The first-ever 100% electronic filing of tax returns this year is the indication of development of electronic government in Iran, the head of Information Technology Organization of Iran said.
Rasoul Saraeian added that the improvement of Iran’s ranking in the United Nations’ E-Government Development Index (EGDI) is remarkable and said the more e-government grows, the cheaper the cost becomes, IRNA reported.
“Higher levels of e-government development can improve transparency and keep a check on rent-seeking behaviors,” he said.
Iran’s place in the United Nations’ EGDI, which measures the use of information and communications technologies to deliver public services, improved 20 spots from 106th in 2016 to 86th in 2018.
Moreover, Iran was one of the 17 countries among the 193 UN member states that transitioned from middle to high EGDI level group.
“The Sixth Five-Year Development Plan (2017-25) has envisioned a 30-place improvement in Iran’s e-government development performance in five years. The [20-spot] improvement in just one year is of considerable significance,” Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi tweeted on Sunday.
According to the UN data, Iran’s EGDI value was 0.6083 this year, while the figure was 0.4649 two years ago.
The EGDI value ranges between 0 (lowest) and 1 (highest), as is the weighted average of normalized scores on the three most important dimensions of e-government, namely the provision of online services, the status of development of telecoms infrastructure and the inherent human capital.
