The Prime Minister has approved an e-government development strategy towards the digital government in the 2021-2025 period, with a vision to 2030. This is the first time that Vietnam has issued a strategy on developing the e-government, according to a recent press release. Six major viewpoints have been highlighted in the strategy, which serves as directions and orientations for the development of the digital government as well as a digital economy and society in the new period. The first and most important is developing a digital government with safe operations in the digital environment, a redesigned operating model, and operations based on data and digital technology. This will, in turn, help deliver better quality services, make more timely decisions, formulate better policies, use resources more optimally, facilitate development, and effectively address major problems in socio-economic development and management.
The release noted that strategy identifies five key target groups, including:
- Providing high-quality services to society
- Broadening public engagement
- Improving state agency operations
- Effectively address issues in socio-economic growth
- Have a breakthrough change in the national ranking for e-government, e-participation, and open data as assessed by the United Nations.
To realise these targets, the strategy has outlined six groups of national key tasks:
- Improving the legal environment
- Developing digital infrastructure (cloud-first)
- Developing digital platforms and national-scale systems
- Developing national digital data
- Developing national applications and services
- Ensuring the safety and security of the national network
Six groups of corresponding tasks within the scope of ministries and local industries, which emphasize developing online public services based on people’s needs where users only need to provide information once. Some of the core tasks include amending the law on electronic transactions and the law on archives, formulating the law on digital government, and promulgating the government’s decree on electronic identification and authentication.
Other tasks include operating specialised network infrastructure securely, connecting four administrative levels from central to commune level, and building a government cloud computing platform. Under the strategy, the government will develop the National Data Exchange Platform and application platforms on mobile devices for all e-government and digital government services.
The release explained that it will also complete the National Public Service Portal, build the National Data Portal, and build a platform for working and collaborating on the digital environment and a virtual assistant platform. The strategy will develop and complete the government reporting information system, the National Document Communication Axis, and the national bidding network system. Further, it will build a system for analysing and processing big data to ensure national cybersecurity as well as a support system to coordinate and respond to cybersecurity incidents. It will also develop and perfect the government’s specialised digital signature authentication system.
The strategy also outlines the roles and responsibilities of ministries, industries, and local governments in leveraging digital technologies like cloud computing, big data, mobility, the Internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain. The release said that the strategy will create a breakthrough in the development of e-government, contributing to the successful implementation of Vietnam’s digital transformation goals, which are based on three pillars: a digital government, economy, and society.
