ARTICLE | ESTONIA, SWEDEN AND THE EU TO HELP UKRAINE IMPLEMENT A SECURE DATA EXCHANGE SOLUTION

15 September, 2017

The e-Governance Academy held a public procurement as a part of EGOV4UKRAINE project of the EU U-LEAD administrative reform support programme in Ukraine. As a result, the consortium of Estonian-Ukrainian companies Cybernetica AS and Soft Xpansion Ukraine will create an inter-institutional secure data exchange solution for Ukraine.

The article was originally published at E-governance Academy, by Mari Pedak

The data exchange solution will grant state authorities and service centres access to the information contained in national registers and thereby will enable fast and high-quality provision of public services. The implementation of the data exchange solution in Ukraine is supported by the European Union and Swedish and Estonian development cooperation programmes. It will be implemented by the end of 2017.

According to Oleksander Ryzhenko, Head of the State Agency for e-Governance in Ukraine, the inter-institutional data exchange solution will serve as the fundamental infrastructure for providing e-services. “E-services will shape the economy of Ukraine, increase competitiveness and offer citizens the freedom to use public services 24/7 where it is most convenient for them,” said Ryzhenko. “Data itself should run, not people”.

Mari Pedak, Team Leader for EGOV4UKRAINE project of the e-Governance Academy, stated that more than 500 public Ukrainian service centres would start providing services to citizens on the basis of the inter-institutional data exchange solution. Authorities will also use the data exchange solution for creating e-services for citizens. “By developing e-services, we are helping the Ukrainian government reduce bureaucracy and the danger of corruption as processing data will become more transparent and faster,” said Pedak.

The data exchange solution UXP (Unified eXchange Platform) to be implemented in Ukraine is an improvement of the X-Road solution that has been used in Estonia since 2001 and has so far operated without any interruptions. The same solution is used in Finland, Namibia and Haiti.

According to Riho Kurg, Project Manager of Cybernetica AS that is implementing the Ukrainian inter-institutional data exchange solution, Ukraine is so far the largest country to have ordered a inter-institutional implementation of the solution. “The Ukrainian project is a significant development for Cybernetica. UXP is a product with a very high potential and major projects amplify this potential even more. We are developing a separate encryption solution for the Ukrainian project that takes into account the specific character of the country of Ukraine. This will certainly provide us with valuable experience,” said Kurg.

The e-Governance Academy conducted the public procurement for the inter-institutional Ukrainian secure data exchange solution in spring 2017 within the framework of the EGOV4UKRAINE project of the Ukrainian U-LEAD administrative reform support programme. The EGOV4UKRAINE project is led by the e-Governance Academy.

The e-Governance Academy is an Estonian think tank and consultancy organisation founded for the creation and spread of knowledge and best practice concerning e-governance, e-democracy, cyber security and the development of open information societies. Since 2002, the e-Governance Academy has trained 3,500 officials from more than 60 countries and has participated in more than 60 international projects on national, local and organisational levels.