The implementation of e-Government should go hand-in-hand with administrative reform rather than become simply an effort at computerisation, Minister of Information and Communications Le Doan Hop told the 6th annual Viet Nam e-Government Symposium in Ha Noi yesterday.
There has been major progress in the e-Government programme in recent years, Hop said, but it remained below Government expectations and needed to be faster.
"Despite the progress achieved, there is still a considerable gap between the development of e-Government in Viet Nam and international standards," he said.
Yesterday’s symposium, under the theme of integrating e-Government and public administration reform in Viet Nam, gathered around 1,000 attendees, including policymakers, IT experts and sponsors.
Reviewing the results of the e-Government programme over the past several years, Hop pointed out such shortcomings as the lack of technical co-ordination, the lack of an overall e-Government structure, and poor network security.
According to Nguyen Thanh Chuc, head of the ministry’s IT Application Department, the implementation of e-Government reached some milestones in 2008: all provinces and cities nationwide now have their own websites and all public-sector employees have their own email addresses.
He said the Government had improved the environment for e-Government by passing new laws on electronic transactions, copyright, and information technology.
According to the UN Public Administration Network (UNPAN) survey for the period of 2005-08, Viet Nam has risen from 107th to 91st in the world in e-Government, below such regional neighbours as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Brunei – but higher than Indonesia.
In the 2007 Viet Nam ICT Outlook Report by the HCM City Computer Association (HCA), the country’s e-readiness rose one level, to 65th out of 69 nations surveyed.
The e-Government development programme, initially named IT2000, debuted in 1998 with a project to develop six national databases. The latest phase of the programme saw the launch of an e-Government portal for the northern province of Lao Cai last week.
Alongside the symposium, organised by the National Steering Committee on Information and Technology and the International Data Group (IDG), an exhibition of technology solutions and products was held with the participation from leading international firms such as Nortel, Cisco and Jasper.
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Quelle/Source: Viet Nam News, 18.12.2008
