The UN experts have assessed Russia’s readiness for e-management. According to the recently published E-Government Survey 2008: From E-Government to Connected Governance, the Russian Federation ranks 60th among 192 UN country members, having lost 10 points as compared to the previous survey 2005. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway are in the top-3.
The E-government readiness index is calculated on the basis of development indicators of e-government web-services, telecommunication infrastructure and population readiness for such an innovation. Russia’s score is 0.512, so RF is inferior to Ukraine (41st place) and Byelorussia (56th position), but ahead of China and Saudi Arabia. Among the Eastern Europe countries Russia is on the penultimate place ahead of Moldova. Judging from e-participation of citizens in the state life, Russia is 98th together with Byelorussia, Rwanda and Uzbekistan.
‘Russia’s main problem is provision of state services even the most elementary through e-interaction, - said Sergey Shalmanov, Expert of CNews Analytics. – Only several federal agencies consider documents submitted through their sites in e-form, nevertheless personal presence is necessary for further cooperation. The situation with regional authorities is similar: not all blanks are available in e-form. In more than 90% of cases one should file the documents in person or send them by mail’.
According to Mr. Shalmanov, the Federal Tax Service and Federal Customs Service (e-declaration has been launched by the latter) are the leaders among the Russian agencies. Certain advantages have been achieved in the arbitration court system, i.e. bank of adjudications has been prepared and published, separate courts inform about the date and time of hearings or adjudications passed through e-mail and SMS, etc. But the mentioned separate achievements do not improve the general situation, the system of ‘one window’ working only if an applicant is present in person. ‘In general the state authorities provide only the basic information online. If no changes are made, then Russia will sink lower and lower in such ratings as compared to e-hosing offices in Finland and online interaction with the government in Estonia’, - warns Mr. Shalmanov.
According to the ‘Strategy for information society development in Russia’ of February 7th 2008 approved by the president Vladimir Putin, by 2015 Russia should enter the top-20 in information society development ratings and top-10 in classifications by the level of ICT infrastructure availability.
The projects to facilitate to the mentioned above strategy have already been announced or launched into implementation. Thus, on April 1st the Ministry of Communications plans to launch a united portal to support e-cooperation with the population. One will be able to pay charges and fees and receive ten socially important services through the mentioned portal within this year. According to Minister of Communications Leonid Reiman, by 2015 the citizens will be provided with all public services in e-form. While all Russian households will be connected to broadband internet (up to 128 Kbit/sec) at state rates in the near future within the project ‘Communication to each house’.
In the last year’s rating of readiness to live in information society prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) together with the IBM Institute for Business Value, Russia sank from 52nd position (2006) to 57th. In 2007 e-readiness according to EIU has been calculated for 69 states regarding the level of ICT infrastructure development, business climate, e-literacy, legal support, state policy in ICT and practical use of the mentioned technologies for population and businessmen.
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Quelle/Source: CNews, 03.03.2008
