In December 2009, Moldova began a journey of government transformation using Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Moldova’s leadership wanted to leverage ICT to increase the country’s growth, following the example of Singapore and other countries that have used ICT to become global leaders in competitiveness. Senior Moldovan officials participated in a high-level workshop with Singaporean experts, followed by a high-level round table in August 2010 with the World Bank’s President Zoellick, leading e-government experts, and the former prime minister of Estonia. The information shared at the event convinced the Moldovans that ICT can drive a country towards improved competitiveness, growth, and efficiency. To build the capacity and skills of Moldovan officials to implement the e-transformation, the World Bank organized a knowledge exchange between Moldovan government leaders and potential partners and counterparts in India, which is globally renowned for its successful ICT development.  

The resulting dialogues and exchanges led to an enhanced understanding of best practices and challenges in the ICT sector. The Moldovans learned about public-private partnerships (PPP), government-wide implementation of cloud computing, and e-government strategies. The two countries initiated development of a formal agreement between ministries and agencies responsible for ICT development. The Indian and Moldovan professionals continue to interact through a dedicated ICT LinkedIn network.

Moldova actively seeks to drive economic growth and reap social and economic benefits through the use of ICT, focusing on strengthening its e-government program and approaches to ICT industry development. To this end, Moldova’s leaders look to other countries for best practices. India has pioneered many ICT services and has implemented numerous e-government projects over the last 15 years. Most of India’s ICT innovations have occurred at the state and local levels, not the federal level, which is particularly relevant to a small country like Moldova. The Moldovan leaders therefore thought India had much to offer in terms of diversity of good practices and experiences.  

They were eager to learn about India’s National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) and its structured capacity-building framework, centralized planning, and decentralized implementation, as well as about public-private partnerships (PPPs).  Such partnerships are key for Moldova as it has little public money to invest in ICT infrastructure and must leverage private sector resources. In addition, the Moldovans saw business development opportunities: by attracting India’s leading IT players to invest in Moldova, they could increase the competitiveness of the local ICT industry in delivering solutions globally. The Moldovans also wanted to learn about e-procurement, IT industry promotion, and outsourcing, which could significantly strengthen the ICT capacity of Moldovan leaders and IT experts.

The network of professionals created during the exchange remains active via LinkedIn. The World Bank also hopes to extend this knowledge exchange by sending Moldovan and Macedonian officials to Brazil, which also has relevant ICT knowledge to share.