Institute of the Information Society acted as co-organizer of the Roundtable “Digital Development in Russia”.

On April 12, 2016 the World Bank in cooperation with the Analytical Center for the Government of the Russian Federation and the Institute of the Information Society organized Roundtable “Digital Development in Russia”.

The opening event was attended by Deputy Minister of Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation Alexey Kozyrev. Konstantin Noskov, Director of the Analytical Center for the Russian Government and Andras Horvai, Director and Permanent Representative of the World Bank in the Russian Federation presented welcoming speeches to the participants of the event.

In the course of the first session the World Development Report (WDR) - the World Bank's major analytical edition, published since 1979, was presented. Every year, the report reveals an actual topic of interest to the social and economic development. The theme of the Report 2016 is “Digital Dividend”. Over the 37-year history of the WDR, this is the first report devoted entirely to the role of ICT in the socio-economic development. The presentation of the report was made by Deepak Mishra, Lead Economist, Co-Director of the World Bank's Department for International Development. He noted that digital technology was spreading quickly and widely in the developing world. However, the perceived benefits of the use of technology for the socio-economic development do not always meet the expectations. Digital technologies stimulate economic growth, create new opportunities and improve the quality of services, but it is necessary still to do much so that those benefits were equitably distributed among the population.

In the discussion Juan Navas-Sabater, Leading expert in the field of ICT policy of the World Bank; Yuri Hohlov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Institute of the Information Society; Iliya Dimitrov, authorized person of the President of the Russian Federation on protection of the rights of entrepreneurs; Evegeniy Zinder, CEO of “FOSTAS” Foundation; Alexander Ryabushko, Deputy Director of the Information Policy Department of the Ulyanovsk Region, and others.

The second session was held to discuss the report “Digital Government: Perspectives for Russia”, prepared by the experts of the World Bank and the Institute of the Information Society. Main authors of the report - Andrew Stott, an international expert of the World Bank, and Yuri Hohlov were the speakers.

Summarizing 20 years of e-government development in the UK, Andrew Stott shared the thought that e-government in this country has not met expectations and the many billion dollars investment was not worth it. 40% of the population use e-government services, but only 4% of the population make transactions when using the services.

Yuri Hohlov said that in recent years Russia has made significant progress in the implementation of the current e-government concept including provision of public and municipal services in electronic form in parallel to the other channels. Achievements also include establishment of multifunctional centers and a single portal of public services, which is functioning now; formation of a system for interagency electronic document circulation; development of basic state information resources (national database); provision of common services, such as identification and authentication, and information from payment systems.

Over the years, e-government is making a major contribution to the solution of these problems. Nevertheless, in many countries - even those that are regarded as leaders in the field of e-government - the potential of transformation and full “digitization” of services often remains unfulfilled. E-government leaders are now moving to the next stage of transformation of the services, so-called “digital government”. Based on the investment and transformation made during the previous stages of e-government formation, this stage involves provision of services fully in a digital format from request of the services at a portal to their implementation and achievement of such a situation, when the departmental processes rely mainly on data and not on documents.

However, the level of use of many electronic services remains rather narrow. Technological advances are not always backed up by changes in administrative regulations or the regulatory framework needed to ensure that their potential was fully realized. Solutions to ensure interoperability have improved the quality of interagency cooperation, but did not make electronic services much more user-friendly. Internal administrative processes are still insufficiently digitized.

The report was prepared to assist the Government of the Russian Federation in the development and implementation of projects designed to solve the aforementioned problems, as well as further development of digital government. It contains high-level recommendations that take into account the realities of Russia and the advanced world experience. The report gives the following recommendations for consideration by the Government of the Russian Federation:

• preparation of the updated digital government development strategy of until 2020 based on best practice;
• ensuring the transformation of administrative processes based on the principle of “digital by default”;
• construction of new infrastructure for the implementation of digital government;
• creation of clear and integrated institutional mechanism to develop strategy and control over its implementation;
• addressing “digital inclusion” (involvement in the use of digital technologies and services), taking into account geographical and demographic peculiarities of Russia.

In the discussion of the report “Digital Government: Perspectives for Russia” Eugene Zinder, CEO of “FOSTAS” Foundation; Ryabushko Alexander, Deputy Director of the Information Policy Department of the Ulyanovsk Region; Sergey Kuchin, Minister of Information Technologies, Communications and Mass Media of Nizhny Novgorod Region; Tatiana Ershova, General Director of the Institute of the Information Society; Ivan Dubrovin, Chief of Department of the Interagency Interaction System of the Ministry of Communications of the Russian Federation; Anna Korobova, Deputy Head of the Economy and the Long-term Development Department of the Prefecture of Zelenograd Administrative District of Moscow, who oversees the sphere of information technologies, and others participated.

Tatiana Ershova stressed that the when implementing the recommendations contained in the report three aspects that pose serious challenges for Russia must be taken into account: a vast territory of the country, an aging population and a poor business climate. In view of this, strategy of the development of digital government in Russia will require:

• determining appropriate approaches and technologies to ensure the connectivity and provision of digital services in the difficult to access settlements;
• taking measures to ensure digital inclusion of pensioners, who now make up one-third of Russia's population, including the use of the existing infrastructure and capabilities of Sberbank of Russia and social services centers;
• political will aimed at creating favorable conditions for business development in the country.

The roundtable was attended by the IIS workers: Louisa Rizmanova, Director of Department of International Cooperation and Public Relations; Vladimir Kondratiev, Chief Specialist of the Directorate of the Regional Programs; analysts of the Directorate of the Regional Programs Alexander Katin and Vasiliy Pitul; managers Olga Kopyova and Vladimir Gorbunov.