Electronic government (e-Gov) in Kazakhstan is a system of digital interaction of the state with citizens and businesses, providing access to public services online. The development of e-Gov in Kazakhstan began in 2004 and has become a key area of state digitalization.

Try to imagine a society that is close to ideal in your understanding. Good health, a good job, a secure life, favorable living conditions – the list cango on indefinitely, and, depending on individual priorities, be supplemented with the necessary aspects. However, the state is an integral part of such a society. A state that takes care of its citizens, which provides opportunities for the best realization of the potential of each citizen, guarantees the safety and observance of the legal rights of citizens. A state that makes interaction with it simple, understandable, and accessible – a state for people.

The development of information and communication technologies in Kazakhstan can guarantee the fulfillment of at least the last two statements. The concept of e-government was developed to make interaction between citizens and the state comfortable, simple, accessible and understandable. The basis for the creation of the e-government portal is the Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated November 10, 2004 No. 1471 «On the state program for the formation of e-government in the Republic of Kazakhstan for – 2005–2007».

National Information Technologies JSC is directly involved in the management and maintenance of the Electronic Government portal. Thee-government portal» has been operating since 2006.

The creation of e-government was necessary in order to make the work of government bodies more efficient, open and accessible to citizens. Previously, each state body «lived its own life» and had little contact with the rest, and citizens had to go around many instances to collect all sorts of certificates, confirmations and other papers. All this turned the process of getting one service into an endless walk around the institutions. This is now over, thanks to e-government projects.

E-government is a single mechanism of interaction between the state and citizens, as well as state bodies with each other, ensuring their consistency using information technologies. It is this mechanism that has made it possible to reduce waiting lists for government agencies and simplify and speed up obtaining certificates, certificates, permits, and much more.

In other words, e – government is when only an IIN is needed to issue a license (and all other data is obtained using automatic requests), when you can pay utilities and fines online, when you may only need an identity card to get a certificate from the NAO "State Corporation «Governments for Citizens», when you can register your own personal data. business or get a certificate on the e-government portal in just 10-15 minutes, when you can find out the child's turn to kindergarten at any time of the day or night.

The idea of creating an e-government belongs to the Head of State and was announced almost fourteen years ago. During this time, four global stages of the formation and development of e-government have been passed. Each of these stages helped Kazakhstanis in their interaction with the state in its own way.

The first stage is informational. It was during this period that the e-government portal was launched and filled with information. There is now information about government agencies, their work and the services they provide to the public. In addition, regulations for the provision of services were provided and regulatory legal acts were posted for review.

At this stage, every citizen of Kazakhstan could get all the necessary information on the portal – a list of necessary documents, the amount of state duty, contact details of the state agency to contact. Already at the first stage, running around instances and the number of visits were reduced, due to the provision of the full amount of necessary information.

The second stage, an interactive one, was marked by the start of providing electronic services on the portal. Users of the portal now have the opportunity to receive information from various institutions without running around the institutions and without wasting time in queues, send a request to any government agency without leaving home and track its status. The introduction of interactive services on the e-government portal has significantly saved time on collecting a package of documents. It was at this stage that departmental information systems, state databases, electronic licensing and an e-government gateway were introduced.

The third stage of e – government development is transactional. At this stage, citizens were able to pay state duties and fees, fines, and utilities. If earlier you had to go to the bank to pay for the service, now you can get the service and pay for it online. For entrepreneurs, the transactional stage has brought a truly valuable gift – e-commerce and procurement. The benefits are obvious – the transparency and openness of competitions and tenders has increased.

The fourth stage of e – government is transformational, and e-government is currently at this stage of development.

From now on, the main goal is to maximize efficiency in providing services to citizens. It is to achieve this goal that interactive and transactional services are combined into comprehensive services that are often needed by the Kazakh population. Users now have the opportunity to register a legal entity in 15 minutes or register the birth of a child, while simultaneously solving all the related issues – apply for benefits and put the child on the waiting list for kindergarten. The e-government portal pays special attention to socially significant services, which is why all of them are translated into electronic format^[207].

In 2006, the e-government portal was launched in Kazakhstan eGov.kz. The creation of e-government was necessary in order to make the work of government bodies more efficient, open and accessible to citizens. Previously, each state body «lived its own life» and had little contact with the rest, and citizens had to go around many instances to collect all sorts of certificates, confirmations and other papers. All this turned the process of obtaining just one public service into an endless walk through state institutions. Now this is over-thanks to e-government projects.

