Strengthening Digital Governance for Service Delivery

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PDO-level IndicatorsAccess · Number of transactions completed through eKosova per month (Number)· Number of people accessing public administrative services through eKosova (Number)· Percentage of women accessing public administrative services through eKosova (Percentage)Quality · Compliance with "service standards" for services under pilot life event categories· Number of web services automating secure and reliable data exchange via the Government Gateway (Number)Reflecting the objectives of the 2021-2025 Government Program and its ongoing work on the development of a comprehensive digital governance strategy, the proposed Project aims to improve the quality of, and user access to selected public administrative services in Kosovo. The project builds upon recent World Bank advisory support to digital governance and service delivery and advances in connectivity under the KODE project. Taking into account Kosovo’s unique position as the youngest country in the continent with its new statehood and majority of its population under the age of 30, and classification as a Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situation (FCS) country, this will be pursued through a targeted and streamlined investment project financing (IPF) designed to complement the support of other development partners engaged in the country and to deliver visible results. The Project is fully aligned with the Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for the Republic of Kosovo for the Period FY17-21 (Report No. 122337-XK, April 25, 2017), and is expected to support Focus Area 2 of the CPF – Strengthening Public Service Delivery and Macro Fiscal Management - which highlights the importance of modernizing public administration to respond to the needs of citizens and the private sector. In particular, the Project will be designed around three separate but interlinked components. Component 1: Digital transformation of government. This component will support initiatives to establish the necessary “whole of government” architecture to support the digital transformation of government and public service delivery. This includes: developing interoperability standards and protocols and appropriate infrastructure, strengthening data governance, transitioning towards cloud storage solutions and strengthening the data center/disaster recovery center arrangements, and developing a whole of government intranet platform for public agencies to connect, share and collaborate. Component 2: Digital transformation of public service delivery: This component will support a progressive modernization of the delivery of government services and on-line provisioning to improve their quality and access to users through the setting up of processes for back-office re-engineering, digitalization, and piloting of selected administrative e-services. This includes: development of comprehensive criteria for digitalization of citizen and business services based on the administrative service inventory; digitalization of pilot administrative services and support to their implementation; and strengthening of multichannel platforms for service delivery (mobile app and e-kiosks). Component 3: Institutional strengthening, change management, and project management. This component aims to (a) provide technical assistance to strengthen the data governance policy and institutional legal framework, including strengthening of the institutional and coordination structure envisioned in the e-Government Strategy 2023-2027; (b) Provide change management and capacity building support; and (c) Support for Project management, implementation, monitoring and evaluation including, communications, and stakeholder engagement strategy