Since 2021, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) of the Republic of Korea has financed this interregional digital governance initiative, implemented jointly by UNDP Kazakhstan and Astana Civil Service HUB (ACSH), in partnership with the National Information Society Agency (NIA) of Korea. Given the participating countries’ immense interest in the activities of the project, the Government of the Republic of Korea supported and endorsed the next stage of the project for 2024-2026, with expansion from seven to 12 countries.

Objectives

The main objective of the Project is to further enhance the capacities of public servants at different levels of government by transferring knowledge and experience enabling them to implement initiatives that will advance digital transformation and digital governance in the participating countries. It is expected that such knowledge and experience sharing will assist the participating countries to further develop policy initiatives that will allow to establish the conditions for digital transformation.

The project covers the following countries in three geographical regions. (1) the Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia; (2) Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan; and (3) Asia-Pacific: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Mongolia, and the Philippines.

The Project is implemented by UNDP in Kazakhstan through the ACSH - a multilateral knowledge and experience exchange platform, which closely works with the respective governments’ counterparts, central and local government agencies, special bodies and institutions, experts, and policy makers of the participating countries.

Expected Results

The project provides systematic capacity development to public servants from different levels of government of the participating countries. The project has two outputs. The first comprises a series of workshops, and the production and publication of some knowledge products, as well as a fact-finding inter-regional conference to determine the areas the workshops will focus on. The second output is a series of study visits to Korea, aimed at exposing the representatives of the participating countries to digital transformation policies and practices of the Republic of Korea. Overall, the outputs of the project are oriented towards transferring knowledge and expertise to public servants from the participating countries on digital governance and digital transformation.

The main activities

Knowledge-sharing conferences, capacity development workshops, study visits, and the production of knowledge products.

Topics covered within the Project activities:

• Ecosystems and Conducive Environments for Digitalization to Flourish (online, 2021)

• Policy Making for Development of Innovation and Digitalisation (online, 2021)

• Innovation and Digitalisation Policy for Efficient Implementation (online, 2021)

• Digital Government Policies and Best Practices of the Republic of Korea (online, 2021)

• Appraisal of the Needs-Assessment Survey Results on Digitalisation (Astana, 2022)

• Cooperation and Capacity Development in Digital Government (Tbilisi, 2022)

• Digital Government Policy Frameworks (Samarkand, 2022)

• Provision of Public Services using the Latest Digital Technologies (Seoul, 2022)

• Open Data Policies, Practices, and Cases (Bishkek, 2022)

• Change Management for Digital Transformation (Astana, 2023)

• Digital Transformation Practices of Korea (Seoul, 2023)

• Standards Frameworks for Digital Transformation (Almaty, 2023)

• Gathering Priorities for Digital Governance and Digital Transformation (Almaty, 2024)

• Digital Transformation Practices of Korea (Seoul, 2024)

• AI in the Public Sector: Best Practices and Policy Considerations (Phnom Penh, 2024)

• PPPs in Implementing Digital Transformation Strategies and Using AI (Samarkand, 2025)

• AI-Driven Governance: Korea’s Best Practices (Seoul, 2025)

• Global OECD Forum: Launch of the OECD Digital Government Review of Korea (Seoul, 2025)

• World Governments Summit: AI for Future Governments (Dubai, 2026)