Abstract:
The benefits of e-government initiatives empowered by the information and
communication technologies, are acknowledged widely with assessment criteria
published by the United Nations regularly over the last 15 years. One of the
reasons that United Nations has taken such assessment into agenda is the apparent
advantages of such initiatives over the citizen, society and government.
In parallel literature review and current status of Middle East countries, these
issues are investigated with examples: Internet users, awareness and training,
culture, intention to use e-government applications of the citizens, portal and
interoperability. It is noted that assessment of human capital indices for these
countries should be read carefully while considering these topics.
The findings reveal the impact of human capital index on evaluating egovernment performance; geographical area and population also affect the
adoption of e-government. For this, follow-up work is suggested to investigate the level of information and communication technology and computer literacy along
with these factors in the region.
This research has limitations which include the sources of information, exclusive
economic and legal issues and a number of measurement methods.
