Frequently Asked Questions

While we do not share the questions used in our assessment of the national portals, a list of the features assessed are included in the UN E-Government Survey. They can be found listed in the Annex. It is also important to note that this list is dynamic and is updated for each edition of the Survey.

As done for each edition of the Survey, the United Nations Member States were requested, through the Member State Questionnaire (MSQ), to provide information on the website addresses (URL) of their national portal(s) and the different government ministries. Information on efforts in support of e-government development, open government data, e-participation and the designated authority in charge of e-government policies was also requested. The MSQ is available to the public and can be found in the Survey Annexes.

The Survey rates the e-government performance of countries relative to one another, as opposed to being an absolute measurement. This means that a drop in the ranking does not actually mean that e-government development in that country is going backwards. It only implies that there were more countries which scored higher in that edition of the Survey. The EGDI is a composite index based on the weighted average of three normalized indices: one-third from a Telecommunications Infrastructure Index (TII), one-third from a Human Capital Index (HCI), and one-third from the Online Service Index (OSI). While a country may have scored very high in OSI, it may not score high in EGDI due to lower scores in the other two components.

TII is based on data provided by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the HCI data used in the Survey is sourced through the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's Institute of Statistics (UNESCO-UIS) or UNDP. The Survey is finalized using the data available at a specific point in time. It is quite likely that the data available now has since been updated by these source organizations.

The Survey rates the Member States' e-government performance relative to one another, as opposed to offering an absolute measurement. Therefore, given the established methodology of the Survey and its already-published status, updating or revising data could affect not only a country's score, but also unfairly change the final rankings of other Member States.

The UN E-Government Survey is conducted on a biennial basis, with publication in even years (2020, 2022, 2024, etc.). The most recent edition was published in 2024. While no exact date has been set for the next edition, we anticipate that it will be released in 2026.

All the Survey data found on this platform may be used if properly referenced to the official source (example, UN E-Government Survey 2024 by United Nations) and the United Nations Terms of Use and Copyright are followed.

The links to the country-level portals used in our research can be found in the Country & City Portals section under Resources on this platform.

The E-Government Survey is a DESA mandated publication, but only for the English version. We work with Member State institutions to provide as many translations in various languages as possible. Recent editions have had versions produced in all UN languages, thanks to the support of translation partners.