Image: Canva
Picture the day your first child is born – amid all the excitement of leaving the hospital and learning how to be a new parent, you also need to register for your child’s birth certificate, enroll with a local pediatrician, prepare paperwork for their national insurance, as well as apply for parental leave payments or daycare. A few years ago, all of this could take days. Soon, all this is set to change and be just one click away.
Kosovo is on the cusp of major transformation. As part of its aspirations for European Union membership and efforts to align with EU standards, Kosovo is prioritizing reform of public administration, to make it more modern, efficient, and citizen centric. Kosovo also already has one of the highest levels of connectivity in Europe – every village in Kosovo, including the most remote villages, now has access to high-speed broadband internet – along with remarkably high internet literacy rates. Now Kosovo can put these two together and unleash the potential of digital technology to revolutionize public services and make the lives of its citizens better.
The e-Kosova Portal, the main portal for government services, was launched in 2021, making it possible for people to receive several services online. But progress in ensuring that the portal becomes the main window for providing public services has been slow. There are three underlying principles that are now being applied to improve the portal and provide citizens with integrated services in simple ways.
First, it’s about putting individual citizens at the heart of the approach. That means instead of a system based on how different ministries operate, the system is triggered by a life event, say, the birth of a child, and therefore integrates services related to that which may come under the purview of various ministries, of health, of education, of interior, etc. Estonia’s birth registration, for instance, automatically sets in motion processes to check benefit eligibility and issues them. No longer does the individual have to run around various departments, but rather the power of digital brings them all to you.
Second, it’s about building the foundations for a whole-of-government approach. Today, central and local governments provide over seven hundred services to businesses and citizens, of which only 10 percent are provided online because of limited infrastructure, systems, or skills. Moreover, most of the services available online are provided through individual ministries or agencies that do not coordinate with each other and often run their own data. As a result, Kosovo spends considerable efforts in building and maintaining separate data centers for different ministries and public agencies - an approach that is costly, less efficient, less accessible, and less resilient. Instead of a piecemeal approach to digitalization which leads to uneven access and inadequate quality of services, a whole-of-government approach can help improve efficiencies.
Third, it’s about asking only once to build trust. Today, to receive services citizens must submit physical evidence multiple times, making processes cumbersome, inefficient, and less secure. These shortcomings can also erode citizen’s trust in the political and economic system of the country. Instead, citizens should only have to provide data once and this should be stored in a database and used by government service providers. This also keeps interactions minimal and is ideally set up such that a single application from the individual can activate several related and relevant services. A single interaction triggers the UKs Tell Us Once, for instance, which notifies tax and passport authorities, benefits programs, and so on in the event of a death. Adapting this approach can help make the e-Kosova portal similarly effective.
Applying digital technologies and best practices to e-Kosova is an exciting first step to improving everyday life experiences. It can also unlock many other benefits, including strengthening Kosovo’s digital infrastructure, institutions, and skills. And it can also boost Kosovo’s efforts to combat corruption, improve women empowerment and fight climate change. With support from the World Bank (a concessional loan of $20 million, with a maturity period of 25 years) and after ratification from Kosovo’s parliament, the Strengthening Digital Governance for Service Delivery Project is now about to kick off, with a planned new Integrative Service Center in Pristina being a visible milestone expected ahead soon.
The most exciting milestone will be when a new parent simply clicks a button to welcome their child to the digital Kosovo of the future.
Editor's note: The blog was originally posted as an OpEd in local language in the Kosovo online daily newspaper Koha DItore and online news portal Koha.net.
Join the Conversation