Colombia, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Uruguay, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil were other highly-ranked countries in Latin America and were all rated among the top 60 countries worldwide for e-government.
The highest-ranked Central American country was Panama, at number 66 worldwide, followed by El Salvador and Costa Rica.
Read more: Chile leads Latin American and Caribbean in UN e-government ranking
- Political Support
The first of these common ingredients is the political support of the highest authority in the country. In all three cases analyzed, the support of the president has been instrumental in mobilizing other critical elements, such as legislative changes, institutional strategy, and budgetary allocation.
Read more: Latin America: 6 Reasons Why eGovernment Succeeded in Colombia, Uruguay, and Panama
The plan, known as eLAC2015, was approved by delegates by means of the "Lima Declaration", at the end of the Third Ministerial Conference on the Information Society of Latin America and the Caribbean, which was held from 21 to 23 November in the Peruvian capital.
Participants reaffirmed their conviction that public policymaking must incorporate the mainstreaming of information and communications technologies (ICTs) for countries' development.
For over two decades now, Information Communication Technologies (ICT) have been sweeping the globe, from the industrialized nations of the North to developing nations of the South. Some of the most dynamic growth of the latter has been in Latin America and the Caribbean, although connectivity, participation rates, product offerings, services, and costs and revenue vary widely.
Internet retailing provides a good case example. As pointed out by Daniel Latev, writing in this publication, Latin America topped Internet growth globally, achieving a 24 percent increase together with the Asia Pacific region; and it is expected to achieve a compounded annual growth rates of 17 percent through 2015. Generating $12 billion in sales in 2010, with Brazil, Chile and Argentina leading the way, Internet retailing now ranges from extensive online product catalogues (e.g., Walmart, Carrefour) to online purchasing from both bricks and mortar stores and e-commerce only companies. Additionally, collective buying sites, such as US-based Groupon, are emerging in more developed markets such as Brazil.
Public management involves a combination of actions undertaken by an entity in the pursuit of its goals, ends and objectives, based on its priorities. To this end, for local, regional and national governments, information and communications technologies (ICTs) have become one of the most important means for achieving such goals and objectives.
Read more: ICT And Public Administration: Challenges For Latin America