An Analysis of the Brazilian Challenges to Advance in e-Government.

Governments all over the planet have acted to publish their information and services in an online environment. While the world observes a rapid advancement in e-government, the Brazilian reality is different: low percentage of transactional services and low adherence of its population to e-gov. Despite being among the ten largest economies in the world, Brazil is ranked 57th in the e-government development survey conducted biannually by the UN. This paper aims to unveil the elements that prevent the development of the Brazilian electronic government by analyzing the three dimensions proposed by UN in the conceptual framework of the E-Government Development Index (EGDI). The research showed that the primary challenge to e-government in Brazil is related to human education factors: adult literacy; combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrollment ratio; expected years of schooling; and average years of schooling. The second main barrier to Brazilian e-government is the technological development index, as despite recent improvements, Brazilian statistics are still lagging behind those of developed countries. Although the Inherent Human Capital Index (HCI) and the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (TII) are primarily responsible for the current Brazilian ranking, the historical analysis showed that the trend line of these indexes shows stability over the past eleven years. Unlike what is happening with the HCI and TII indexes, the outcomes presented a worsening in the trend line of Brazilian electronic government services' maturity. These results can assist the Brazilian government to identify strengths and weaknesses in its e-government strategy, serving as a guide for public policies specifically targeted to address the main problems related to e-government and implement actions that would allow e-gov services to reach transactional and connected levels, as well as the implementation of a national identity management strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]