Building a Measurement Framework for Digital Governance

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are facing the challenge to improve the measurement of digital government not only as an opportunity to adapt and modernize public services, but also as an ethical imperative to improve accessibility to all citizens. In response, the Innovation in Citizen Services Division of the Inter-American Development Bank was interested in analyzing the various metrics of digital government to generate a robust framework to measure e-government initiatives in LAC. Existing measurement indicators sacrifice broad applicability by focusing on a narrow set of metrics. There have been few attempts to categorize this existing body of work, despite widespread recognition of the need to move towards a more inclusive digital government, especially given the increasing demands on governments in LAC as they attempt to navigate the current COVID-19 crisis. The objective of this capstone project has been to (1) create an inventory of digital government frameworks, (2) categorize and (3) evaluate the existing digital government indicators, and finally (4) provide recommendations on how to improve digital government methodology and measurement of a user-centered digital government. The team analyzed nine different e-government indexes and identified that only a few addressed - tangentially- use and impact indicators. Based on these findings, the team was able to design new indicators based on a user-centered approach for better public services.