At the Global e-Government Forum 2014 held in Astana on October 7-8, international experts worked out a number of recommendations on e-Government development. These recommendations will shortly be passed to UN for inclusion in the UN member states (192 states) development plan for 2015 to 2025.

In the Forum, with its subject: “Smart Management for Sustainable Development: New Partnership Opportunities in Networked Society”, the statesmen, scholars and lead ICT experts from 79 countries took part. At the plenary session, the United nations Deputy Secretary-General U Hun-Bo and Kazakhstan Prime Minister Karim Massimov spoke, emphasizing the event’s importance for exchange of experience among multiple countries’ experts and government agencies .

At the panel sessions, the following subjects were discussed: “Smart Government’s Trends and Challenges”, “Strategic Aspects of Smart Government Implementation”, “Providing Multi-Channel Access to Public Services”, “Involving Citizens in Public Administration”, “Bridging Digital Divide”, “Open Data and Open Government”, “E-Services Evolution” , etc.

Within the Forum, the research/practice conference, “Smart Government: Science and Technology” was held, and also the exhibition of Kazakhstan government agencies’ information systems where 28 projects were exposed.

On October 7, there was the ceremony of United Nations’ awarding the countries that have demonstrated considerable e-Government achievements for the past two years. UN’s awards were distributed as follows:

In the nomination: “Top-Grade e-Government Rating”, South Korea occupied the first position, the second one was given to Australia, and the third - to Singapore.

In the nomination: “Prominent Progress in e-Government Development”, the winner was Bahrain, the second position was occupied by Japan, and the third – by Spain.

In the nomination: “Top Index of Regional e-Government”, the winners were: in Africa – Tunisia; in America – the US; in Asia – South Korea, in Europe – France, and in Oceania – Australia.

In the nomination: “Global e-Participation Index”, there were two winners: the Netherlands and South Korea победителя: Нидерланды и Южная Корея.

In the nomination: “Top e-Government Index in Special Group of Countries”, among land-locked countries – Kazakhstan was the winner, among small island developing countries – Singapore, and among the least developed countries - Rwanda.

Representatives from countries that occupy the leading positions in UN e-Government rating, in their speeches at panel sessions and in answering the journalists’ questions, pointed to Kazakhstan’s great success.

“Indeed, the e-Government development dynamics in Kazakhstan is impressive. Especially, what attention is given by government to service delivery in electronic format by not only government agencies to private sector or in business-to-business segment, but also among

agencies, and to the implementation of electronic workflow”, Managing Director of Singapore Infocomm Development Authority Jacqueline Po said.

“Kazakhstan authorities have a clear-cut vision of trends in e-Government development for a long-term period, I would say, the great political will to do what was planned. This is one of the essential factors for successful implementation of the goals set”, General Director of e-Government Authority of Bahrain Zakariyah Al Khoja thinks.

“Kazakhstan e-Government will evolve as the best e-Government worldwide, we will watch this very soon”, First Deputy Minister of Public Administration and Security of South Korea Bak Gyurng Gug said.

According to Canadian independent expert, Chairman of the Board of Global Industry Council, the winner of over 50 national and international awards Stephen Ibaraki, Kazakhstan’s experience in implementing digital signature could be implemented in Canada as well.

“Digital signature is currently being actively implemented in multiple countries, and it is widely used in Canada as well. However, I’d like to emphasize that Kazakhstan has taken a leap in this area, too, and there are some things that we could use in Canada. You have what we do not have. In particular, e-services: enrolment in education institution using digital signature, setting up a business, and processing the queries on no criminal record. Such sort of e-services have not yet been implemented in Canada, and these are things we could learn from Kazakhstan”, he said in the interview to journalists.

In pointing out the favorable environment for IT development in Kazakhstan, Stephen Ibaraki on the sidelines of the Forum stated that the country has reached already the level where it can successfully replicate the implemented technologies in the neighboring countries of Central Asia region.

In confirmation to that, Kazakhstan authorities in charge of ICT industry stated at the Forum that Kazakhstan is ready to become a Center of Excellence for Central Asian countries, as well as to establish joint research centers with other states.

“We must establish regional centers of excellence which would enable the countries with similar situations to unite and share knowledge and experience. We are ready to be a center of competence and expertise in our region, Central Asia”, Vice Minister of Investments and Development Askar Zhumagaliyev said at the Ministerial Round Table within the Forum.

It should be reminded that Global e-Government Forum had been held since 2012. In the first two years, it was hosted by South Korea which is the leader in e-Government development. Kazakhstan got the right to host this large-scale event thanks to its achievements in ICT and e-Government, which was noted by international ratings many times. Thus, in UN’s e-Government Survey this year, the Republic of Kazakhstan occupied the 28th position among 193 countries worldwide, having improved its indicators by 10 positions as compared to 2012 (assessment is made every 2 years).

Today, through e-Government, Kazakhstan citizens can obtain over 570 services. All license4s are issued solely in electronic format, and before the year-end, the process of automation of permission documents will be completed.

On the egov portal, over 2.6 million users have been registered, which amounts to almost 30% of Kazakhstan’s economically active population. Annually, the portal is accessed 47 thousand times in average.

In 2014, Kazakhstan started developing Mobile Government. As part of the Project, 50 most popular public services will be migrated to the mobile platform this year. Moreover, the support of multiple technologies will be realized, such as SMS, USSD, Push notices, WAP, mobile apps, GPS navigation, etc.

One of the novelties to be implemented in 2015 is digital signature recorded to telephone’s SIM-card. Digital signature embedded in SIM-card will allow obtaining services regardless of the model of phone, the only thing you need to do is to change the SIM-card.