Exploring e-government in the state of Qatar: Benefits, challenges and complexities

Abstract

Information and communication technology facilities offered by the Internet have encouraged not only business enterprises, but also governments around the globe to invest significantly into electronic service delivery in the form of e-government. Despite many lessons that can be learned from the experiences of those e-government initiatives, developing countries are still faced with various issues pertaining to the implementation of e-government services in their countries. Like many other developing countries, the e-government initiative in Qatar has faced a number of challenges since its inception in 2000. Using survey and interview based research this paper examines some of these challenges from a citizens' and governments' perspective. Among others, this research found that although having a superior ICT infrastructure and being one of the regional broadband leaders in the Arab World, issues such as lack of awareness, bureaucratic business practices, socio-cultural issues and citizens' satisfaction levels of current national e-government strategy was influencing the adoption of e-government services in the state of Qatar.