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Favourite mix: social security and e-governance

I’m just back from Tirana (Albania), where together with my colleagues from the e-Governance Academy, I conducted a seminar on information exchange and social security. There is little that could interest me more than the combination of e-government and social security, so this event was both fun and stimulating. The presence of good company, a new city to explore (never had been there), and pleasant weather and atmosphere made it even more satisfying. And, in more ways than one, the whole event was quite important to me.

The seminar was commissioned by the Council of Europe, as an activity under the Social Security Co-ordination And Social Security Reform Programme (SSCSSA), which they run jointly with the European Union. This programme is in some ways a continuation of a previous three-year action, in which I had been involved from the beginning.

This (and the previous) programme is meant to assist countries in South-East Europe (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and Turkey, as well as Kosovo) in further enhancing the regional coordination of the social security systems and facilitating institutional, legislative and administrative reforms in the field of social protection according to EU standards.

I have been quite active in advocating that proper attention be given to the administrative side of social security co-ordination. This, in essence, comes down to building multilateral co-operation structures and organising structured (electronic) information exchange. And that, in turn, is a story if semantic, organisational and technical interoperability.

Under the previous programme, we attempted to set up the basics for such a system, but that interest, for various reasons, did not translate into concrete action – something I have always regretted. With this seminar, the issue is back on the table, and there is a real chance that this activity can lead to creating the necessary awareness on the decision-making level.

That will not happen overnight, of course, but I feel we have made a start now. The challenges are expressed, and there is a sense of urgency and of need that was not there before. A next step – motivating ministers, heads of institutions, horizontal government entities, … to take action, and explaining how this action can be taken – is now plausible.

Apart from that, I was happy to be asked to organise this event for another reason altogether. This was a mission with the e-Governance Academy, the organisation I do most of my work for. The team from eGA is pretty diverse, and together we hold a massive experience on many aspects that have to do with the use of ICT in the business of government.

I had talked with my colleagues about social security before, but it has always been difficult for me to find an opportunity to fully explain the specific issues in the administration of social security systems, let alone in the co-ordination of social security. Indeed, even if the challenges for any government administration are in many ways similar, there are some very different accents and points of attention when it comes to social security and – probably even more specific in this context – social contributions.

Hearing me explaining these topics in the seminar has helped my colleages to better understand that specificity. Which will make it easier for me to draw attention to the theme in my daily job, and to further develop a specific training package on e-governance and social security.

A breakthrough? Let’s hope so. But at the very least a useful experience for all involved.

Tags: Albania, awareness, Council of Europe, e-Governance Academy, information exchange, social security co-ordination

“Waterschap”

The e-Governance Academy had the pleasure of a visit by a group of members of KRIHCIA today, which is the association of chief information officers in Dutch waterboards.

In their own words:

Dutch water boards (in Dutch: “waterschappen” or hoogheemraadschappen) are regional government bodies in the Netherlands. A water board is charged with managing the water barriers, the waterways, the water levels, and the water quality in its region. Water boards are among the oldest forms of in the Netherlands, some of them having been founded in the 13th century.

One of the main goals of KRIHCIA is to share information between the waterboards and co-operate to achieve a stronger position of information management inside and outside the waterboards. To gain information and inspiration, they organized a study visit to Estonia, which, as we know, is a leader in the field of e-governance and employing ICT in the business of government. On the agenda: an introduction to the activities of the e-Governance Academy, talk about e-voting and m-voting, an overview of the underlying infrastructure (the x-road), information about electronic ID-cards and how they can be used for distance identification and digital signatures, and a demonstration visit by a police car, to talk about e-police systems.

Lots of ground to cover in half a day, but I think we did a good job. Most notable, and somewhat surprising to me personally, is that there was a genuine interest towards e-democracy initiatives, such as e-voting (which in the case of Estonia means Internet voting) and citizen participation. It is great to see that these aspects are becoming more and more mainstream, and that e-democracy is gaining a solid foothold in the policy of many countries, governments and organizations.

The visit was especially interesting to me, as I got to introduce the Academy in Dutch – something I don’t often have a chance of doing. It is at times strange to do something in my native language, after I have been working for years in English. But this time it was a great experience, not in the least because of the apparent interest and enthusiasm of the audience.

I should probably have recorded the whole thing, but for those who are interested: here are the slides.

Tags: Dutch, e-Governance Academy, introduction, slideshow, waterschap

Tunisia – World Summit on the Information Society

Location: Tunis (Tunisia)
Position: representative, for the e-Governance Academy
Duration: November 13th to 20th, 2005
Funded by: UNDP (Bratislava Office)

The e-Governance Academy (eGA) attended the WSIS conference and its cluster events in Tunis on the very kind invitation and with the support of the Bratislava office of the UNDP.

Mr. Ivar Tallo, Mrs. Zhanna Pilving and myself represented the Academy at the UNDP/UNIDO pavilion of the ICT4all exhibition, which was one of the big events surrounding the summit. We took the chance to showcase the activities of eGA, and to explain to an interested audience what role promoting the use of ICT in government can play in improving governance and in building open and transparent information societies.

On the square meters next to us, Nicholas Negroponte and his team presented the first prototype of the “One Laptop Per Child” system, which was exciting for all of us. We had been following the news about this project for a while already, and were thrilled to see one first-hand. It wasn’t a fully working prototype, unfortunately, but it wasn’t hard to see its potential.

Needless to say, Mr. Negroponte attracted quite some attention and a steady stream of visitors.

I further had the opportunity to speak at some of the sessions that were organised during the event, and took the opportunity to advocate the idea of an integrated information society and the dissemination of democratic processes using ICT, topics that have been in the mission of eGA since its creation.

Equally important were the many contacts and face-to-face meetings with old and new friends and colleagues, and the visit of The Estonian minister of Telecommunications and Economic Affairs, Mr. Edgar Savisaar, to the eGA stand.

Concrete results of the WSIS conference in Tunis have been bundled in a “golden book”, which is available online. The list of participants can be found here.

Tags: advocacy, e-Governance Academy, information society, WSIS