ICT policies affect the ICT environment in various fields. In addition, it plays an important role in improving ICT quality, efficiency, security, legality, and ethics. ICT policies authorize many stakeholders. For this reason, ICT policies require ICT environment control and standardization ^[1][2][37,38]. Changes in the technology environment accelerate competition for global companies. Policy support from the government is an essential factor for companies and institutions. Furthermore, ICT policies support the use and development of ICT and effectively respond to problems caused by the ICT ^[3][4][39,40].

According to the ICT literature, ICT policy research is currently conducted in several countries. These studies guide problem-solving skills and insights through policy analysis related to ICT. However, in many countries, there are limitations in formalizing the ICT policy development framework ^[5][41]. Many cities recognize the absence of clear strategies or plans when treating ICT policy ^[6][42].

ICT differs in policy, strategy, and operation from country to country. In the case of the United States, intensive support is provided in the field of AI in ICT technology. Private companies such as Google and Amazon lead the AI field. The government supports AI-related policies that companies can quickly apply ^[7][43]. Recently, China has established a special AI committee to support human-technology cooperation research. The Chinese government focuses on policies to effectively fulfill ICT convergence ^[8][44].

In addition, in the case of the EU, the vision of Europe 2020 is smart growth, sustainable growth, and inclusive growth. It has strong tools to form new economic governance and demands a coordinated response, including economic policy and support ^[9][45]. The new vision increases investment in R&D to achieve economic growth through the accumulation of knowledge and innovation ^[10][46]. Europe pursues and focuses on the data space where to design, create, and deploy technologies. In particular, it achieves climate-neutral goals and lays the foundation for network construction and policy, which centers on the new ICT industry ^[11][47]. This ICT-related policy is important for convergence between industries and productivity improvement. Policymakers need a variety of discussions to create a policy environment to build an effective ICT ecosystem.

To implement a successful e-government, policies should be established by considering many ICT-related environments. It is difficult to understand the complicated multidimensional environment of a country. Moreover, numerous ICT-related social problems should be identified. Problems such as digital gaps, strengthening the ICT-enabled environment, creating value, and strengthening corporate capabilities are tasks that all countries must solve ^[12][48]. An effective investigation is possible only when discussed through cooperation and agreement at international conferences rather than individual country-level efforts. Before emphasizing technology and performance, here need to look at various structural relationships such as ICT-related environments, policies, and governance ^[13][49].

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is a UN ICT agency that leads ICT innovation in 193 countries. ITU performs a wide range of ICT governance functions among international organizations: spreading access to ICT services, forming a future ICT policy and regulatory environment, and establishing global standards and best practices ^[14][15][50,51]. It deals with issues such as standardization of communication network technology and operations, global resource management, policies, regulations, support for developing countries, and ICT applications ^[16][17][18][52,53,54]. These functional features focus on developing global networks and improving access to services. ITU works with each government official to discuss ICT-related issues, share insights and best practices, and lay the foundation for long-term industrial growth.

The reports provided by ITU are utilized in many countries in terms of technology, policy, regulation, environment, and governance ^[19][55]. ITU explores the impact on policy and economic growth development. It also provides future-oriented insights into complex social responses ^[20][56]. Furthermore, it also presents the causes and solutions of ICT-related problems in terms of governance. These data contribute to the successful improvement of ICT capabilities in some countries.

Existing governments recognize limitations in the early e-government process, information security issues, and traditional government methods ^[21][57]. In this respect, e-government brings about a paradigm of using information technology (IT) throughout the economy ^[22][58]. In the past, governments focused on performing administrative tasks efficiently using ICT technologies, such as computers and the Internet. However, as e-government advances, it overcomes supplier-centered limitations. To develop information technology and enhance national competitiveness, many countries are targeting ICT investment and technology development ^[23][59].

