Use of Development Indicators in Evaluation of e-Governance Initiatives

Much contribution has been made in the last few years in the area of e-governance. Yet co-ordination and knowledge sharing among these various initiatives remains weak. It is important to monitor and measure the impact of these e-governance initiatives and align them more effectively with the project development outcomes. The aim of this paper is to develop a conceptual approach for measurement and evaluation of e-governance initiatives. The paper discusses key issues in e-governance evaluation and differentiates between different approaches to evaluation of e-governance projects. However, the existing evaluation frameworks are mostly based on narrow aspects of project performance and the outcome-based development aspects of e-governance projects are not entirely clear. The paper explores the possibility of identifying certain key development indicators as part of the project objectives and assessing the e-governance initiatives against them. These development indicators are critical indicators of the e-governance initiative and are long-term. It illustrates this concept by taking two case studies from India. In both these cases, the development indicators have been identified early and the e-governance projects have been assessed against. A longitudinal study of these development indicators shows sustainability of results. The paper also explores the possibility of building a matrix of likely development indicators for different category of e-governance initiatives. Such a matrix can be used for comparison, review and benchmarking of e-governance initiatives. It is hoped that the paper will be of value to public administrators and public organizations in successfully designing and enforcing the evaluation of e-governance projects.