For 17 years of its existence, the e-government portal eGov.kz has provided public services to more than 13.5 million citizens of Kazakhstan, which is about 70% of the population of the entire country. In total, during this time, using the eGov portal.kz Kazakhstanis received 415 million public services.

Currently, there are 627 types of services and services in e-government, and 92% of public services are automated. In 2023, the most popular processes included the birth of a child, queuing and enrollment in kindergartens, admission to school and university, getting a job, paying benefits, owning a car, and queuing for housing. All of them are considered within the framework of the «Invisible Government» concept.

Digitalization of public services also helps in social protection of the population. A vivid example is the Digital Family Map project. It provides for the transfer of the format of receiving public services to a proactive format. That is, each citizen is provided with guaranteed benefits from the state, depending on his status. Within the framework of this project, only information systems will make decisions, and the human factor will be eliminated.

As part of the transformation and reengineering of public services in 2023, the automatic assignment of benefits to mothers with many children awarded with «Altyn Alka» and «Kumis Alka» pendants was implemented, where the service delivery period was reduced from seven to one working day. Within the framework of automatic assignment, the human factor is completely excluded. According to this principle, it is planned to continue working on other services.

The so-called «smartphone revolution» did not pass by Kazakhstan's e-government either. Since 2019, citizens have started receiving public services through the eGov Mobile app Mobile. Today, 678 public services are available in the app, including 204 services and services of the eGov portal.kz, 474 services for individuals of the e-license portal. Every month, the app is actively used by about 2.4 million Kazakhstanis and provides about 50 thousand public services per month.

Now it is easier to register in the app – you can use biometric identification to get an electronic digital signature (EDS) and register in the mobile citizen database in no more than five minutes.

In addition to online services on the phone, Kazakhstanis can now always have at hand the so – called «digital documents» – digital analogues of their most popular documents. Currently eGov Mobile, 24 digital documents (ID card, passport of a citizen of the Republic of Kazakhstan, driver's license, vaccination passport, PCR test, birth certificate, etc.) are available in eGov Mobile, which are actively used by more than 11.6 million citizens. All digital documents can be submitted at the place of request – the law stipulates the equivalence of an electronic document, that is, digital documents are equivalent to their paper counterparts.

With the introduction of the Smart Bridge portal, every government agency has the opportunity to integrate with businesses and other various platforms for the development of digitalization in the country. For example, some public services can already be obtained using applications of second-tier banks. This is very convenient for citizens, as it is now possible to access information from various platforms.

More than 20 types of services were introduced to mobile banking applications, which citizens used about 700 thousand times in 2022. So, for example, state services for re-registration of cars, applying for child support, marriage registration, etc. were brought to the applications of second-level banks – Halyk Bank, Kaspi bank, Alfa bank, Bereke bank, etc.

Another example of effective cooperation between state bodies, quasi-state collectives and the private sector in the field of e-government is the Digital Notary project, implemented Digital Justice by the Ministries of Justice, Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry in cooperation with National Information Technologies JSC, the Republican Chamber of Notaries and the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan on behalf of the Head of State within the «digital» initiatives of the Government Digital Justice. by the public.

«Digital notary» will make it much easier for citizens to receive notarial services. In particular, Kazakhstanis now have the opportunity to issue a power of attorney in electronic form. Kazakhstan has become one of the first countries in the world to digitize notarization of power of attorney online. Previously, such services were available only in France and Lithuania.

Previously, issuing a power of attorney required the actual presence of the client to sign and certify the document by a notary, which often took time and money. Now the notarized power of attorney is available to citizens through eGov Mobile, and in the future this function will appear in a number of banking applications. The so-called «digital power of attorney» is issued online via video communication between the client and the notary.

Any notary can provide this service. A digital power of attorney can be presented in all state instances or at the place of request, along with the paper version.

Today, the e-government portal is considered an important and main tool for the population and businesses to interact with government agencies, which has not only influenced the improvement of the quality of public services, but also the international ratings of Kazakhstan.

