Many things have been said about digitalisation in Kyrgyzstan at the state level, and it has been developing at a slow pace. Despite a lot of digitalisation projects, many citizens are aware only of a couple of them. And the frequent change of government does not help the digitalisation process.
“No progress”, “Kyrgyzstan lost 50M dollar investments”, “Digital CASA failed”, these are the headlines of online media of Kyrgyzstan for a few days. The media outlets received information that the World Bank is going to terminate early the implementation of the Digital CASA project in the country. However, none of the parties made an official statement about it at the official press conference. They confined themselves to a few comments to the questions of particular media outlets.
In the letter to the CABAR.asia request, Tatiana Shakhin, the expert in strategic communications of Digital CASA-KR project, said that the World Bank offered to the national government to cancel the project following a few meetings and negotiations with officials, and to prepare the new one instead. In other words, according to the official message, the programme needs to be updated, not cancelled, based on the latest digital trends and obstacles in order to implement digital transformation rapidly.
“The new design is being discussed with the same budget and resources, based on the lessons learned and experience. In other words, the Kyrgyz Republic won’t lose resources, or means, and won’t be held liable as it does not have any contract liabilities under the project. So, the relevancy of project components, mechanisms of implementation and duration is being discussed based on lessons learned and experience,” Shakhin said.
Civil activists and representatives of the expert society met this information with a mixed response. Some said this was allegedly “final and irreversible failure” of digitalisation of the whole country, and others welcomed this turn of events.
For example, Bakyt Satybekov, co-chair of the national forum “Open Government”, said that the project cancellation could not have come at a better time. Because, according to him, it is impossible to suffer from “a server zoo in state bodies and state facilities that pose a risk for personal data of citizens.” The country can use this time to make an inventory and systematisation of all digital transformation projects, course update and solution of all key issues.
What is the Digital CASA- КR project about?
Digital CASA-KR is a project that was focused on creation of favourable conditions for the digital transformation process in the country. It was approved under the governmental project “Taza Koom” in February 2018. Back then, the first protocol on the funding agreement was signed by the International Development Association (IDA) that is in the group of the World Bank and the Kyrgyz Republic.
The amount of aid was 50 million dollars, and 25 million was the interest-free loan with a fee 0.75 per cent per annum. The loan should have been repaid within 38 years, including six years of grace period, and all allocated funds should have been used to implement the four components of the project.
Component one
In other words, Kyrgyzstan would have gotten wideband and high-speed access to the worldwide web that is the alternative internet supply channel accessing the Indian Ocean.
Today, as is known, we receive internet from Russia in transit via Kazakhstan, and in the south, they use the same Russian internet in transit via China. The country started to discuss alternative internet supplies to Kyrgyzstan after the Kazakhstan providers in 2017 announced two-fold rise in rates.
Meanwhile, according to the National Statistical Committee of the Kyrgyz Republic, 99 per cent of Kyrgyzstanis are covered with mobile networks, and 70 per cent have access to high quality 4G internet. 62.8 per cent of people aged 15 and older use the worldwide web.
“It’s my job to visit regions and I have to use mobile internet anyway. I have not had any communication problems so far. However, I have not tried to get any electronic service via a mobile phone in the regions. In this case, I might need broadband internet. In the regions, citizens do not use digital services, therefore, there is possibly no need in broadband internet there,” Bakyt Satybekov said.
Meanwhile, foreign experts estimate the level of internet penetration in Kyrgyzstan as “below the worldwide average”. This is evidenced by the 2020 UN survey.
The only country in Central Asia that managed to lay FOCL is Uzbekistan. It almost doubled the length of fibre-optic links from 36.6 thousand km in 2019 to 68.6 thousand km in 2020. It also simplified the procedure of authorisation of mobile base station construction and launch.
“Governments of Central Asian states have shown that they can act rapidly whenever necessary,” said director of the World Bank in Central Asia, Lilia Burunchuk.
According to specialists’ estimates, the countries must invest at least 6 billion dollars to provide access to broadband internet to half of the people in Central Asia who don’t have such access until 2030. This, according to Lilia Burunchuk, requires strong political will and unprecedented efforts of multiple parties, ranging from attraction of significant private investments to infrastructure rollout to holding policy reforms in this area.
What was done under the Digital CASA-KR before the agreement was cancelled?
According to the official letter of the World Bank in Kyrgyzstan (as of 2nd quarter of 2021): 12 out of 23 developed terms of reference under the project have been approved. Also, the feasibility study of construction of fibre-optic communication lines (FOCL) has been developed.
Component two
Representatives of Digital CASA-KR emphasised the successful implementation of the Open Data project with high performance indicators. The website would have sets of data from various ministries and agencies. However, it seemed to be insufficient for further use of information.
“Progress stopped somewhere in the middle of the process. [...] State bodies should be bound to transfer data in certain formats to the Open Data portal. According to the law, open data mean data in machine-readable form. In fact, bylaws must specify and describe many other details. They were prepared, submitted for approval, and were never approved,” Bakyt Satybekov said.
They have not provided any information on the construction of data centres. However, this project should have been the starting point of the overall digitalisation of the country, according to the co-chair of the national forum. Today we urgently need to combine all information systems into one.
“Today what we have in our state bodies is a zoo of various server rooms with various equipment, with no insurance against breaking and entry, with no climate control conditions, with no special digital safety and security software. Many information systems contain our personal data. Why don’t we have the agency responsible for the personal data protection, why don’t we audit information systems so far? Maybe we should not digitalise anything until we have our personal data secured?” Satybekov said.
Components three and four
Under the project, it was planned to improve the laws and regulations on digital economy, to run the project for further effective operation and achievement of results. According to the official message of the World Bank in Kyrgyzstan, this component was implemented partially. They prepared five essential bylaws to create and introduce state open data policy, trained public servants. However, they failed to specify the number of such public servants.
