Dr. Ashwin Sasongko, Director-General of ICT Application at the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (KOMINFO) explains, “Minister of Bureaucratic Reform, Azwar Abubakar, on his visit to Korea three months ago, observed the central importance of e-governance for bureaucratic reform. After discussing with the Minister for ICT, Tifatul Sembiring, they agreed to develop cooperation with Korea on e-governance”.
This e-government partnership with South Korea involves two Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) relating to e-government. In early July, the Ministry of Administrative Reform and Bureaucratic Reform (PANRB) signed an agreement of cooperation for e-government support for bureaucratic reform in Indonesia with the South Korean government.
Under this MoU, Indonesia and Korea agreed to collaborate on public administration to create a more transparent and accountable government. Followed by this, KOMINFO announced a partnership focusing on ICT development in e-governance.
The latter agreement encompasses the exchange of e-government technology and expertise, as well as information on systems and services needed to deliver an effective e-government model to citizens. The two countries will be conducting joint research studies in the field of e-government, and will share their knowledge on trends and best practices.
Explaining the overall direction of the two MoUs, Dr. Sasongko remarked, “One of the main programmes in Indonesia is reform for bureaucracy. We are working with Korea to see how ICT can support e-governance and then, how e-governance can support bureaucratic reform in Indonesia”.
Indonesia has set up an e-government team with a steering committee chaired by the Minister of Bureaucratic Reform and Minister of ICT. “A few days ago, the Korean side proposed to Indonesia to set up a Joint Working Committee between the two countries to discuss in more details possible cooperation in the field”, added Dr. Sasongko.
Out of almost 500 local government units in Indonesia, many have already developed e-governance, albeit to varying extents. For instance, Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city (population of 2.8 million) is setting up e-governance for community services.
KOMINFO also runs the Pemeringkatan e-Government Indonesia (PeGI) programme. Dr. Sasongko said, “This programme reviews each local government’s activities in e-governance to gauge if it is at the beginner or advanced level. This gives us a big picture of the local governments’ development of e-governance”.
Dr. Sasongko said, “One plan is to talk with the local governments and see how the e-governance partnership with Korea can be done together with them, and perhaps, use 1-3 local governments as pilot projects for the partnership”.
The Indonesian e-government team is scheduled to meet in a month to discuss possible opportunities in both the short- and the long-term, and talk with its Korean counterparts as to which particular projects can be done in cooperation with them. The Indonesian team is to finalise, by the end of this year, whether the focus of the partnership will be on short- or long-term programmes, after which it will go ahead with the pilot projects.
South Korea has consistently been at the forefront of e-governance development. The Waseda University Institute of e-Government in Japan ranked South Korea 4th in the world in its annual e-government ranking, and Indonesia 40th.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Medha Basu
Quelle/Source: futureGov, 01.08.2013
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