What Happened to the Eastern Block? 24. September 2009 – 19:17 by Olga Lacigova - 21c

I was just reviewing the 52 finalists of the 2009 eGovernment Awards that will be competing on the 19^th of November 2009 in Malmö, Sweden in 4 categories. I was impressed by the high quality of candidate projects/applications such as the Front Office Employment (http://www.autravail.be/), a Belgian website helping people to find suitable jobs or MEPA (Malta Environment and Planning Authority) (http://www.mepa.gov.mt/main.aspx), a Maltese portal that aims to ensure land use and protection of environment meet the needs of today’s society.

Although impressed by the quality of the selected projects, I was disappointed by the monotone representation of candidates by country. For example Spain has eight entries; the Netherlands has six, while France has none. And even more disturbingly, Eastern Europe is represented only by Estonia who has two entries. It makes me wonder what the reason for this phenomenon is. Does it mean that Easter Europe is less democratic or does it mean that Eastern Europe has less funding for eGovernment projects? Is there a need for concern or can we hope for time to break this uniformity of candidates?

Tags: inenglish