The UN Development Program released its report entitled "E-Governance in Azerbaijan: UNDP's contribution to promoting transparency and accountability in public administration" in Baku on Thursday. Minister for communications and information technologies Ali Abbasov said in his opening speech that electronic public administration greatly contributes to fighting corruption and setting up new mass media in the country. He said e-governance projects have a measurable impact in bringing about reform of Azerbaijan's public sector. The first long-term evaluation of e-government in the country reveals positive trends in greater "transparency and accountability" in the public service. The evaluation, the first of its kind in the CIS region, is based on UNDP's seven-year commitment to ICT programming in the public sector. The UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative Marco Borsotti said both negative and positive developments have been observed in the development of communication technologies in Azerbaijan. Borsotti said ICT have become an important instrument in Azerbaijan. Automation of the processes does not eliminate the lack of transparency and corruption but reduces the tendency of some individuals to this, he said.
The author of the report Rafal Rohozinski, an independent consultant and director of the Advanced Network Research Group, Cambridge Security Program, said transparency is mostly observed in the public sector. The $14 billion project implemented at the State Committee on Student Admission, State Customs Committee, Foreign Ministry and State Agency for Metrology, Patents and Standards, positively affected the quality of the work done, he said. Rohozinski highly assessed the government's role in the ICT development, emphasizing the importance of the country's joining international conventions on fighting corruption. The expert also said positive changes are at risk unless the government continues its commitment to overall reform. "Corruption remains a challenge in the public sector, and unless reforms continue to deepen, the risk is that the positive changes will stagnate or reverse," he said. Rohozinski added that overall, the report says that the potential for positive development in Azerbaijan 'is good', as recent studies suggest that on a global level 85% of all e-government projects end in either full or partial failure.
Quelle: AzerNews, 13.10.2005
