Current trends in e-government development were discussed by representatives of countries of the region at the international workshop on May 30-31, 2019 in Tashkent. The event was co-organized by the Astana Civil Service Hub and Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan in the framework of the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Learning Alliance on e-Government development.

Mr. Alikhan Baimenov, Chairman of the Steering Committee of Astana Civil Service Hub and Mr. Rustam Kasimov, State Advisor to the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Rector of the Academy of Public Administration under the President of Republic of Uzbekistan delivered welcoming remarks to participants.

Alikhan Baimenov in his opening speech noted that electronic technologies help to the state apparatus to raise the dialogue with citizens and improve the quality of public services to a new level.

Rustam Kasimov stressed the importance of holding such a joint workshop for the countries of the region, particularly for Uzbekistan, which plans to adopt the national concept of the digital economy and introduce the “Digital Uzbekistan – 2030” program. “In this context, opinion and recommendations of the experts would be useful to supplement and introduce new directions in the concept of the country's digitalization”, he emphasized.

During the workshop, participants exchanged experiences on the introduction of digital technologies in public administration, particularly, the use of integrated services, open data, electronic public participation. The participants also discussed the issues of building a network of experts, expanding areas of cooperation and capacitating civil servants through the P2P learning principle in the framework of the Alliance. The Alliance is developed based on the P2P Learning Guide of the Effective Institutions Platform (EIP), which is founded in the OECD Secretariat.

The event was attended by leading experts of the Alliance on e-government, namely from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Estonia and the OECD, as well as practitioners from several government departments and research centers of Uzbekistan, researchers and students of the Academy.

To date, the Astana Hub has created two P2P Learning Alliances. The P2P Learning Alliance on Public Service Delivery, which includes practitioners from Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan, was launched in 2016. Last year, the second “P2P Learning Alliance on e-government development” was created. The participants of this Alliance are experts from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and the OECD.