In April 2014 a delegation of Senators, led by the Speaker
of the Senate Hon. Ekwee Ethuro visited Estonia on a fact finding mission about
a variety of e-solutions offered in this small country within European Union.
While Estonia might not show up on the average person’s radar, what makes this
tiny country interesting in
terms of governance is not just that the people can
elect their parliament online or get tax over payments back within two days of
filing their returns. It is also that this level of service for citizens is not
the result of the government building a few websites. Instead, Estonians
started by redesigning their entire information infrastructure from the ground
up with openness, privacy, security, and ‘future-proofing’ in mind. Estonia has
many accolades in ICT under its belt, Skype being the most well known and most
widely used Estonian product. At the
United Nations World Summit the U.N. hailed Estonia’s e-Annual Report as the
‘Best of the Best’ e-Government application over the past 10 years. Estonia has
been nominated and highlighted in several competitions around EU. For example:
e-inclusion as a nominee, ePractice.eu with Good Practice Label 
During his trip to Estonia the Speaker was accompanied by Senator Otieno Kajwang, Senator
Henry Ndiema , Senator Prof. Wilfred Lesan and Senator Abdi Bule. The
delegation held meeting and discussions with their counterparts in Estonia, the
Chairman of the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu) Mr. Eiki Nestor and members of
the Parliament with e-solutions being on the top of the agenda. MP Kadri Simson
who took part in the meeting explained that digital solutions are based on the
trust of the people as well. "If you trust a bank with your money then the
next step is trusting the electoral committee with your vote. One out of four
voters in Estonia cast their vote electronically," Simson said. MP Kalev
Kotkas, who also took part in the meeting, gave an example from the field of
agriculture and described how IT solutions allow farmers from the island of
Hiiumaa to communicate with central agencies supporting farmers. The two
Speakers also talked about digital prescriptions. (Official press statement and
photos of the meeting)
The invite to visit Estonia came for the Minister of Foreign
Affairs of Estonia Mr.Urmas Paet (Official press statement and photos of the
meeting with the minister), who was hosting Freedom Online Coalition annual
conference taking place in Tallinn this year where Hon. Ethuro made remarks
during the official opening (picture gallery). The event was attended by high
level representatives from over 40 countries, including presidents, ministers
of foreign affairs, ministers of ICT, etc. Kenya hosted the same conference in
2012. The Kenyan delegation in Tallinn had a chance to familiarise themselves
with various e-solutions as part of Freedom Online Conference. These were
offered by Estonian e-Governance Academy.
Estonian e-Governance Academy Foundation is a joint
initiative of the Government of Estonia, the Open Society Institute (OSI), and
the Bratislava Regional Support Centre of the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP). Officially founded in December 2002, to date, eGA has
cooperated with more than 50 countries: Afghanistan, Albania, Andorra, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cuba,
Georgia, Great Britain, Haiti, India, Iraq, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo,
Kyrgyzstan, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Namibia,
Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, Slovenia, Sri-Lanka, Tajikistan,
Ukraine, Uzbekistan and many others.
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| Tax declarations in Estonia |
Estonia
currently leads in the world with its digitalisation of its systems, documents,
information registries. While many countries have been implementing similar
solutions over the past decade, many still do not have any fully operating and
in use systems ten years on, despite heavy investment. The Kenyan senators saw numerous
presentations and live demonstrations of e-solutions ranging from e-business
registry, digital IDs for accessing all government services, e-health portals,
including e-prescriptions, fully implemented e-population registry with
individual files and criminal records making police and court work and systems
very efficient.
According to one of the patrons and vocal supporters of e-governance,
and a global authority on the matter Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves,
societies need to “think of legislation as part of the software package.” In
order for e-services to function, Estonia first needed to pass digital
signature laws, determine privacy protections, and roll out national ID cards
for citizens. Many of these prerequisites, Ilves said, are a major challenge in
other nations where citizens and lawmakers have strong privacy concerns and
cultural traditions. In regard to concerns
of this nature without question, it is always the Estonian citizen who owns his
or her data and retains the right to control access to that data. One of the
notable benefits of operating registries and information systems for the state
and its citizens such as the e-Business Register, the e-Notary system, the
e-Land Register, the information system of courts, the Probation Supervision
Register, the Prisoners Register, the Punishment Register, and the e-File on
each individual, e-health is its full transparency, while providing levels and
right of access and a right to privacy. Part of the privacy provision is that
each citizen is able to see when any government official, police, doctor or any
other authority with right to view his/her details has accessed his/her
information and has a right to question or even sue when there is no
justification for the officer accessing his/her information. You could say that
an Estonian could sue the big brother! When systems are on paper files, nobody
knows who has viewed their file, made copies of sections, removed pages, etc.
In line with efficiency experienced with e-governance, Estonia hold the World
Record in fastest registration of a company, done in 18 minutes, including all
statutory registrations, and opening of a back account.
The senators and the speaker considered their experience in
Estonia highly informative, with issue of cyber security in government offices,
the importance to create an e-governance/digital society backbone, similar to
Estonian X-Road, and intention to intensify connections and exchanges with
e-solution centers in Estonia as their focuses informed by the trip.
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I have been advised that I should add an important note about this visit to Estonia. The programme of 8 days included meetings, visits, presentations, discussions, trips within Estonia, hands-on experiences every single day, with no day left for rest. The delegation was strong to pull through this.
