Page 96 - SAMENA Trends - September-October 2020

REGULATORY & POLICY UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

ITU, Estonia, Germany and DIAL Join Forces to Accelerate Digital

Transformation of Government Services

The International Telecommunication work with Estonia, Germany and DIAL to workshops, and knowledge sharing and
Union (ITU), together with the Ministry of continue to advance ICT-related solutions exchanges. Raul Siem, Minister of Foreign
Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Estonia that can power country-level action to Trade and Information Technology of
(MFA Estonia), the Federal Ministry for achieve the SDGs." Furthermore, the Estonia, noted his country's openness to
Economic Cooperation and Development partnership aims at facilitating fundraising sharing expertise in digital transformation:
of the Federal Republic of Germany (BMZ), to support relevant and interested “Estonia has a long experience in
and the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) stakeholders who can contribute to building a holistic digital society, from the
at the United Nations Foundation, have deploying and scaling up digital services technological standpoint to putting in place
signed a joint declaration to accelerate by building shared digital infrastructures proper legislation. Our digital ecosystem
digital transformation and digitalization that will power future innovations centered relies on strong public-private partnerships
of government services, particularly in around citizen needs. “This collaboration which, among other things, is something
low-resource settings The partnership will truly power digital transformation we are also keen on sharing within this
will establish a framework for digital and give governments the chance to partnership and working towards the
cooperation among governments to build and deploy their digital services and Sustainable Development Goals." “One
assist countries in implementing scalable applications in a cost efficient, accelerated of DIAL's main objectives is to connect,
digital services and applications in a and integrated manner," explained Norbert scale and support proven solutions that
cost efficient, accelerated, and integrated Barthle, Parliamentary State Secretary to are necessary for digital transformation
manner. The aim is to scale the framework the German Federal Minister for Economic to be successful," said Kate Wilson, CEO
to global level for all ITU Member States Cooperation and Development (BMZ). of DIAL. “This partnership will support our
to accelerate the achievement of the “Particularly governments in low-resource efforts to do that, expand our existing work
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), settings that have not yet digitized their with ITU, including the Digital Investment
as well as to facilitate the development services will now have the freedom to make Framework, and learn from both Estonia
of transformative and paperless citizen- decisions based on the state of technology and Germany to help other countries
centric services that are accessible and as it is today – cloud, microservices and on their digital transformation journey."
available to all members of society. “In the artificial intelligence – without being held The partnership and the establishment
last few months, digital transformation back by legacy solutions of past decades." of the Sustainable Development Goals
has accelerated at an unprecedented Other goals of the partnership include Digital Platform will be implemented
speed and scale, and governments are on contributing to the work of the international within the framework of the ITU Regional
the frontline," said ITU Secretary-General community to power digital transformation Initiatives for Europe, a citizen-centric
Houlin Zhao. “This new partnership by sharing expertise, guidelines, best approach to building services for national
between ITU, Estonia, Germany and DIAL practices and case studies on relevant administrations.
is an important step in advancing digital topics, and undertaking joint actions, such
government services, in particular in as thematic meetings, capacity building
low-income countries, in support of the
United Nations Sustainable Development
Goals." One of the main goals of the
partnership is to implement a reference
digital government platform, called the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Digital Platform, as a digital public good
based on reusable, standards-driven,
secure and interoperable building blocks
in line with the whole-of-government
approach to building and deploying
digital services and applications. Doreen
Bogdan-Martin, Director of the ITU
Telecommunication Development Bureau
said: “Successful digital transformation
efforts require cooperation across all
actors. ITU welcomes the opportunity to

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