Accelerating the building of an e-Government

According to the United Nations, Vietnam has made progress in its e-government ranking, currently standing 88th among 193 countries and territories worldwide and sixth out of the 11 countries in ASEAN. To date, all ministries, sectors and localities in Vietnam have developed websites or portals with updated information, which fundamentally meet the communication and management requirements of the State.

The total number of online public services for level 3 and 4 provided by ministries and agencies amount to 1,551 services, while localities are offering 45,374 online public services.

However, there remain many inadequacies and limitations in the building of the e-government in Vietnam, including tardiness in the building of interconnection system on data sharing; unfinished national database on population, land and finance; unfriendly online public services; limited budget for information technology (IT) application and the building of information system associated with administrative reforms.

To achieve the goal of e-government development and catch up with the innovation trend of the fourth industrial revolution, ministries, sectors and the related agencies should inherit and develop IT application programmes and build the e-government under the guidance of the Politburo, the Government and the Prime Minister.

The development of an e-government must ensure information safety, national security and the protection of personal information aligned with administrative reforms and the effective use of resources for building an e-government. Foreign agencies and organisations can provide funding and technical assistance to Vietnam in building the e-government but the software and database must be managed and operated by Vietnam.

The building of an e-government requires a master plan with the heads of ministries, agencies and localities taking responsibility for implementing the e-government at their respective units.

The Ministry of Information and Communications should direct and urge IT developers to assist the Government Office in accelerating the electronic identification of citizens and enterprises participating in the use of online public services, as well as building the e-government architecture framework in line with the global trend and the fourth industrial industry.

The Prime Minister has recently requested that the Ministries of Public Security, Natural Resources and Environment, Finance, Planning and Investment and Vietnam Social Insurance accelerate the building of national databases as assigned in the Decision No. 714 dated May 22, 2015.
The Ministry of Public Security should prioritise completing the national database on population, while announcing the standards and technical regulations on the sharing of data with the information systems of other ministries and sectors.

To implement e-government building projects, the Ministry of Finance needs to coordinate with the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Information and Communications to propose solutions to raise resources and funding for such projects.

Leading Vietnamese IT corporations, including Military-run telecommunications company Viettel Group, Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), FPT Corporation, and Corporation of Vietnam Post Office (VNPOST), must take the lead in deploying information systems and the application of new technologies in developing the e-government towards a digital economy and society.