1.5.2 E-Readiness and Assessments The 2007 network readiness assessment completed by the World Economic Forum is a useful measure. Details of the results for the Caribbean are shown in Table 5 below. It is noted that St. Vincent & the Grenadines ranked 98th in 2007, falling ten places from its ranking in 2005. It is further noted that SVG ranked 10th in the Caribbean out of 13 countries surveyed in 2007. Table 5: The 2007 World Economic Forum Global IT Report: Network Readiness Index (NRI) The Networked Readiness Index (NRI) measures the propensity of countries to leverage the opportunities offered by ICT for development and increased competitiveness. In the most current report, 122 economies globally participated in the assessment. It also establishes a broad international framework mapping out the enabling factors of such capacity. It examines the preparedness of countries to use ICT effectively on three dimensions: 1) General business, 2) Regulatory and 3) Infrastructure Several countries have set the pace with the strategic use of ICT, in particular the Nordic countries. Their success is strongly linked to having a very strong focus on education, thus enabling the establishment of highly efficient educational institutions and a culture of innovation; and having transparent and wellfunctioning public institutions. This has resulted in a business-friendly environment with a strong readiness to adopt the latest technologies. 1.5.3 Challenges to e-Government E-Government has the ability to impact the governance of a country and to influence the organisation of the public sector itself. A heavily centralized and controlling decision-making structure in government is antithetical to an emerging environment that is decentralized and horizontal and in which power, resources, and information are widely distributed. The latter environment is often that desired by the people of developing countries. Rigid hierarchical and prescriptive accountability mechanisms do not provide the flexibility required to develop policy and to adjust service delivery to meet changing circumstances or local realities of SVG. More collaboration and connecting with citizens and businesses will put public servants in the public eye and make them less anonymous. Managers and executives therefore must pay greater attention to career development, succession planning, value-added labour relations and other basic human resource management practices to ensure public officers are treated as a strategic resource. E-Government can therefore impact the foundation of public sector institutional frameworks, and consequently be challenging to get right despite its obvious benefits for all stakeholders. The need to interconnect the public sector has been recognised as a priority and Government is making progress with the development of an intranet. This project is aimed Denmark's outstanding levels of networked readiness have to do with the country's excellent regulatory environment, government’s e-leadership in leveraging ICT for growth, resulting in impressive levels of Internet and PC usage, e-government and a dynamic e-business environment. A welldeveloped internal market, an emphasis on education and Research and Development (R&D) and a talent for pioneering applications and technologies have laid the basis for the development of a first-league high-tech industry. Estonia, stands out for its impressive progress within the space of a decade in networked readiness and general competitiveness, driven by an efficient government ICT vision and strategy. Defining the Re-launching Point P a g e | 32