Twinning Project: Support to Digitalisation Agenda in Kyrgyzstan

The European Union twinning project supported the digital development of Kyrgyzstan by increasing the capacity of the national authorities, especially the Ministry of Digital Development of the Kyrgyz Republic to manage and guide the development of e-government and to improve governance transparency and accountability.

The work facilitated the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9 “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation” and the implementation of the government’s Digital Concept and the related Kyrgyz Digital Transformation Roadmap 2019-2023.

The EU twinning programme assisted in digital policy and regulatory frameworks, as well as digital capacity building, with a special focus on the following priorities:

• Priority 1: Decrease the digital divide by developing and introducing e-learning materials and by increasing the availability of digital competences and literacy, with a special focus on groups living in vulnerable situations.
• Priority 2: Development and introduction of e-services for achieving sustainable development and empowering communities,  especially youth,  women,  groups living in vulnerable situations and rural communities.
• Priority 3: Development of the data protection, and strengthening trust and security by the adoption of effective data protection and privacy mechanisms, the development of procedural rules, and the establishment of a supervisory mechanism that will oversight personal data processing, storage and protection, and privacy protection, and of a sanction system for violations and mismanagement, modelled on the GDPR and in line with international human rights standards.
• Priority 4: Improvement of national cybersecurity. Mainstreaming cybersecurity is key to enabling more resilient and sustainable development and to ensure that the current 2019–2023 national cybersecurity strategy and security operations focus on key threats and risks.

The project was implemented by eGA (Leading Partner) from Estonia, a leading public-sector training house HAUS from Finland and the Italian ICT consortium CSI-Piemonte.

eGA was responsible for the enhancement of access to public services by strengthening of the e-governance systems and solutions. Moreover, eGA helped to improve the national cybersecurity knowledge and skills.

HAUS set up the Innovation Centre of Digital Competencies, supported the Innovation Centre of Digital Competences (ICDC) in enhancing digital skills and elaborated the training programmes for trainers.

CSI Piemonte enhanced citizens’ privacy and data protection by creating a public online awareness raising platform, enhancing government’s capacity to protect personal data and contributing to the organising awareness raising campaigns on topic.