Sri Lanka soars 41 places to rank 74 in UN e-Government Development Index

Making the biggest progress by a member country from its preceding ranking in the 2014 United Nations eGovernment Development Index (eGDI), Sri Lanka has advanced to the 74th position. At the preceding survey determining the eGDI which was in 2012 Sri Lanka’s position out of 193 countries was 115. Thus the 2014 United Nations eGDI of Sri Lanka is a jump traversing 41 positions. The rank reached by Sri Lanka out of 193 countries also places it within the first half of the highest ranked countries as well as the in the first position out of South Asian countries. The Maldives is at the 94th position. “The Sri Lankan Government has made a substantial effort to develop its online portal which now ranks 74th in the world. The online portal offers A-Z government web indexes, 108 e-services for citizens, 51 e-services for businesses and 10 non-residence related e-services. The portal also offers extensive mobile and SMS services, an e-participation portal, government forms easily accessible online, a developed open data portal with data available in various formats, as well as a whole-of-government strategy,” stated the 2014 UN – egov Development Index Report. “This is a significant achievement of all times by Sri Lanka,” ICT Agency (ICTA) CEO Reshan Dewapura said yesterday. The United Nations published the report on Wednesday in New York. e-government describes the use of technologies to facilitate the operation of government and the dispersement of government information and services. e-government, short for electronic government, deals heavily with Internet and non-internet applications to aid in governments. “Last year we worked hard on various fields in e-government and our tireless work has paid dividends,” said ICTA Re-engineering Government Program Director Wasantha Deshapriya.

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