e-Society.org.mk - Brief summary of the workshop on "Inclusive e-Government" held in Montenegro

Project: Western Balkans Network for Inclusive e-Government

ISSP research and activities in the project

Montenegro is highly oriented to the concept of developed information society and reform in ICT sector started from 2001. Institute for strategic studies and prognoses (ISSP) realized importance of information society developing as well and became part of regional project ‘Western Balkans Network for Inclusive e-Government’ under East-East Program. ISSP team (Milica Dakovic and Mirza Muleskovic) conducted the first analysis of online public services in Montenegro for 2007. Results on this survey were presented on the regional E-society conference that took part in Skopje, Macedonia, under Metamorphosis Foundation.

•    Milica Dakovic, analyst from ISSP
•    Dejana Vratnica Radovic, Municipality of Podgorica
•    Milena Nikcevic, Republic Secretariat for Development

Dejana Vratnica presented ongoing the project ‘Millenium’- E-city of Podgorica, while Milica Dakovic presented the first results on survey about online sophistication services in Montenegro.

Conference in Podgorica

In order to present preliminary results ISSP organized Conference on E-services sophistication and was supported by the Republic Secretariat for Development. Conference held in the conference hall of Human Resources Management Authority, on December 20th 2007. It was a great opportunity for presenting of current projects in Montenegro related to E-services as well as presentation of results for other countries from the region (Serbia, Macedonia and Albania). Conference also was a chance for open dialog with other representatives of public institutions from Montenegro which gave contribution to this event and exchange ideas about level of current and future level about E-sophistication of their services. By organizing this conference ISSP promoted idea about importance of future development of E-services for citizens and business in Montenegro.
Conference was attended by the representatives from the other institutions from the region which are also involved the project Western Balkans Network for Inclusive e-Government. There were representatives from Macedonia, Serbia and Albania. Conference attended more than 30 representatives from governmental bodies and institutions which were included in the survey related to E-services sophistication.

Mr Dusan Simonovic, general secretary of Republic Secretariat for development, opened the conference, as well as Ms Jadranka Kaludjerovic, ISSP program director. Filip Stojanovski, from Metamorphosis Foundation gave the insight into the aims and goals of the regional project. After introductory speeches, Mirza Muleskovic from ISSP introduced participants and media with research methodology which was used for this survey. Milica Dakovic presented the first preliminary results about E-sophistication of public services in Montenegro. The first preliminary results showed that current level of E-sophistication in Montenegro is 45%.

During the next session Dejana Vratnica from Municipality of Podgorica was presented Project ‘Millennium’, the first ongoing project related to E-services for citizens (E-city of Podgorica). Vojin Golubovic from ISSP, instead of Mr Predrag Djurasovic from NGO ‘Mreza’, presented the first education portal in Montenegro (www.skole.cg.yu).

During the third, and also the final session, representatives from the countries from the region presented results on their survey. Relating to that, Natasa Radovic from Belgrade Open School presented results for Serbia. Dejan Spasov, from Institute for informatics from Skopje, presented results for Macedonia. Representatives from Albania also gave brief insight in the current situation in Albania, related to information society development.

Representatives from media were also present on this conference. After the conference they presented basic results to the public, in the articles in national newspapers like ‘Republika’ and ‘Pobjeda’. Information about the project, conference and survey results is also announced on ISSP web site (www.isspm.org) and CafedelMontenegro (www.cafemontenegro.cg.yu). ISSP also published an article about preliminary results in business magazine ‘Biznis Montenegro’ as well as in the first IT magazine in Montenegro ‘BIT’.

The basic conclusions of the conference were:

• Montenegro is recognized as the country which is highly devoted to information society development.
• Even we are highly oriented to develop information society E-government project is on the starting point in Montenegro and we expect more projects and activities during 2008. Government of Montenegro signed the contract with Microsoft Corporation and its local partners from Montenegro in order to implement E-government solutions. We can say that E-government project started in July 2007 when Gov Commission for Economic Policy organized the first e-meeting or meeting ‘without papers’.