The use of IT provides many possibilities to improve the efficiency of government functions ^[24][25][60,61]. This improved e-government service quality ^[26][27][62,63]. It also contributed to reducing corruption and consolidated the government ^[28][64]. Additionally, it has macroscopically changed diverse fields, including politics and government, and microscopically administrative reengineering ^[29][30][31][65,66,67]. The government recognizes the importance of innovation in ICT policy ^[32][68].

A country’s economy cannot be defined simply by GDP or productivity. Batterbury and Fernando ^[33][69] explain that a country must have an environment with an efficient structure, institution, and policy. Balkyte and Tvaronavičiene ^[34][70] emphasize that factors involving national competitiveness can maximize the potentiality of the industrial economy. It is necessary to solve environmental pollution or social difficulties and respond to changes in the political, economic, and social environment. Therefore, it demands a high level of e-government innovation through the introduction and utilization of digital technology ^[35][36][37][71,72,73].

The government plans and implements ICT-based services prior to effective administrative service operation. The ICT environment, accessibility, and infrastructure are directed to the participation of citizens. Citizen participation improves the maturity of e-government services. Individual development capabilities implement efficient and innovative e-government. Strong ICT capability is a prerequisite for the development of innovative administrative services. It makes the lives of citizens convenient and allows companies to contribute to production for augmenting competitiveness ^[38][39][74,75]. In today’s world is difficult to compete without ICT strategies ^[40][41][76,77]. Digital transformation due to the advancement of ICT technology exemplifies the complexity of social problems. Strategies and policies must be in place to supplement complex problems ^[42][78]. This is the pathway that e-government should take into account.

3. Findings

The importance of countries and ICT networks has been further emphasized by COVID-19. The more rapidly the country deploys and upgrades its ICT network, the greater the economic impact and the stronger the economic resilience to diseases ^[43][110]. After COVID-19, ITU discussed the role of the public sector and the government in the future development of the ICT area. In the study, the collection of ITU documents was done during the time of COVID-19 ^[44][111]. Many ICT policies and social issues were related to these documents. ICT is a very important issue for the country. As a result, it provides the solution to social problems for industry, economy, and society; it shows a strong preparation for future crises as well. To provide efficient public services, each government is conducting research to search for methods to increase national competitiveness with the purpose of good operation ^[45][112]. Today’s society forms a very complex structure and network relationship ^[46][113]. As such, clarity is needed in the operation and development of ICT ^[47][114]. It is vital to solving problems such as policies, governance, and regulations that support this structure and relationship. However, internal development and experience create problems in different aspects ^[48][49][115,116].  ICT is covered by numerous global organizations to develop the economy and reinforce competitiveness. ICT contributes to evaluating competitiveness, guiding technology levels, and providing guidelines. Many studies emphasized the use of ICT for investment in economic performance and R&D. However, many factors, such as complex technologies, governance, environment, and regulatory policies, must precede prior to the use of ICT. The problems that impede the ICT environment, such as limitations of technology access and social regulations, and social problems, are actually important factors for establishing ICT strategies. ITU collaborates with several ICT-related global organizations to determine the flow and direction of the ICT industry. Reports provide important insights into economic stability and selection. It contributes to creating policies to improve ICT performance for decision-makers. Reports are published annually in various fields related to ICT. These reports contribute to improving ICT capabilities.  To acquire ideas for social and policy issues, it effectively extracts large interpretable topics from a vast collection of data, such as unstructured documents, reports, survey results, discussions, and statistics. Compared to other topic modeling techniques, LDA techniques readily interpret results and solve overfitting issues, which is advantageous in deriving multiple topics from vast amounts of unstructured data ^[50][118]. Nevertheless, if the number of topics was limited while many documents needed to be processed, and if a variety of topics in one document were used, precise specification of the number of topics must be done due to overlapping errors in the topic. In addition, there are some areas where LDA techniques have not been actively utilized. It is necessary to carefully analyze the time series changes and differences in ITU documents to apply the structure of words that appear simultaneously with the year-on-year-based topic factors.