PROVIDE BETTER SERVICES IN “HALF THE TIME FOR HALF AS MUCH”
BUCHAREST, May 31, 2013—The World Bank and the Romanian Ministry for Information Society hosted a workshop entitled “e-Government Transformation: Moving from Nice-to-Have to Must-Have” in Bucharest on May 30th as part of the Bank’s regional work on the Smart Specialization and Digital Agenda.
Experts and key practitioners from the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) field, as well as local attendees that work in ICT sectors across the Romanian Government, shared their experiences with e-Government. The workshop was designed as an exchange on strategies, frameworks, and approaches developed by the EU, and already successfully implemented in different countries.
“Romania has embarked on an ambitious project of aligning itself to the latest trends in e-Government and introducing the most advanced electronic systems in providing public services to its citizens,” said Dan Nica, Minister for Information Society. “This means reshaping the administrative procedures and flows based on individual life-events. This approach is reflected in the new National Strategy, the Digital Agenda for Romania, and in several recent projects such as the Online Issuance of Civil Status Documents and the e-Agricultural Registry.”
“With e-Government, citizens and businesses have easier access to government agencies and institutions electronically, thus avoiding having to wait in line or dealing with paper documents. e-Government provides better services in half the time for half as much,” said Elisabetta Capannelli, World Bank Country Manager in Romania. “e-Government is not just about enabling existing processes by using digital means. It involves rethinking and transforming the ways government institutions operate, with the citizens’ benefits and expectations at the core of such re-conceptualization.”
The workshop showed how to bridge the knowledge gap between policy makers and implementers to enable strong and continuous collaboration across institutions. Participants discussed the upcoming trends so that they can be factored into an e-Government strategy and the basket of services that are being conceptualized. The participants approached the ability of various organizations with diverse systems to work together for information exchange, as well as issues related to user authentication, sign-on, data protection, and secure access across institutions.
The World Bank had similar positive experiences in Romania, including its most recently completed Knowledge Economy project, implemented by the Ministry of Information Society in collaboration with other ministries. The Knowledge Economy Project accelerated the participation of 255 knowledge disadvantaged communities within the knowledge-based society and economy in Romania. The project was recognized for its success by many national and international institutions, including the European Commission, the European Institution of Public Administration, and the International Project Management Association, among others.
