AUGUST 14, 2012, CHISINAU. On Tuesday, the representatives of municipalities of the Republic of Moldova participated at the E-Governance Initiation Workshop, organized by the E-Governance Centre (EGC) in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), within the Local Governance Support Project in Moldova (LGSP). Those 26 participants at the event learned about the achievements of central public authorities in the process of technological modernization of governance.

EGC representatives spoke about e-governance directions, presenting the institutional priorities and future plans.

Executive Director of the E-Governance Center, Stela Mocan, mentioned the importance of information technologies in communicating with citizens and in daily work of local authorities.

"We want to see what initiatives were accomplished at central level, which you can take over and apply in your localities. There are platforms, services, portals. You do not need to make additional investments, you do not need a powerful computer or highly qualified IT specialists. Nowadays technologies advanced so much that being far away it is possible to cover certain gaps at locally", Stela Mocan said.

At the E-Governance Initiation Workshop the success story of Varzaresti village from Nisporeni district was presented. Ion Crudu, Mayor of that locality, told how they managed to "bring" online the Village Hall. Being supported by private developers, the representatives of public institutions created applications and electronic maps supposed to help them effectively monitor the local problems.

"The idea arose from the difficulties that I faced with", the mayor explained. "As representative of the young generation, using new communication technologies and means, I said that Varzaresti Village Hall has to be present online and to put in practice innovative ideas."

But before creating the official website of the village hall, the Mayor Ion Crudu used to keep in touch with villagers through social networking, whereby the inhabitants who were abroad could ask questions. "Thus - Ion Crudu says - people were happy that they didn't have to travel from Italy to Moldova to get answers. Now, many problems can be solved by filing an application online. This is what explains the importance of the Internet and communication means in human life. Citizens no longer need to stay in lines at the corridors of the Village Hall in order to solve their problems", the Varzaresti Mayor stated.

Vadim Lelic, Mayor of Telenesti, considers that new information technologies will ease the communication and relationship between local authorities and citizens ."The local public administration team in Telenesti is young. So, we are the most active locality in the Local Acts Registry Platform.”

According to Tudor Placinta, IT specialist in Sangerei Village Hall, the new technologies make everyone's work easier and improve the access to information. "We are now in process of posting online the local decisions on the site of Local Acts Registry. With these decisions on the site, as well as with other applications, the population will not have to come to Village Hall to report about problems, but it will be enough to write directly on the website or on Facebook."

"Being in my first term of office, I set the goal to eliminate bureaucracy and corruption that practically exists in every municipality. Participation in the workshop will help me to settle many things", says Valentina Casian, Mayor of Straseni.

Participants at this event were interested in how to post online the data they have in municipalities, how to use various innovative applications and how to take over the e-governance practices applied by the central public authorities.

Event photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/e-government_center_moldova/sets/72157631066846902/