overall average for all municipalities of 33.11. The average score for municipalities in non-OECD member countries is only 26.50.

Professor Seang-Tae Kim, President of the Global e-Policy e-Government Institute said, “The evaluation based on ‘the Rutgers-SKKU E-Governance Performance Index’ would be very meaningful because it has been a continuing collaborative effort between western and eastern view points of view on E-Governance research. I believe it will guide the desirable future directions of E-Governance strategies for municipalities worldwide. According to the analysis, compared with the results of 2003, in 2005 the digital divide globally has widened between OECD countries and non-OECD countries, as well as between the upper 20 countries and the lower 20 countries. This contrast emphasizes that it would be very important to increase the role of the UN and other international organizations for overcoming the digital divide in order to fulfill the global common welfare.”

The Rutgers-SKKU E-Governance Performance Index is the most thorough in e-government research worldwide today. Among other e-government surveys focused on governments worldwide, the E-government survey by Brown University’s Taubman Center for Public Policy has several drawbacks: its index is not comprehensive, measuring only 19 items with limited criteria for usability and citizen participation areas of e-government; there is an inconsistency in the evaluation of non-English Web sites as native speakers are not employed as evaluators in some languages, thereby leading to wide annual fluctuations in the rankings. For example, in the Brown University study the Republic of Korea ranked 2nd in 2002, 87th in 2003, 32nd in 2004, and 86th in 2005. Another survey by Accenture’s global e-government study covers only 22 countries. UN’s E-government Readiness Index is a composite measure composed of infrastructure, human capital, and Web site measures that are quite comprehensive and reliable. Rutgers-SKKU E-Governance Performance Index is unique and focused on local governments worldwide, which complements the UN survey at the national level.

Scores and ranking of all 100 cities are available online at

http://www.andromeda.rutgers.edu/~egovinst/ & http://www.gepegi.org.

For more information, contact Professor Marc Holzer (mholzer@pipeline.com) & Professor Seang-Tae Kim (kimst@skku.edu), or the study’s Research Director Tony Carrizales (tonyjoe@pegasus.rutgers.edu).