e-Government development in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): Relationship with macro level indices and possible implications

Abstract

The remarkable benefits of e-government has enthused many governments around the globe to focus on the development of e-government competencies as a central part of their strategies. However, there are still great disparities in the level of e-government development between the developed and developing worlds, with Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) lagging behind all other regions. The reason for these disparities has so far been attributed to differences in national income; nonetheless, some resource-poor countries have succeeded to make great strides in e-government development. As such, there has been a call to examine other indicators of e-government development, since national income alone does not paint a detailed picture. In this light, this study examined a total of six indicators (corruption, gender equality, population age, national income, cybersecurity, and innovation) that are believed to influence e-government development using SSA as the case study. Macro-level indices were used to capture country level data from 49 SSA countries. The findings indicated that all the factors significantly influenced e-government development in SSA. The paper culminates with a discussion of the possible implications of the findings.