Webinar on Effective Public Service Delivery and E-Governance: The Case of Azerbaijan

The CAREC Institute, jointly with IsDB and ADB, delivered a webinar on best practices of e-governance on 10 November 2021. This webinar featured the case of Azerbaijan and its public-private partnership called Azerbaijan Service and Assessment Network (ASAN) which provides 140 services by 11 public organizations, 180 services by 30 private organizations, and which was modeled after Estonia’s e-government platform.

It was shared at the webinar that ASAN serves the citizens through eight characteristic of good governance, namely: rule of law, equitability and inclusiveness, participation, consumer orientation, accountability, responsiveness, transparency, effectiveness, and efficiency. In nearly three years of operation, ASAN has handled 47 million applications establishing standards and work principles, eliminating conflict of interest and duplications. It employs 2,000 youth and processes 31,000 daily applications through a single window approach.

ASAN has been recognized at the United Nations Public Service Forum and Awards Ceremony in 2019. Today, work is ongoing on the ASAN association to champion the south-south cooperation which includes so far Azerbaijan, Turkey, Indonesia, Morocco, Montenegro, Uganda, Afghanistan, and United Arab Emirates.

Further, ADB’s Seok-Yong Yoon spoke about ADB’s digitalization projects, and the importance of both physical and institutional aspects. He highlighted that a digital ID is a foundation for any e-service, and stressed the importance of contextual and localized approaches.

Qaisar Abbas and Ghulam Samad from the CAREC Institute research division shared findings of the Institute’s recent research on e-commerce and COVID-19 impact on MSME in selected CAREC countries. After which Azerbaijan’s State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations shared best practices of their ABAD program which started in 2016 to support family businesses.

On the second day, the webinar focused on technical needs of the relevant authorities from the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan to understand their capacity development requirements in the fields of digital development and e-governance. The findings of the technical discussion led to the formulation of a “reverse linkage” intervention. Further, the participants discussed potential opportunities in the mentioned fields, also SME development.