Ministry of Economic Development
of the Russian Federation

The President of the Russian Federation on February 7, 2008, No Pr-212 approved the Strategy of the development of the Information Society in the Russian Federation.

The strategy is a document that establishes the purpose, principles and main directions of state policy regarding the use and development of information and communications technology (hereinafter - ICT), science, education and culture in order to move the country towards an information society.

One of the key areas of the Information Society Development Strategy in the Russian Federation is to increase the efficiency of government administration and local self-government, civil society interaction and business with public authorities, the quality and efficiency of public services, including through the establishment of an electronic government. The concept of building an e-Government of the Russian Federation was approved by the Federal Government on May 6, 2008, No 632-r.

Formation of an e-government in the Russian Federation has become possible thanks to the wide dissemination of information and communication technology in the socio-economic sphere and government agencies.

Thus, by the level of proliferation of personal computers in the population and the availability of the Internet, Russia is rapidly reducing the backlog it has compared to the developed countries. The level of computer literacy is rising. E-business and e-commerce are rapidly evolving. Information and communication technologies are increasingly used in everyday life, in medicine, health, education and science.

The initial phase of equipping government bodies with modern computer technology and the establishing of an appropriate information technology and communications infrastructure to ensure their activities has almost been completed.

Almost all public authorities have their departmental web-sites on the Internet and place general information about their activities there. To date, the developed technical solutions for building a secure system of interdepartmental electronic document management have been created and Phase 1 of the system has been put into trial operation. As a part of administrative reform the description of the functions and processes of governance is being undertaken and specific projects to reorganize and optimize the administrative processes of individual departments are being implemented.

However, at present, the results of implementing ICT in government are mainly of an in-house character that does not significantly improve interagency cooperation and does not improve the quality of public services provided to citizens.

Formation of e-government requires coordinated organizational and technological measures and concerted action by public authorities under the unified state policy.

The objectives of the formation of the Russian Federation e-government are:

• to improve the quality and accessibility of public services for organizations and citizens, simplifying procedures and reducing the time of their delivery, reducing administrative costs for citizens and entities obtaining government services, as well as the introduction of uniform standards of services to citizens;
• to enhance the transparency of information about the activities of government bodies and to expand the ability to access it and to enhance direct participation of organizations, citizens and civil society institutions in the procedures of formation and examination of the decisions taken at all levels of government;
• to improve the quality of administrative and management processes;
• to improve information and analytical support for decision making at all levels of government so as to ensure prompt and complete control over the effectiveness of the activities of government bodies and to provide the required level of security of e-government in its functioning.