Assessing e-Readiness in SEE Countries: Perceptions towards e-Government Public Services

E-Government services are emerging rapidly in the developing world. Many countries use e-Government as an enabling tool to increase efficiency, enhance transparency, collect more revenue and facilitate public sector reform. Five factors are critical for the successful implementation of such services, which include political commitment to the reform process, availability of information communications technology (ICT) infrastructure, institutional capacity, underlying legal framework related to electronic administration and last but not least, e-Government strategic planning. This paper investigates the level of electronic readiness in five South-Eastern European (SEE) countries towards planning and managing e-Government public services in the region. Furthermore, it delivers a country-specific review of e-Government strategy and regulatory framework and presents assessment results on the implementation progress and the level of sophistication that e-Government services have reached in the five SEE countries under investigation.