IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Lithuania comes 40th out of 193 countries in the United Nations' Electronic Government Development Index 2018, dropping 17 positions, compared to 2016. Estonia leads among the Baltic states, coming in 16th with 0.8486 points, and Latvia is 57th with 0.6996 points.

Countries in all regions of the world are continuing to make strides in their efforts to improve e-government and to provide public services online according to a new report launched by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. In a 2018 ranking of countries on e­government development, Denmark, Australia, and Republic of Korea came out on top of a group of 40 countries, scoring very high on an index (the E-Government Development Index – EGDI), which measures countries’ use of information and communications technologies to deliver public services. The Index captures the scope and quality of online services, status of telecommunication infrastructure and existing human capacity.

Baltic states should create a regional digital market serving as an example to the European Union in establishing a digital single market, Siim Kallas, a former prime minister of Estonia and vice president of the European Commission, said at a conference on Monday.

"In most European countries digital services, not to mention cross-border e-services, are considerably less developed than in the Baltic states. I think the Baltic states could stride even more boldly and vigorously forward in developing cross-border digital services. We have to create a Baltic regional digital market to be an example to the whole European Union," Kallas said at a competitiveness forum in Jurmala, Latvia.

To keep up to the global competitiveness, the EU industrial sectors, e.g. transport, services, farming, manufacturing, etc. shall use more actively modern digital technologies and ICT achievements. While Commission designs a plan for building Digital Single Market for industry the Baltic States shall be prepared to implement the plan…

Industry is regarded by the Commission’s political agenda as the main driving force of Europe's economy: industrial farming, manufacturing, health, engineering, etc. employs a lot of people and make EU exports larger.

Estonia was the highest ranked Central and Eastern European country.

The table of rankings for 2013 was topped by Finland, followed by Singapore, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the UK, Denmark, US and Taiwan.

Nordic and Baltic countries have joined hands in a bid to lead the digitalisation of Europe.

At the occasion of Digital North, a conference that took place in Oslo on Tuesday (25 April), ministers from the Nordic and Baltic regions signed a declaration, by which they committed to step up their digitalisation efforts - not only within the countries, but also across borders.

Die Pläne zur Einführung des sogenannten E-Voting haben in Lettland und in Litauen praktisch gleichzeitig einen Dämpfer erhalten. In Riga erklärte die für E-Government zuständige Ministerin Ina Gudele am Donnerstag, die Entwicklung eines ganz zuverlässigen Systems werde wohl noch länger in Anspruch nehmen. Das Parlament in Vilnius lehnte am selben Tag mit großer Mehrheit eine Regierungsvorlage ab, welche die Grundlage für die Einführung des E-Voting in Litauen hätte schaffen sollen.