Significant breakthrough: Baku, Ankara integrate e-government portals Review by Caliber.Az

Eighteen years ago the implementation of the state programme "Electronic Azerbaijan" aimed at connecting with the global information society started in the country. The interactive information system e-gov - a unified portal of e-government, which has become a driving force for the development of the structure of public administration and social innovations, has been functioning in the country for ten years now. The system is being actively developed, and replenished with new features and capabilities, including the formation of the "Government Cloud" (G-Cloud) in order to improve the efficiency and cyber security of government information resources. At the same time, the integration of the Azerbaijani e-gov portal with the Turkish e-devlet is underway, and new features of such integration will be presented today, September 1, in Türkiye.

The e-government development centre has been operating under the State Agency for Services to Citizens and Social Innovations (ASAN xidmət) under the President of Azerbaijan since 2018, and the system it manages allows providing information and a package of public services to citizens, businesses, and other branches of government in a non-contact form. Today more than 700 electronic services of all ministries and most state agencies of the country are integrated into a single portal of e-government (www.e-gov.az). Various services in the public utility sector, housing privatisation, business, and the fiscal sphere are in great demand among the population, including the business community. Thus, the number of registrations on the portal e-gov in the middle of last year exceeded 1.3 million, and the number of users of the innovative portal myGov exceeds 2.4 million. Moreover, e-government portal services are available not only in an online format, but it is possible to visit about 25 centres of ASAN and receive similar services offline (for example, in regions with limited access to the Internet).

A key advantage of the development of the e-government portal has been the markedly increased possibilities for civil control over the activities of public authorities. The latter is important as it helps to prevent bureaucratic delays in the activities of commercial and public organisations and ensures greater anti-corruption transparency. Efficiency, transparency, high speed of service, and other achievements of the domestic e-government system have been repeatedly recorded by authoritative international organizations, including the UN in the E-Government Survey ratings. Moreover, for several years in a row, our country has taken a strong position in the post-Soviet space on the "index of e-government development" and the "index of electronic participation" (E-Participation).

The possibilities of the portal are constantly expanding and its structure is being modernised. Not so long, the ASAN Login project was launched for single authorisation on all government portals of Azerbaijan, and at the end of 2020 a single electronic document management project for all state structures of the country was developed. Last year the Centre also prepared the project of the regional digital executive power, thanks to which services of over 79 local executive authorities will be provided in an online format.

In addition to other aspects, the e-government development centre aims to implement the best international practices, to coordinate the activities of the national e-government system with those of similar services of friendly countries. The first successful step in this direction was the cooperation of the Azerbaijani Centre with the Office for Digital Transformation and other relevant Turkish structures, thanks to which the domestic e-gov portal has been integrated with the e-government portal of Türkiye - e-devlet. "On September 1, a presentation of the capabilities of integrated Azerbaijani and Turkish e-government portals will be held in Türkiye during the Teknofest festival. This means that if a citizen of Azerbaijan is requested a document issued by the state body of Azerbaijan during a visit to Türkiye, he will be able to get it through the portal e-devlet, respectively, the Turkish citizens will have similar access to services through e-gov," Ulvi Mehdiyev, chairman of the State Agency for Services to Citizens and Social Innovations under the President, said. The head of the state agency stressed that this is a very serious step that significantly expands the capabilities of e-government portals in the two countries.

It is noteworthy that the integration of e-government systems is not the only area where successful Azerbaijani-Turkish cooperation in the digitalisation of state administration and the economy has been established as part of the transition to the 4th industrial revolution. Turkish partners support the development of Azerbaijan's start-up ecosystem, participate in the creation of smart cities and villages in the liberated territories, in the implementation of IoT systems in the municipal and business sectors, as well as in the development of innovations in Industry 4:0. Partnership with Turkish, Israeli, European and other specialists is envisaged in the field of cyber protection of state information resources, including those integrated into the e-government system.

In particular, it is about creating the Government Cloud (G-Cloud) and providing cloud services to the public, private, and, in the future, foreign entities through large DATA centres. The purpose of the centralised G-Cloud system was to improve the efficiency of the formation, storage, maintenance, and integration of state information systems and reserves. The implementation of the Government Cloud project will ensure reliable operation of state information systems, deployment of their infrastructure, and the formation of unified standards.

Actually, according to this principle, the entire architecture of state server structures has been built in Azerbaijan in recent years, in particular, DATA centers that meet the requirements of the Uptime Institute TIER III operate in Baku and Yevlakh. Moreover, it even hosts cache-servers of the Facebook social network, and Google search engine and has content delivery to neighbouring countries - Georgia, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. However, the involvement of domestic DATA centres in the sphere of transit, export functions, and their participation in providing services on the international market is still insignificant.

Unfortunately, in Azerbaijan some public and private entities still try not to use cloud storage of DATA centres, creating their own server schemes. Such duplication of functions leads to unjustified waste of funds and complicates operational processes, forcing to maintain a large staff of system administrators and cybersecurity officers in each government agency or a private company, etc. But even this does not always save information sites and server databases from massive hacker attacks.

Recently, however, against the backdrop of increasing cyber threats in the world, the situation is radically changing, comes the understanding that with the implementation of the project "Government Cloud", the centralisation of government information resources in a common database within a single platform, government agencies will be able to reduce the considerable cost of managing information resources. The uniqueness of cloud technology lies in the fact that it saves resources and allows for more efficient management of IT infrastructure from a single platform based on the "basin principle". According to international practice, the states that have switched to centralised cloud technologies save 25-30% on IT costs. At the same time, their protection against cyber-attacks is simplified and cheaper, and coordination between government organisations is improved, including in the e-services provided in the e-government portal.

Today, the work on the creation of the Government Cloud is nearing its final stage: according to AzInTelecom LLC, a unit of the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport (MDTD), which oversees the G-cloud project, Azerbaijan uses the experience of advanced countries such as the US, UK, Turkey, Norway, Ireland, and Estonia to form cloud services. It is working out a long-term strategy of development of concept G-cloud meeting modern standards, as well as the transfer of information systems of 36 government agencies to the cloud. Last year for these and other purposes it was allocated AZN 17 million from the budget and this year it is planned to provide AZN 9 million. The funds will be directed to the purchase of appropriate licenses, creation of G-Cloud and technical support for the structures already connected to the system, etc. In the same context, steps have been taken to diminish the costs and enhance the performance of the government informational systems, as well as to ensure better security, stability, and sustainability of the IT infrastructure. Among other things, the project plans to create an operational coordination centre and a monitoring service that will operate 24/7.