e-Government

E-Government is defined as the increased adoption of new technologies by governments to provide better public services to citizens and businesses and meet the demands of the public for less bureaucracy and more efficiency.

The EU’s main policy initiative in this field is the e-Government Action Plan which focuses efforts on five priorities as follows:

• Inclusive e-Government – “No citizen left behind” – to provide flexible and multi-channel public services to all citizens.
• Efficiency Effectiveness – to measure efficiency gains ensuring high user satisfaction, transparency, and accountability.
• High Impact Services – including e-Procurement where public procurement will be available electronically and cooperation on further high-impact online citizen services.
• Key Enablers – eID (e-Identity) to enable citizens and businesses to benefit from convenient, secure, and interoperable authenticated access across Europe to public services.
• e-Participation – Strengthening participation and democratic decision-making by use of tools for effective public debate.

Efficient services save time and money and effective services are more meaningful for citizens, businesses and administrations along the line of the five objectives of the Action Plan.