Egm report e-Government and New Technologies: Towards Better Citizen

Session Two: Government Strategies, Perspectives, 

and Capacities for Change 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Session two showcased plans for increasing e-government and citizen engagement 

programmes in Romania and Colombia. The final presentation is this block was a progress 

report from the head of the United Nations University Center for Electronic Government. 

In Romania, only 13 per cent overall or 4.2 per cent of households have access to 

broadband. At the same time mobile broadband is up to 2.5 million subscribers or 11 per cent 

of the population. The government is aware of the need to further develop the infrastructure as 

well as e-Government public services. Following the goals of the European Digital Agenda 

initiative, Romania hopes to ensure access to all broadband services by 2013. Romanian law 

requires that there by public comment on all new government initiatives. And every institution 

is responsible for the interaction with citizens and the civil society.  

Today the Government of Romania is focusing on its eRomania Strategy where the main 

objective is reduce the time it takes for its citizens to be informed and to obtain the documents 

necessary to live and work in Romania and in the EU and to pay his/her duties and taxes. If all 

goes as planned, eRomania and will have approximately 300 on-line services by the end of 

2011 with interconnection and full computerization of the Romanian government and all 

public institutions so that the access of citizen and of the business environment to public 

services should be direct and unlimited. One of the most ambitious goals, e-Romania, 

improves the quality of public administration and the transition from bureaucratic to a 

simplified public administration structure.  

The government is also trying to deal head-on with the digital divide issue. Another 

crucial factor is to provide citizen-oriented digital services in the shortest timeframe.