International Conference organized by GIZ
By Mariam Chanishvili
Monday, April 23
International conference on e-governance of EU's Eastern Partnership countries was held on 17-18 April at Iota Hotel Tbilisi.
The conference was organized by German Corporation for International Cooperation GmbH (GIZ).
The meeting was moderated by Hannes Astok, Deputy Director for Strategy and Development at the Estonian e-Governance Academy.
E-governance project manager Akaki Rukhadze noted that the participating countries included Belarus, Ukraine, Estonia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Germany.
“We are receiving consultations from Estonian and German representatives. Georgia has a very good experience in this direction, but we cannot stop there. It is important to develop these services. Next step is to move to the distance services,” said Rukhadze.
He stated that this is not just a conference. The group discussions ensure the exchange of information and experience.
Hannes Astok highlighted the importance of the project noting that the countries can share experience about the challenges and problems that arise during the implementation of different projects.
“This is a great project, because it brings together e-governance officials from 5 countries: Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Belarus. I think that the exchange of ideas, challenges, and experience is valuable.
Georgia and Estonia can learn from each other in this area. All the participant countries can benefit from this project. As a moderator, it is a great experience for me too,” he said.
He noted that Georgia’s level of e-governance is rapidly growing.
The event brought together e-government practitioners from five participating countries.
The participants had a chance to share experiences of the different working groups, to present and discuss the key elements of the electronic governance: interoperability and government cloud, to develop, discuss and evaluate the proposals for the joint e-government projects and to discuss following steps and plan joint activities.
The representatives of Public Service Development Agency and Data Exchange Agency attended the conference.
Due to the fact that Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine, among other Eastern Partnership countries, have launched decisive administration and decentralization reforms, it was important to share experiences.
These reforms aim at providing the citizens and the businesses with faster and better quality services and ensuring the processes are transparent.
The German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development has commissioned GIZ with this specific Project to support “cross-country exchange of experiences” and link experts and multipliers of innovation and change from the departments of administration.
The similar network for the senior e-governance practitioners was successfully started in 2011 for the Western Balkans region countries, supported by the RESPA (Regional School for Public Administration) and the European Union.
The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH has been working in Georgia since 1992. GIZ's country office in Tbilisi primarily manages regional programmes that are being implemented in Georgia and the two neighbouring countries- Armenia and Azerbaijan.
