Study visit to Estonia was organized within the project in the period from 25 to 29 November 2019 in close cooperation with the e-Governance Academy, the famous think tank and a promoter of digital society in Estonia. The purpose of this four-day visit was to enable Serbian authorities to learn about best practices in transitioning to eGovernment services, understanding the challenges, problems and applying alternative solutions, knowledge and experience in the process of developing eGovernment services.
Delegation
that represented Serbia during this visit consisted of representatives
of the Ministry of Economy – Katarina Obradović Jovanović, Assistant
Minister and Milan Pantelic, independent advisers, representatives of
the Republic Secretariat for Public Policy, Bojana Tošić, v.d directors
and Ninoslava Kekić, v.d Assistant Directors
representative of the Office of information technology and
e-government, Aleksandra cousin and representatives of the project EU
Support to improving the business environment, Jasminka Vrnalieva team
leaders.
During the four days Study visit, participants had 14 meetings with various institutions that allowed them to get a comprehensive knowledge of the Estonian model of digital society. Serbian government representatives showed very high interest in the topics presented, that resulted in particularly interactive meetings and vivid discussions.
During the meetings, Serbian Government delegation was introduced to the main principles of the Estonia e-Government policy/strategy, which incorporates:
- Citizen (customer) orientation – “ONCE ONLY” concept
- Leading role for the private sector
- Efficient and transparent public sector
- Protection of personal data
- Measures against digital divide
- Neutrality concerning technological platforms
The “ONCE ONLY” concept has been emphasized in most of the meetings. It means that citizen must enter information only once. Also, the citizens are the owners of their own data, so every citizen has the right to know what data government has about him/her and how it is used.
The issue of ensuring cyber security came up as important topic for discussion in several meetings, but the specific details of the Estonian security standards were discussed with Raul Rikk, national cyber security policy director in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, and Mark Erlich, e-ID expert in the State Information System Authority.
Estonia’s digital platform is already offering a number of services for its citizens and businesses. One of the important examples of using government e-services is related to business registration. With the introduction of the e-business registration, business registration time has been significantly reduced from five days to two hours (median), although it could be completed in 18 minutes.Study visit participants discussed the e-business registry and entrepreneurs’ portal with Tambet Artma, Head of Business Register Division within RIK, government agency under the Ministry of Justice.
Estonian mature system for e-services also incorporates paper-less government sessions. Aivar Rahno, head of the Government Secretariat explained e-Cabinet system, that supports government decision making process. In doing that, two information systems are administered by government office, e-Cabinet and e-Consultation. E-Consultation is an open system used for public and inter-ministerial consultations and submissions. E-Cabinet is closed system used by ministers and officials for government sessions. Using these two system allowed the government to improve the consultation process for drafting the bills and to significantly increase its transparency and efficiency; each government session now takes 30 minutes or less.
Estonian digital systems incorporate more than 2,500 digital services for citizens and businesses. Economic effects of specific digital services are substantial. To quote one example, indicated by Arvo Ott, Executive Director and Chairman of the e-Governance Academy, by “Using the digital signature effectively we save one working week per year, which translates to 2% of GDP”.
Overall, Estonian digital transformation experience resulted in numerous benefits, including increased government efficiency and transparency, increased economic competitiveness, and introduced e-way of life. In general, the main conclusion that could be drawn from the Estonian experience of building digital society is that there are three main factors at the core of Estonian success: strong political will, synergy between IT and legislation, and innovation and technology.