Bridging the Archipelago: E-Government Implementation Challenges and Digital Inequality in Remote Island Communities of North Maluku

Digital transformation through e-government systems in Indonesia faces geographic and structural challenges that fuel the digital divide in border regions. This study aims to analyze the multidimensional challenges of implementing digital public services and to map patterns of digital inequality occurring in isolated island communities. Using a qualitative approach with an exploratory case study design, this research was conducted in three earthquake-prone island regions of North Maluku Province: South Halmahera Regency, the Sula Islands, and Taliabu Island. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 25 key informants—including policymakers, field service providers, and local residents—and supplemented by field observations and document analysis. Data were analysed thematically through the stages of data condensation, data presentation, and conclusion-drawing, with validity tested via triangulation. The research findings indicate that the implementation of digital services is hampered by a lack of telecommunications infrastructure and electricity, low digital literacy among local bureaucrats, and a centralized application architecture that is incompatible with island conditions. These conditions widen the digital divide from merely a matter of physical access to one of socioeconomic exclusion, where residents must incur high maritime transportation costs to access conventional services. Nevertheless, communities have developed local adaptation strategies by utilizing traditional transportation methods to transmit administrative documents. This study concludes that the national digitization policy needs to reorient its approach from a one-size-fits-all model toward an archipelago-based digital government model that integrates a hybrid system architecture and the institutionalization of local digital intermediaries to achieve social justice.