Local context, global benchmarks:: Recommendations for an adapted approach using the UN E-Government Development Index as an example

This paper provides a brief overview of how e-government benchmarks have evolved over time, why this has happened and what the consequences have been, with a particular focus on UNDESA's biennial e-government surveys. Such change is inevitable and indeed necessary as both technology and government change and the societal challenges they are applied to are in constant flux. Three sets of recommendations are made concerning next steps. First, it is recommended to significantly extend the focus of UNDESA to sub-national level and particularly to cities, including borrowing some concepts and approaches from smart city benchmarking, given that it is here that most (e)government services are both delivered and consumed. Second, there is a need to increase the focus of e-government benchmarking on the SDGs as a global set of policy goals and targets that are both universally standardized as well as being locally adaptable. Third, a number of recommendations are given concerning measurement issues that attempt to make it possible to address the first two recommendations, whilst still recognizing that there will always remain unresolved dilemmas and challenges, so it is not possible to completely future-prof, address all possible contextual variations nor all potential assessment aims.