"Maybe because estonians are lazy people, but we want to get as many services as possible without going out of our homes" - told Arvo Ott, director of the E-Governance Academy of Estonia during our conference "Smart City" in Vinnytsya. He also said that 76% of the population of Estonia are Internet-users; in 2011 94% of tax declarations of citizens were e-declarations; and 94% of all banking transaction on-line brings Estonia to the 1st place in Internet-banking. Due to all its experiences, in 2012 Estonia occupied the 24 place out of 134 countries in Network Readiness index (by the way, Ukraine ranked 75 in this rating). What helped the country to achieve this result:

• Over 700 Public Internet Access Points in Estonia
• More than 1 100 000 smart-card type ID-cards issued
• Since 2000, the Government of Estonia changed its Cabinet meetings to paperless sessions using a web-based document system.
• Citizens can participate in the elections online - in 2011 140'846 voters used this right (the country's population is 1.3 mln people)

Basic principles ensuring the success of using the electronic technologies in governance in Estonia are the following:

• Citizen (customer) orientation
• Leading role for the private sector
• Efficient and transparent public sector. eDemocracy and participation.
• Functioning model for protection of personal data
• Measures against digital divide
• Neutrality concerning technological platforms

Read more in Arvo Ott's PowerPoint presentation (in English). You can also watch the video record of his presentation during the Conference here (with dubbing in Ukrainian).

The experience of applying the electronic technologies for reforming the heathcare system was of a particular interest to the participants, especially with regards to the introduction of the e-patient card, electronic registry, digital X-rays, digital prescriptions. Listen here about it (in Russian).

If you want to know more about E-Estonia as a model, please visit the web-site of the E-Governance Academy where you can explore more details about the projects of e-Government, e-Democracy, central e-Government, ICT in education. Publications of the Academy will share more tips about achieving success in e-governance the way Estonia did.

Olena Ursu, Governance and Sustainable Development Expert, UNDP/MGSDP