IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

According to the Kazakh Ministry of Communication and Information, the volume of e-services rendered to the citizens of Kazakhstan e-government is continuing to grow.

To date, the portal has issued 8.67 million electronic certificates with about 800 thousand Kazakhstan citizens possessing digital signatures.

Mortgage services are now available in the real estate government database online in Kazakhstan. This was announced in July by Kazakh Minister of Digital Development, Innovations and Space Industry Bagdat Mussin.

People now can apply for a mortgage online without going to the banks and collecting documents offline. The project has been launched in cooperation with the Freedom Finance Bank since July 1. Digitized homebuying is the next step, starting with the registration of rights and ending with the registration of withdrawal from the pledge in August.

In a statement Wednesday, MyEG said its first overseas venture would leverage on its experience in delivering online government services in Malaysia to help NIT build Kazakhstan's national information technology infrastructure.

The signing ceremony, witnessed by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak Tun Razak, who is on a four-day official visit to Kazakhstan, and his counterpart Karim Massimov, was held in conjunction with the World Islamic Economic Forum.

MYEG, which is Malaysia’s e-government services provider since 2000, intends to leverage its extensive local experience to assist NIT in building the Kazakhstan national information technology infrastruture.

MYEG executive chairman Datuk Dr Norraesah Mohamad said she was excited by the opportunities presented by this collaboration, given that it marked the company’s first venture overseas.

The signing was witnessed by Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak, and Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, RH Karim Massimov in conjunction with the World Islamic Economic Forum.

“We are excited by the opportunities presented by this collaboration, given that it marks our first venture overseas. We hope that this mutually-beneficial venture would result in a substantial source of additional revenue from overseas for MYEG and diversify our earnings base in the long run,” said executive chairman of MYEG, Datuk Dr Norraesah Mohamad.

Academics from the Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Public Policy were involved in leading a three-day workshop in Astana in February in partnership with the Universities of Exeter and Edinburgh from the United Kingdom. Funding for The Learning in Governance and Innovations in Public Services workshop was secured through a grant from the Newton–Al-Farabi Partnership Programme, a new bilateral U.K.-Kazakhstan programme coordinated by Kazakhstan’s Science Fund and the British Council.

The forum was aimed at early-career researchers in political science, public policy, management and international relations both from the U.K. and Kazakhstan. It was led by a team of international public policy scholars: Dr. Claire Dunlop and Prof. Claudio Radaelli from the University of Exeter, Dr. Tony Kinder from the University of Edinburgh and Prof. Neil Collins and Dr. Saltanat Janenova from Nazarbayev University. More than 56 researchers and practitioners, including 15 from the U.K. and 46 from Kazakhstan, participated in the symposium.

Under the latest census of the country's population, only 55 percent of the people use the personal computer," Masimov said.

The electronic government service, eGov.kz offers 235 services on its website and it has provided 200 million public services to the citizens of Kazakhstan over the past seven years. The number of its online users has increased by 650 times. In 2009, only 10,960 users were registered in eGov.kz. However, there are more than seven million users receiving public services through the website today. Meanwhile, a new service called Telegram Bot has been launched for users’ convenience. The Telegram Bot allows users to receive four most popular services via Short Message Service (SMS). These services include document on proof of address, document on an individual’s participation in other legal entities, criminal record information as well as the presence or absence of real estate.

Smart city technologies are being introduced in the country’s five largest cities – Aktobe, Almaty, Astana, Karaganda and Shymkent – as part of the Digital Kazakhstan programme, said Minister of Information and Communications Dauren Abayev at a Dec. 26 government meeting.

The concept is designed to improve the efficiency of all city services, as people and their needs lie at the heart of its mission. Comfort, safety, efficiency and environmental friendliness are the key characteristics of smart cities.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (MOLIT), which is officially accompanying President Yoon Suk-yeol on his state visit to three Central Asian countries – Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan – has agreed to expand existing construction and infrastructure cooperation with resource-rich Turkmenistan to include new areas such as new towns and smart cities. Additionally, they aim to strengthen collaboration in transportation sectors, including aviation and railways.

Given Turkmenistan's abundant natural gas resources, which rank fourth in the world in reserves, it is expected to commission large-scale plant construction projects to expand production. Both countries are also signing various agreements to concretize this cooperation.

South Korea promoted its electronic government solutions in Kazakhstan Wednesday as part of efforts to tap into a mammoth state project to digitalize public administration in the central Asian country.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety here said Vice Minister Shim Bo-kyun attended a "Digital Kazakhstan" event in Astana at the invitation of the Kazakh government.

This week, TalTech and advanced Estonian companies will introduce in Kazakhstan their experience in digitalisation and the impact of the e-state on the economy and society in general. On 12 March, an international forum will take place on the initiative of Estonians in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, called ‘Digitisation: the Estonian experience’, where the Kazak public sector and representatives of companies will discuss the impact of the e-state and digital solutions on economic development and the use of Estonia’s success story in the programme ‘Digital Kazakhstan’.

The World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization (WeGO) has opened three new regional offices in Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emirates, Almaty of Kazakhstan and Cuenca of Ecuador to propel global smart city cooperation initiatives.

The organization will introduce achievements and goals of these new regional offices during its annual conference to be held at the Seoul Global Center on Tuesday.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated efforts to integrate electronic patient records into healthcare facilities across Kyrgyzstan

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, some Eurasian nations were better prepared than others to respond to the crisis and ensure the delivery of essential public services-including healthcare and education. The key differentiator was their level of digital resilience. Estonia, a country that brands itself as 'the first fully digital republic' has the world's most advanced e-government along with a dynamic start-up community. Right at the onset of the pandemic, the government launched a global hackathon to incubate and scale practical solutions. Estonia's digital responses to COVID-19 were successful because of the country's digital maturity, including lessons learned from past experience.