eGovernance and Online Service Delivery in Estonia Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen United Nations University Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance (UNU-EGOV) Rua de Vila Flor 166, 4810-445 Guimarães, Portugal
[email protected] ABSTRACT successes are many. But how has a small middle income country in Estonia’s use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in northern Europe seemingly succeeded where others have not? the public sector is regularly highlighted as an innovative model worth emulating. Despite this, research into the Estonian From public administration (PA) [1-6], to information systems (IS) governance and inter-governmental cooperation model is limited, management [2, 3, 7-10], to electronic government and governance with most being 5-10 years old. In addition, recent literature (eGovernment and eGovernance) [11-16], academics have reviews point to a limited understanding of technology use in public highlight the failures of IT and technology use in the public sector. service delivery and the role played by governance, inter- Mistakes include blindly digitising current processes [13, 16, 17], governmental decision making and cooperation when introducing focusing on technology and supply [18-20] rather than value- ICT solutions and online services to citizens. adding outcome and impact of ICT [4, 21, 22] – not only in relation As part of a larger qualitative, multi-country comparison, this to IT and technology use in public administration but even more so article analyses the Estonian approach to electronic governance