– Role of Korea-Serbia Digital Government Cooperation Center
– Korea Institute of Intelligence and Information Technology Dissemination of digital government technology to Serbia, the center of the Balkans
Korea-Serbia Digital Government Cooperation Center opened
Serbia, the center of the western Balkans, may be unfamiliar to Koreans, but it was the suzerainty of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Cold War. Geographically, Europe and Asia, historically Western and Eastern Rome, and religiously Christianity and Islam intersect. It is culturally, religiously and ethnically diverse. However, Serbia suffered political, diplomatic and economic hardships due to conflicts and civil wars during the post-Cold War process and the reorganization of international and regional order for about 10 years.
Since the 2000s, Serbia has overcame these difficulties and pursued development by gathering the power of the government and the people toward “Serbia as a member of Europe” by promoting accession to the European Union (EU). After Serbia submitted its application for accession to the European Union in 2009, it obtained EU candidate status in 2012, and started negotiations by sector for EU accession in 2015.
The areas that the Serbian government considers important in negotiating by sector are efficient government, high-quality public services, and digital government that aims to improve access to public services. This is also in line with the basic EU requirements that Serbia must have in order to join the EU. To realize this, Serbia created the Office of Information Technology & e-Government under the direct control of the Prime Minister's Office and is making great efforts to realize e-Government. As part of this effort in 2020, the Korean Ministry of the Interior and Safety and Serbia ITE signed a memorandum of understanding on digital government cooperation and established the Korea-Serbia Digital Government Cooperation Center.
The Korea-Serbia Digital Government Cooperation Center will be launched in 2020 and will be operated for about three years until 2022. We provide government business promotion, digital government policy advice to the Serbian government and local governments, and support for domestic IT companies to advance into Serbia.
Korea-Serbia Digital Government Cooperation Center Joint Cooperation Project
The Korea-Serbia Digital Government Cooperation Center is the first joint cooperation task to achieve an efficient Serbian government, high-level public services, and accessible public services. Feasibility studies and pilot projects were conducted.
<Concept of Serbia Electronic Document Management System>
[Source: NIA (2020 Korea-Serbia Joint Cooperation Project Results Report)]
As a pilot organization, the Serbia Business Registry Agency and the Surdulica local government were selected to build an electronic document management system. Serbia's Corporate Registration Office is using the internal approval system manually, so it has been digitized into an electronic document system. In particular, it is currently being used by promoting electronic documentation of the accounting slip processing area required for overtime application, approval, result reporting, and overtime pay, which is a business administration that all employees of the Corporate Registration Office can use.
Surdulica local government, the second pilot target institution, has all administrative processes paper-based, and this local government also promoted electronic documentation of the accounting slip processing area required for overtime application, approval, result reporting, and overtime pay. The local government of Serbia, which is based on paper documents, is planning to present a standardized electronic document management system through the electronic document management system pilot project in 70 with about 2021% of the total, and to expand it to all local governments. . For the success of the Korea-Serbia Digital Government Cooperation Center's electronic document management system pilot project, the standardization of the existing paper document-based work process into an electronic document-based digital work process should be done smoothly.
<Serbia electronic document management system work standardization>
[Source: NIA (2021 Korea-Serbia Joint Cooperation Project Results Report)
The next joint cooperation task promoted by the Korea-Serbia Digital Government Cooperation Center is to strengthen the digital government capabilities of Serbian public officials. To this end, we held a digital government cooperation forum, provided online education on digital government project management, and conducted invitational training in Korea. As for the education contents, various digital government related education such as public information sharing and utilization policy, Korea's digital new deal project promotion policy and status, digital government project management, and smart city were provided. In particular, during the invitational training period for Serbian public officials in Korea, not only digital government-related education, but also business meetings with domestic IT companies (KT, Samsung SDS, Bespin Global, The Bridge Soft, etc.)
<Photo of a Serbian government official's invitational training in Korea>
[Source: NIA (2021 Korea-Serbia Joint Cooperation Project Results Report)]
Korea-Serbia Digital Government Cooperation Center Future Plan
As the Korea-Serbia joint cooperation tasks for 2022, the establishment of a policy to activate the cloud service of the Serbia data center, the establishment of an action plan for the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) in the public sector, and the capacity building of the digital government of Serbian civil servants have been selected and are currently in progress. First, in the field of support for establishing cloud data center use policies, the Serbian government is building and operating a new data center in 2020 with support from the World Bank, and is in progress with the goal of spreading cloud services to all central government, local governments and public institutions in Serbia. there is. However, in this regard, the laws/systems on the use of cloud data centers are still insufficient, which is an obstacle to activation and active policy implementation.
Second, in the field of establishing measures to promote AI in the public sector, the Serbian government announced the Serbia National AI Development Strategy 2022-2022 in early 2025. One of the five major tasks of this development strategy is to promote the adoption of AI in the public sector. However, the development strategy is only a declaration of goals and vision, so detailed action plans have not been presented. Therefore, the Serbian government is very curious about Korea's best practices for AI policy in establishing detailed action plans to promote the introduction of AI in the public sector, and wants to share knowledge and information. I did.
In the future, the Korea-Serbia Digital Government Center will not only successfully implement the joint cooperation tasks promised to be carried out with the Serbian government, but also provide information on business orders for Korean ICT companies to win orders for the Serbia digital government cooperation project, build a human network for stakeholders, arrange business meetings, etc. We will spare no effort to support you.