E-GOVERNMENT IN VIETNAM: CURRENT STATUS AND SOLUTION: According to latest UN’s e-government ranking, Vietnam’s ranking moved up from 90th position to 83rd position in 2012, and is the 4th in South East Asia after Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei. Most of Vietnam’s assessment criteria are over world’s and regional average. Since the e-government project started, with a role of the country’s leading telecommunication and information technology (IT) group, VNPT has always been pioneering in ensuring connection infrastructure and provision of IT applications to support guidance, operations and information exchange of Party and State agencies. There has been no common definition on “electronic government” (e-government) nor a common model of e-government for all countries. However, we can refer to the UN’s definition given out in 2003 on this. “e-government is a government that applies information technology and communication (ICT) to transform its internal and external relationship” (UNPAN, 2003). Ranking of e-government in ASEAN countries Countries 2012 ranking 2010 ranking 1. Singapore 10 11 2. Malaysia 40 32 3. Brunei 54 68 4. Vietnam 83 90 5. Philippines 88 78 6. Thailand 92 76 7. Indonesia 97 109 8. Laos 153 151 9. Cambodia 155 140 10. Myanmar 160 141 11. East Timor 170 162 In 2012, after more than 10 years of preparation and development of the e-government project, Vietnam has achieved impressive achievements that are reflected via a number of statistics, such as 96,6% of ministerial level organizations have their own website; 100% of provinces and cities have an electronic portal; 83,6% of steering information uploaded to websites (as per IDC’s report on e-government in 2010). After 2 years of development, Vietnam has been having 95,000 online public services being provided at most of state agencies of all levels, from ministerial level to provincial level. A strategic plan on e-government in Vietnam presented at National Agenda on IT application from 2011 through 2020 and a overall program for state administrative reform from 2011 through 2020, stressed on 3 key pillars: (1) Development of ICT infrastructure; (2) ICT application in state agencies, and (3) Development of online public services. Chart of e-government development in Vietnam from 2004 - 2012 Formulation and development of e-government is a foundation for establishment of a national communications infrastructure The first and most important item forming a basis for e-government preparation and development is formulation of a national communication infrastructure to ensure information exchange between agencies in a national administrative system. In February 2004, being trusted by the Party and State, the Central Post and Telecommunication Bureau (the former body of the current Special Post and Telecommunication Bureau), a member business unit of the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (VNPT) was set up with a mission of “supporting dedicated needs on information that are timely, fast, accurate and confidential between the Party Central Committee and the Government with other agencies at all levels”. The Bureau was assigned a task of construction and management of a dedicated data network for party and state agencies with high bandwidth and speed to meet the needs for leadership, guidance and operations of the Party and State to cities and provinces across the nation. In 2007, the Central Posts and Telecommunications Bureau directly deployed the project with 3 main phases. The first phase was on completion of a data communication system from state and party agencies to ministries and people’s committees in cities and provinces. The next phase was deployed in 2009 on perfection of a data communication network from people’s committees of the cities and provinces to provincial departments and districts. The last phase was on extending the network down to communes across the country. The dedicated data network As of today, the dedicated data network for party and state agencies has completed its second phase and officially put in operation with 3 network management centers in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh city with access equipments in ministries, ministerial level organizations and 63 cities and provinces nationwide (inclusive of state and government organizations), providing information to provincial departments and districts. Upon completion of the first phase, there have been 220 business units connected to the dedicated data network, including 92 central level state and party agencies and representatives offices in Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh city; 128 provincial people’s committees and communist party committees in cities and provinces across the nation. The second phase expanded the dedicated data network connections to 3,517 hubs at provincial departments and districts in 63 cities and provinces. According to a survey of 63 provinces and cities, the ratio of agencies who are using the dedicated data network over the total number of implemented sites are 81% in the Northern region, 67% in the central region and 66% in the Southern region. It is expected that, from 2012 through 2014, the dedicated data network will continue to expand to connect 11,000 communes across the nation with a target of having 100% of communes connected to the dedicated data network by 2015, creating a seamless information and communication network from central level down to localities. IT application and online public services are being implemented in various ministries and agencies In addition to construction and operation of the dedicated data network to maintain data communication infrastructure of the party and government bodies, IT applications and online public services have also been implemented in various ministries and ministerial level agencies as well as in cities and provinces across the country. According to IT application report by the Ministry of Information and