Today, Kazakhstan can call itself one of the most developed countries in the provision of online services. Thus, Kazakhstan ranked 28th in the UN e-government Development rating among 193 countries-compare with 29th place in 2020. The country's e-government development index was 0.86 points. This is the highest indicator among the CIS and Central Asian countries, in addition, Kazakhstan noticeably overtakes such developed countries as Ireland, Canada, Italy, Belgium, the Czech Republic and others.

The D Rf EGDI (E-Government Development Index) is a comprehensive measure of three important aspects of e-government, namely the provision of online services, telecommunications and human capacity. In particular, our country ranked 8th in the quality index of online services.

Moreover, in another UN ranking, the E-Participation Index (Participation IndexEPI) Kazakhstan took the 15th place (out of 193) – one of the strongest indicators in the world. The EPI index complements the EGDI, and reflects citizens ' access to public information on request or without it, involvement in participation and discussion of public policies and services, as well as the empowerment of the population through joint electronic decision-making regarding policies, services and the way they are provided.

Kazakhstan also rose to the group of leading countries according GovTechto the World Bank's GovTech Maturity Index. Evaluating the GovTech Maturity Index (GTMI) Launched with the support of the GovTech Global Partnership, the World BankGovTech's Global Governance Index provides an assessment of the development of four key GovTech indices: the Basic Public System Index (CGSI), the Public Service Delivery Index (PSDI), the Digital Citizen Engagement Index (DCEI), and the Public Technology Support Index (GTEI).

Kazakhstan ranks 6th in the Public Service Delivery Index (PSDI) among 198 countries. It is important to note that the results for 2022 showed significant progress in Kazakhstan's maturity index (GTMI), which led to the country's transition from Group B to Group A, indicating a high level of GovTech development in the country.

In addition, in the ranking of 90 major economies in the digital evolution Digital Intelligence Index, our country ranked 20th in terms of the speed of digitalization development. In other words, Kazakhstan has entered the group of the most promising countries for further development of digital wellbeing^[208].

The main components of e-government in Kazakhstan.

E-government of Kazakhstan includes several main components:

E-government Portal (egov.kz) - provides citizens and businesses with access to more than 700 public services.

Unified identification and authentication system-includes an EDS (electronic digital signature), which citizens use to sign documents and receive services online.

The eGov Mobile app Mobile –allows you to receive electronic certificates, make an appointment with a doctor, check fines, and so on.

Open data (data.egov.kz) – provides access to government databases for analytics and development of digital solutions.

Single Window for Business (elicense.kz – provides obtaining licenses and permits in electronic form.

Public Service Centers (PSCs) – work offline, but are integrated with e-Gov, allowing you to receive digital services if necessary.

Development of digital public services.

Digital public services have been actively developing in Kazakhstan in recent years. Key achievements include:

- in the management of «proactive services», when the state itself offers a citizen to issue a benefit or document based on available data;

- issuing digital documents in eGov Mobile, replacing paper versions of identity cards, driver's licenses, passports, etc.;

- in the depths of artificial intelligence and chatbots for citizens ' consultations;

- automatization of processes, including registration of real estate, receipt of social benefits and registration of legal entities.

Advantages of e-government.

The development of e-Gov in Kazakhstan has a number of significant advantages:

- reducing corruption by minimizing contacts with officials;

- time economy – most services can be obtained online without queues.

- transparency – access to open data and real-time tracking of turnouts.

- convenience – the ability to use digital services via smartphones and computers.

Challenges and prospects.

Despite its success, Kazakhstan faces a number of challenges in the field of digitalization of public services:

- insufficient digital literacy among a part of the population;

- cyber threats and cybersecurity issues;

- the need for further integration of public administration systems.

In the future, Kazakhstan plans to develop artificial intelligence, blockchain and Big Data to improve digital public services. Work is also underway to create a «state without papers», where all processes will be carried out in digital format.

Thus, the electronic government of Kazakhstan is an important step towards digitalization of society and improving the efficiency of public administration. Thanks to e-Gov, citizens and businesses receive convenient, fast and transparent public services, which contributes to improving the quality of life and developing the country's economy.

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^[207] What is electronic government and why is it necessary? https://egov.kz/cms/ru/information/about/help-elektronnoe-pravitelstvo. Date of access 26.03.2025

^[208] How is digital well-being in Kazakhstan? https://exclusive.kz/kak-v-kazahstane-s-czifrovym-blagopoluchiem/.  Date of access 28.03.2025