Five-year eGovernment Strategy in the Pipeline

ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia has begun preparing an e-Government Strategy and a corresponding Enterprise Architecture in a bid to offer user-friendly digital services to its citizens.

The Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MoTI) is leading the strategy development project with the technical support of the European Union.

The project, launched on Thursday, aims at preparing a five-year e-Government strategy.

This comes nearly a year after Ethiopian lawmakers ratified the Electronics Transaction Proclamation. The law provides a legal framework for undertaking electronic transactions and digital business operations as well as providing electronic government services.

‘Making service delivery effective’

Authorities say the eGovernment Strategy will be developed in line with the vision of empowering citizens to be a part of the digital economy.

“The ultimate goal of this project is to enable the Government of Ethiopia to be more efficient, result oriented, and to provide citizen-centered, secure, and integrated e-governance services,” MoIT Minister Belete Mola said.

The project is expected to conduct first a “rigorous baseline assessment” to study the scope, achievements, and limitations of previous strategies or plans.

The strategy will then be designed with the view of establishing effective delivery of government services to citizens, businesses, and others in Ethiopia.

Apart from MoIT, the project will involve other ministries, departments, and agencies to have an active role in shaping the strategy and roadmap.

Sanne Willems, Team Leader from the EU Delegation to Ethiopia, urged for “strong collaboration” of all concerned entities to make the strategy a success.

Its effective implementation, she said, will enable the government to make its service delivery inclusive and transparent.

The EU is backing the e-government strategy preparation as a part of its 10-million-Euros technical assistance program.

The program supports authorities’ regulatory reforms, the establishment of e-governance systems, and public-private dialogue.

The EU will remain steadfast in supporting Ethiopia to achieve its goals of improving the business environment and investment climate, the EU’s team leader added.