Today, the Estonian Secretary of State Heiki Loot met with Mari Kiviniemi, Deputy Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), to discuss the implementation of recommendations made in OECD Public Governance Reviews.
The OECD has, in its report on Estonia and Finland, which was compiled in 2015, advised that the governments of those countries focus on three to five strategic goals. Upon taking office in the spring of 2015, both governments set five priorities for themselves, the implementation of which, in both countries, is coordinated by a Strategy Unit of the Government Office.
For cross-border ICT-related cooperation, the OECD proposed a roadmap for the advancement of cross-border online public services, including specific pilot projects of services, a procedure for their implementation and advised to keep a record of the work done and lessons learned during the joint projects, in order to set an example for other EU level countries.
On May 10 this year, the Prime Ministers of Estonia and Finland digitally signed a joint declaration on a preliminary roadmap for launching data exchange and e-services between Estonia and Finland. It was also agreed that by the end of 2016 specific action plans would be completed for launching automatic data exchange in the field of commercial registers, population registers and social benefit data, e-prescriptions and maritime affairs.
According to the OECD, the main challenge in the governance of both Estonia and Finland is to better connect the goals, structure and resources of the government. Both countries also share the need to forgo the so-called silo mentality and to move towards more cohesive public governance.
“We are working on ensuring that government authorities would be focused on implementing priorities and that cooperation between different authorities would be better,” said the Secretary of State Heiki Loot.
The OECD joint analysis on Estonia and Finland titled “Fostering Strategic Capacity Across Governments and Digital Services Across Borders” is the first of its kind in OECD history. The report is based on earlier OECD analyses on Finland (2010) and Estonia (2011).
The OECD Deputy Secretary-General Kiviniemi and the Secretary of State Loot also discussed the meeting of Secretaries of State of OECD countries, which will be held in Stockholm during October 25-26, and the main theme of which will be the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
OECD reports: https://riigikantselei.ee/et/oecd-riigivalitsemise-raport
Photos: https://riigikantselei.ee/et/galeriid/oecd-asepeasekretar-mari-kiviniemi-stenbocki-majas-23092016