Communications in 2011, online public services at Level 3 and 4 in cities and provinces under central level have increased significantly after 4 years of implementation. In 2008, there were 6 cities and provinces providing 30 services; in 2009, there were 18 provinces and cities providing 254 Level 3 services; in 2010 there were 38 provinces and cities providing 748 Level 2 services with 01 city providing 03 level 4 services; in 2011, there were 43 provinces and cities providing 829 Level 3 services with 02 cities providing 08 Level 4 services. In order to accelerate information and online public service provision, on June 13th 2011, the government passed Decree No. 43/2011/NĐ-CP on information and public service provision on electronic information pages or portals of state agencies. The Decree conformed that: “Information published on a state agency’s portal is official information of the state agency in the cyberspace”. (Ratio of cities and provinces under central government providing Level 3 and 4 online public services) In March 2009, VNPT supported the first government online meeting via a video conferencing system, between the Premier Minister, Vice Ministers and leaders of 63 provinces and cities across the country. The group also provided an IT application system to support report consolidation for the government regular meetings. This is a significant event, showing determination of the Party and State in acceleration of formulation and development of e-government. Some of the issues that need to be addressed While having certain achievements, IT application and online services are still facing a number of issues that need to be addressed. First and foremost, it is the problem of online security and protection of IT systems. In a random assessment of 100 websites under "gov.vn" domain name by the Vietnam Information Security Association (VNISA), up to 78% of the websites can be hacked to be de-faced or broken down anytime. More specifically, among over 3,690 vulnerabilities discovered in the 100 "gov.vn" websites, there are 489 critical vulnerabilities (accounting for 13%), 396 serious vulnerabilities (accounting for 11%) and 2,812 medium/low vulnerabilities (accounting for 76%). Of which, there are 2,012 vulnerabilities on web applications and 1,685 vulnerabilities on system applications. Currently, there have been only around 35% of agencies that built and applied policies on information security. There are still many vulnerabilities on state agency websites and portals without proper information security measures to protect them. To fix the issue, the agencies need to adopt a multi layered security infrastructure together with issuance, training and monitoring legal regulations and procedures on information security. In addition, the popularization and encouragement of citizens to make use of online public services have not reached a large number of citizens. A report of a survey by the Ministry of Information and Communications on frequent computer and Internet users shows that the number of people who use online public services accounts for 41% while the number of users who do not use the services accounts for 58.5%. Of which, over 25% do not know about online public services; 17.9% do not like the services; 16.5% prefer to have face-to-face interactions with state agencies; 14.6% do not trust online public service processing and 12.3% worry about personal data security and confidentiality. Solutions The above statistics show that, in the time to come, it is very critical to provide more convenient services with encouragement and guidance for citizens to use IT applications and online public services. No. Reasons for not using online public services Rates in 2011 1 Do not know about online public services 25% 2 Know, but do not know where to go 4.2% 3 Do not like the online public services 17.9% 4 Prefer to have direct face-to-face meetings 16.5% 5 Slow Internet connections 1.4% 6 Do not trust the processing of online public services 14.6% 7 Worry about personal data security in an online environment 12.3% Reasons for citizens to stay away from online public services After more than 10 years of implementation, e-government in Vietnam has made significant steps forwards in terms of infrastructure, technology, application and content. For the next period from 2011 through 2015, the objectives of e-government should focus on ensuring a technical infrastructure to meet IT application into state agency operations across the nation; construction of a national information system; completion of dedicated vertical information systems at national level to provide services to citizens and enterprises; effective implementation and synchronous orientation with common agreement on IT application in state agencies. To realize this objective, it is critical to have a close cooperation between the government, citizens and enterprises under a motto of “citizen centric under government guidance and enterprise execution”. (Source: Intelligentmedia.vn ) About Intelligentmedia We are a government-endorsed agency who helps overseas organizations looking to invest or increase their presence in the Vietnamese market. We have strong contacts with Vietnamese government bodies, foreign embassies, ministries, private sector companies and NGOs within the country and we provide advisory and market support to our customers. You can order our unique publications and research reports in order to keep up with the latest changes as well as conduct customized research & analysis about Vietnamese telecom & IT, Healthcare, Education, Trade & Investment sectors. If you are in need of market surveys, relation-building or market entry/improvement, we are committed to help you and deliver most effective results. It is our mission to satisfy all clients! Contact: [email protected]/reportvn11@gmail Hotline: (+84)934461633 Website: intelligentmedia.vn
Posted on: Sun, 09 Jun 2013 02:37:45 +0000
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