Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held a consultative meeting on the digital agenda of the Republic of Armenia and the vision for its implementation.

Opening the meeting, Nikol Pashinyan noted that digitalization is one of the most important tasks set before the Government: “Digitalization is by and large a key component in our citizens’ living standards and in the quality of public services, as well as the most important indicator of statistics and the quality of statistics, in general. We need to discuss how we see the solution to this problem in terms of digitizing individual agencies and services, but what matters most, in terms of their interaction. Unfortunately, there are still digitized platforms that have problems in terms of interaction, that is, one system is not interconnected with another, and problems are being faced in processing information.

We decided that the Ministry of High-Tech Industry will be the authority to set standards, principles of interaction, and formulas. The public system digitalization campaign should abide by this logic, that is, the digitization of individual sectors should be carried out in a way to ensure that different systems interact with each other.

Of course, we should also try to integrate the systems already digitized. This is rather a complex issue, and it is important that digitized and integrated systems be operational, that is, the systems that we need to generate, search, classify and provide the information we need must be accessible and applicable.”

Minister of High-Tech Industry Hakob Arshakyan reported on the implementation of the digital agenda of Armenia. He advised that a digitization strategy has been developed for 2020-2025, the purpose of which is to ensure digital transformation in the government, economy and society.

The Minister presented statistics on the public administration system, the use of digital technologies by the private sector, touched on issues related to digitalization in the state system and the measures envisaged for gradual introduction of digital technologies. According to Mr. Arshakyan, a stock-taking process of digital systems and platforms is underway within public agencies in order to ensure their interaction.

A number of proposals and recommendations were voiced during the exchange of views that followed. Issues related to quality standards, compatibility of existing electronic systems, priorities, the applicable legal framework and electronic departmental systems were discussed.

During the meeting, the strategic vision of public administration reforms was discussed. The reform will be phased out as follows; policy development and coordination, public service and human resources management, provision of public services, accountability and integrity, institutional and functional modernization.

A competitive public administration system is expected as a result of the planned measures. Current and planned programs for the development of e-government tools in Armenia were presented.

The Prime Minister noted that digitization should be carried out in accordance with high quality standards, and instructed to continue work on compatibility of content and technical parameters, ensuring compatibility of systems.

The Head of Government emphasized the importance of informing the public about existing digital platforms and spreading the culture of their use, instructing those responsible to actively work in this direction and to provide comparative statistics on public awareness and the applicability of digital technologies on a semi-annual basis.