What about the money?
The key question of how much money was used out of the earlier announced 50 million dollars under the Digital CASA-KR project before the agreement was cancelled was left unanswered by the representatives of the World Bank in Kyrgyzstan.
However, the financial issue of international projects, including Digital CASA-KR, is often discussed in the society. Social media and even some media write about some alleged payoff system. They say that projects cannot be implemented without them, or progress very slowly. But neither the government members, nor representatives of relevant agencies provided official statements and comments to explain the situation.
According to Dinara Ruslan, volunteer adviser to prime minister of the Kyrgyz Republic and chair of the board of the Kyrgyz Association of Software and Services Developers (KARPOU), promotion of digitalisation projects depends on many factors, ranging from the budget and plan to the team and duration of their activity.
“Changes in the digitalisation team or government members every year do not contribute to the digitalisation process in Kyrgyzstan. I discussed digitalisation with the second or third team already. Moreover, none of them managed to finalise the project. Teams don’t have enough time, teams change, new teams appear, and I need to discuss the same things again with them,” Dinara Ruslan said.
What projects will we remember Digital Kyrgyzstan for?
In the framework of implementation of the national programme Digital Kyrgyzstan-2040, the country “digitalises” almost all services provided to the people and businesses. According to the new Ministry of Digital Development, the state will continue to work in the areas specified in the state programme:
- Development of electronic state and municipal services for citizens;
- Development of digital literacy among children and young people;
- Creation of conditions for private-public partnership and competition among information system developers;
- Development of digital infrastructure to ensure access and conditions for the people to digital services;
- Provision of internet access to state and municipal organisations in all regions of the country;
- Protection of safety of citizens, protection of their data when using information technologies by applying advanced technical solutions (shaping the ‘digital trust’).
Projects that were implemented (partial list):
- Electronic trading platform
- State procurement portal
- State system of electronic document management
- Infodocs electronic document management system
- Electronic register of crimes
- Unified system of external migration recording
- E-gates system at the Manas airport
- Electronic visa to the Kyrgyz Republic system
- Electronic queue to preschool educational organisations in Bishkek
- Tunduk system of interagency electronic interaction
- Safe City project
- Border Pass
- Electronic patent
- Sanarip Aimak
- E-kyzmat
All national projects to be digitalised are financed both by the budget and by international donors. Sadly, but Kyrgyzstan has no platform to collect all information about the progress or results of all digitalisation programmes.
Today, the national government makes efforts to fit them to the single standard. Probably, these considerations contributed to the creation of the Ministry of Digital Development in May 2021 by merger of the state digital development service, which earlier consolidated all five state IT companies (Tunduk, Ukuk, Info-System, Transcom, Socservice), and the state registration service.
However, the public took this initiative flatly. In particular, experts demanded to preserve the status of Tunduk as a separate state institution, whose task is to support the state digital services portal. No one tries to predict how it will work after the reorganisation.
“So far, we see that this process is not transparent in terms of provision of information. We do not understand what happens there. Everyone could see there was some problem, but no one can identify it,” Bakyt Satybekov said.
Despite the abundance of digitalisation projects, many citizens know only about Safe City and Tunduk. In case of the former, traffic fines stored on electronic media must be paid; and in case of the latter, one can receive certificates from particular state bodies and state facilities in electronic form right on the website.
According to the visiting statistics, state portal users have received just over 33,000 services. If we take into account the number of economically active population (over 2 million people), we cannot say about high demand for electronic state services so far.
Particular citizens of the country think that Kyrgyzstan has digitalised far less services than other countries. For example, they lack the single electronic platform where they could receive everything they need, ranging from a certificate to a new passport, without the need to visit the authority and to stay in long queues.
“Tunduk is just the aggregator. It collects information and delivers it, when necessary. It does not mean it has digitalised everything. Hypothetically, we could avoid getting particular certificates by using information already collected by Tunduk. But for that we need authorisation of particular ministries. And this requires amendments in law,” Dinara Ruslan said.
Meanwhile, foreign experts have estimated positively the preliminary results of the interagency interaction system performance and a range of other projects.
The public is concerned …
In the meantime, today civil activists and representatives of the expert community are more concerned about the situation that forms around digital projects in healthcare system.
“All donors stand in line to provide their assistance to the health ministry, but in fact we don’t see many things. The services must be focused on a person! Has the life of citizens become better?! Has infrastructure become better?! I personally do not see or feel it. First, digital transformation must affect a common man,” Bakyt Satybekov said.
The website of the health ministry provides little information about the support of the healthcare system during the coronavirus pandemic by various organisations and companies. However, the official message of the ministry of digital development specifies only two digital solutions designed to fight Covid-19: the unified information platform describing the coronavirus situation in the country and interactive online map of available in-patient clinics and hospitals.
In 2020, experts wrote that domestic IT companies developed some digital solutions required for getting emergency care free of charge. However, we don’t know whether they are relevant to date.
Is digitalisation progressing faster due to private sector?
It’s clear that private sector is moving faster than the state towards digital economy. Businesses are more creative, less “bureaucratised”, and, eventually, earn money on innovations. Therefore, average citizens may buy food and any products from online markets, order taxi via mobile apps, pay for a range of services, including utility bills, by an e-card or mobile wallet. The list is getting longer every day. However, businesses cannot do without participation of the state.
“Where could the business take the data about traffic fines unless if not integrated with the public sector? Private sector gets information about traffic fines and allows paying them via their apps. The digitalisation will become faster if the state and the business collaborate. If the state becomes flexible in amending laws, we will move 5 or even 20 years forward,” said Dinara Ruslan, the volunteer adviser to prime minister of the Kyrgyz Republic.
Main photo: kabar.kg