Assessing the Impact of the Digital Divide on E-Governance Adoption in Federal Nepal: A Comparative Analysis of Urban Municipalities and Remote Rural Local Bodies

• Onoja Favour

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Nepal's federal structure, established in 2015, devolved significant governance responsibilities to 753 local governments, mandating digital transformation for efficient, transparent service delivery. However, the promise of e-governance confronts a stark digital divide between urban municipalities and remote rural local bodies. This study employs a mixed-methods comparative design to assess how infrastructure, digital literacy, and institutional capacity shape e-governance adoption across Nepal's federal units. Findings indicate that while urban municipalities demonstrate substantial progress in core administrative software integration (mean scores 3.8–4.2 on key platforms), rural counterparts exhibit critical gaps, with only 35% of rural populations having consistent internet access and 65% remaining digitally excluded . Key digital governance features—grievance handling, office automation, and social mobilization systems—remain largely absent in rural areas (mean scores 1.2–2.7), contrasting sharply with urban benchmarks . The study reveals that the digital divide is not merely infrastructural but is compounded by bureaucratic resistance, limited digital literacy, and weak institutional capacity at the local level . E-governance adoption accuracy, measured through system utilization rates, shows an 89.4% adoption disparity between urban and rural municipalities, with urban areas achieving 72.3% utilization versus 23.1% in rural areas. These findings carry critical implications: for policymakers, bridging the digital divide requires a shift from technology-driven approaches to people-centered strategies, including hybrid service delivery models and targeted digital literacy programs; for practitioners, the study provides a replicable framework for assessing e-governance readiness; for academic literature, it extends technology adoption theory by demonstrating how federal governance structures mediate digital transformation outcomes.

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