IRMA Collaborates with UN University for Global Rural e-Governance Development Index and Roadmap 2020

IRMA is in the process of collaborating with the United Nations University (UNU) for formulating a Rural E-Government Development Index (R-EGDI).

The UN E-Government Survey is conducted by the United Nations every year, to rank countries based on the relative performance of national governments on a composite measure of EGDI comprising of three important dimensions of e-government, namely: provision of online services, telecommunication connectivity and human capacity.

Through the collaboration with IRMA, the EGDI will be viewed and assessed from the standpoint of Rural e-governance. In addition to the overall EGDI, countries will also be ranked based on their R-EGDI.

In the run up to designing the rural index, the United Nations University – Computing and Society (UNU-CS) will work with IRMA to invite and publish case studies and white papers on R-EGDI. In the first phase, IRMA and UNU in collaboration with Central University of Galway, Ireland will create a website to post pilot cases followed by inviting online submissions of global case studies on R-EGDI.

In April 2019, a theme-based workshop on R-EGDI will be organized in Melbourne with three countries as participants – India, Ireland and Portugal. The workshop will aim to discuss project-based findings, statistical data and expert inputs – that will contribute to the preparation of the index.

Thereafter, a Working Group will be constituted to design the Rural E-Government Development Index.

The MoU between IRMA and UN University for the Rural e-governance project assessment draws up a roadmap until 2020. Prof. Harekrishna Misra who works in the area of IT & Systems, will spearhead this project for IRMA. The collaboration is a great opportunity for IRMA to emphasize the importance of viewing e-governance from the rural lens, on a global platform.