“In the digital era, public administration must follow the modern development trends and transform itself, in order to truly be at the service of its citizens and the economy. The Local eGovernment Index shall serve to assess the current situation and to position cities and municipalities on the map of digital development of Serbia, i.e. to identify those local self-governments which require additional support in this process,” the State Secretary of MDULS, Čedomir Rakić, has said in his address on behalf of Minister Aleksandar Martinović, PhD, at the final conference of the project “Establishing the Local eGovernance Index (LEI) for Local Self-government Units in the Republic of Serbia”.
Noting that the results of the research, which was conducted by NALED during the last year, indicate to certain differences in the degree of digitization and development of e-services among cities and municipalities, the State Secretary has expressed his belief that even the less developed local self-governments shall see this as an opportunity to detect potential challenges and invest more in local information infrastructure, digital services and human resources.
He has added that the constant improvement of the standards of services which the authorities directly provide to their users shall lead to an increase in the satisfaction of citizens and the economy, which is precisely the goal of the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government.
“It is extremely important that, in the new proposal for the development of eGovernment in the Republic of Serbia for the period from 2023-2025, which was proposed by MDULS, the importance of the existence of this Index is recognized, as well as the fact that it shall be a part of the indicators of our digital ambitions and plans for the future period”, Rakić has concluded.
The Local eGovernment Index represents a new mechanism for measuring the degree of digitization and development of eGovernment in municipalities and cities in the Republic of Serbia, and it is being developed within the project of the same name implemented by NALED, with the financial support of the European Union. The final conference of the project was addressed by the Vice President of NALED’s Managing Board and the Mayor of Kragujevac, Nikola Dašić, and the Head of Cooperation at the EU Delegation to Serbia, Nicola Bertolini.
Following the presentation of results of the pilot measurement of the LEI and a panel discussion, awards have been granted for the results achieved in the field of development of eGovernment in the local community during 2022, namely to the Cities of Vranje, Niš, Kragujevac, Bor and Užice, as well as to the Municipalities of Opovo, Svilajnac, Kanjiža, Vrnjačka Banja, Crna Trava and Mionica.
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