Since mid-2021, when Covid-19 serious impacted the country, people and businesses in the northern province of Thai Nguyen had to stay home and as a result conducted more than 1,200 online public service requests at level 4 on the provincial public service portal at dichvucong.thainguyen.gov.vn, or the C-ThaiNguyen application. Thai Nguyen was one of the first 10 ministries and provinces that provided all eligible public services online at level 4.

On a national scale, the Ministry of Information and Communications identified one of the important goals of 2021 was to bring all online public services of ministries and localities to level 4. Do Cong Anh, Director of the Authority of Information Technology Application (Ministry of Information and Communications), said as of mid-December 2021 the rate of qualified public services provided online by ministries, agencies and localities at level 4 had reached 96%, approaching the set target.

In the past two years, the pandemic has strongly promoted digital transformation. State agencies have stepped up the provision of online public services to limit direct contact. As a result, in 2020-2021, level 4 online public services made a remarkable development.

Digital transformation also brought about technological conditions for local authorities to simultaneously deploy public services. As the state agency in charge of national digital transformation, the Ministry of Information and Communications has given guidance to ministries and provinces on how to standardize the process of deploying platforms so that they provide online public services quickly and economically.

Creating momentum for digital government

The ministries, state agencies and localities that have provided eligible online public services to the highest level (level 4) has helped fulfill the most basic target of e-Government, creating momentum for the development of digital government.

The Strategy for E-Government Development towards Digital Government in the period of 2021 - 2025 with a vision to 2030 approved by the Prime Minister in June 2021 is the guideline for all actions in the next decade. This strategy sets high goals: a high index for e-Government and digital government development in the world, among the top 50 countries by 2025, and among the top 30 countries by 2030, based on the United Nations rankings.

One of the five main target groups of the digital government roadmap to 2025 is to provide high-quality services to the public. Accordingly, state agencies will reduce, restructure, simplify, standardize and unify administrative procedures on a nationwide scale.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, online public service provision is one of the important indicators for e-Government development as the people are seen as the “center” and the service object of state agencies.

Van Anh

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