Electronic governance for sustainable development: how EGOV solutions contribute to SD goals?

The application of Electronic Governance (EGOV) -- how to apply Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to transform the working of government and its interaction with the public, to Sustainable Development (SD) -- how to balance socio-economic development while protecting natural resources for future generations, is referred to as Electronic Governance for Sustainable Development (EGOV4SD). Although significant efforts have been dedicated to EGOV and SD individually, research at the intersection of these domains is scarce and a systematic EGOV4SD research framework is yet to emerge. In order to contribute to the development of such a framework and in particular to identify how EGOV initiatives contribute to SD goals in the current government practice, this paper analyzes ten case studies of existing EGOV initiatives with explicit SD objectives. The analysis showed that EGOV4SD initiatives contribute to a variety of SD goals and the most common SD problems addressed are: empowerment (social), business opportunities (economic), man-made activity (environment) and capacity-building (institutional). In addition, a clear difference emerges between the nature of EGOV4SD initiatives carried out in the developed and developing countries.