Government of Timor-Leste

The Minister of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Fidelis Manuel Leite Magalhães, met, through videoconference, with the responsible Ministers for the Electronic Governance of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP), on October 28^th, 2020, in order to address the eGovernment responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic challenges, as well as sharing the eGovernment stage of development and experiences, in the respective Member States.

During the meeting, relevant presentations to the development of e-Governance in the CPLP Member States were made. Those presentations addressed the following themes: Digital transition in response to the Covid-19 Pandemic challenges; Role of digital technologies in expanding access to information; Services restructuration and the importance of security and privacy issues; Publication of the book “Fifteen Years of CPLP's Electronic Governance”; Digital interoperability towards a more efficient and effective public governance; Improvement of broadband for greater accessibility to digital public services; Digital Governance in/for Local Authorities; and Measures to strengthen collaboration and cooperation for the standardization of Public Services between the CPLP Member States.

Electronic Governance assumes a central role in promoting democracy, political participation, civic involvement, education and knowledge sharing, also contributing to increasing transparency, efficiency and effectiveness in Public Administration and improving the relationship between the State and citizens and businesses.

Timor-Leste has an ongoing Public Administration Reform, led by the Minister of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, which aims to transform public administration, with a focus on central power structures. This reform aims to improve service delivery processes, strengthen accountability and performance incentives, improve human resources management and development, review public administration functions and structures, and improve administrative services provided to citizens and businesses. One of the most important aspects of the Public Administration Reform program is the development of Electronic Governance and the administrative modernization of public services, which will bring citizens closer to Public Administration, facilitating access to information and procedures. In addition to the approval of a policy on information and communication technologies in 2017, on the same year, the Information and Communication Technologies Agency - TIC TIMOR IP was created, with the mission of implementing this policy, managing the Government's and other public entities’ computer network, including the management of the information and communication technologies’ infrastructure and providing support in the field of information and communication technologies and information systems. TIC TIMOR must also guarantee the development and maintenance of e-Government.

The Minister of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, in his speech, stated that “Timor-Leste today is determined to follow these paths of building e-government in a broader framework of a new wave of public administration reforms, with a view to its modernization, reducing bureaucracy and increasing transparency and, consequently, improving the provision of services to citizens and companies”.

The Minister also stressed that Timor-Leste is "taking the first steps, but doing so in a decisive and persistent way" and that "at this stage, we would like to be able to count on the experience of those who are already more advanced among us and learn from your successes but also from what proved to be less successful in developing your e-governance models".

The responsible CPLP Ministers for e-Governance, during the meeting, reiterated their commitment to reinforce and encourage the sharing of Member States e-Governance and digital governance models that may be adopted and recommended in a communitarian dimension for the elaboration of national guidelines, following the 6th Meeting of Focal Points for Electronic Governance deliberation, namely through the resumption of Focal Points of Electronic Governance periodic meetings, in order to present proposals and implement the decisions emanating from the Electronic Governance Interministerial Meetings.

Until the next Meeting of Responsible Ministers for Electronic Governance, the CPLP Executive Secretariat,  was mandated to, in coordination with the Focal Points for Electronic Governance, prepare and present a proposal for the CPLP Responsible Ministers for Electronic Governance Meeting’s Internal Regulations, in order to consolidate the forum as a high-level dialogue platform for sharing knowledge and supporting the definition of strategies in the field of Electronic Governance. The CPLP Executive Secretariat was also mandated to, in coordination with the CPLP acting presidencies, propose the inclusion in the other sectorial ministerial meetings of the Organization working agendas the discussion on the role of Information and Communication Technologies in the materialization and acceleration of economic plans and social development of Member States, particularly about digital services in the priority areas identified by the CPLP Strategic Vision in the medium-term (2016-2026).

The CPLP responsible Ministers for e-Governance also decided to establish a Working Group composed of the Focal Points for Electronic Governance, supported by the CPLP Executive Secretariat, to prepare a Proposed Electronic Governance Work Plan, to be submitted for electronic approval by the CPLP responsible Ministers for the Electronic Governance, to be communicated to the CPLP Executive Secretariat, through diplomatic channels, by the end of March 2021.

In addition to the Minister of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, also participated in the virtual meeting with the CPLP responsible Ministers for the Electronic Governance, the Executive Director of TIC Timor, Roberto Caetano de Sousa Vicente, the Director of Infrastructure of TIC Timor, André Felix Marques and the Coordinator of the Administrative Reform Office, Fausto Gama.