Mexico, Nov 05: More governments are using the internet, but only 20 per cent of people with internet access use government web sites and few of those sites encourage users to participate in making policy, according to a U.N. report on "electronic government'' released in Mexico city. Even though the 2001 terror attacks made security- rather than accessibility- the main concern in many nations, the number of countries with at least one government web site continues to increase, according to the 2003 U.N. world report on the public sector, entitled "E-Government at the Crossroads'', which was released yesterday.

A total of 173 of the United Nation's 191 member nations had a web presence in 2003, an increase from 143 in 2001. Only 18 countries, many in Africa, remain completely off-line.

While web-based access can link citizens to everything from schools to hospitals and libraries, it isn't the whole answer.
"Only a very few governments have opted to use e-government applications for transactional services or networking and even fewer use it to support genuine participation of citizens in politics,'' report said.

The U.S. Government led the ranking of e-government "readiness'', the amount of information, services and products it offers over the internet, combined with the infrastructure- telephones, computers and internet connections - needed to access them.

In that ranking, Sweden was second, followed by Australia, Denmark, Great Britain, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Germany and Finland. Bureau Report