Citizen-centric public services in the Western Balkans: Webinar 2 - Digital identity and trust services, 31 May 2022. Agenda

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SIGMA webinar series: Citizen-centric public services in the Western Balkans
Session 2: Digital Identity and trust services as stepping stones for digital
transformation in the Western Balkan region
📅📅 31 May 2021 (09:30 – 12:30 CET) 📍📍 Virtual event via ZOOM
ABOUT THE WEBINAR SERIES
In 2021, SIGMA organised a series of three webinars related to seamless service delivery in the Western
Balkan region, where concepts, methodologies, approaches and digital building blocks were presented and
illustrated with examples from public administrations from the EU and the Western Balkan region. The
materials are available here. This year’s series of webinars is a follow-up and is dedicated to the topic of
user-centric public services.
 Webinar 1: Service design and user experience
The recent European Declaration on Digital rights and Principles proposes defining a set of principles for a
human-centred digital transformation in parallel to the user experience approach, which inevitably influences
the quality of services across all channels, both online and offline. The User-centric design, user experience and
multi/omni-channel service delivery webinar will examine what could be done differently in service delivery in
the public administration and how quickly it could be done. The first webinar (held on 5 April 2022) highlighted
the design thinking approach and user experience methodology in public services. What are they and how are
they applied in practice? This webinar was a mixture of methodological presentations and practical public
sector case presentations.
All presentations Events - OECD (sigmaweb.org) and full recording of the webinar Service design and user
experience in the Western Balkans, April 2022 - YouTube can be consulted
 Webinar 2: Digital identity and trust services
The second webinar will focus on digital identity (DI) and trust services as key enablers in reinforcing/ improving
the digitalisation of public service delivery in the Western Balkan region. Acknowledging the complexity of DI,
the webinar will provide an overview of existing digital identity standards and technologies with their
advantages and disadvantages and take into account current and future challenges for the region. Pathways
on how to extend use and raise awareness of DI and how to use it for cross-border services will be explored.
📅📅 31 May 2022 (09:30 – 12:30 CET)
📍📍 Virtual event via ZOOM - Register HERE
 Webinar 3: Setting service standards and monitoring
Accelerated by the pandemic, the digital transformation of public administration in the Western Balkans, the
EU, and worldwide led to reconsideration of the concept of public (e)service life cycle and altered the need
for the standardisation of processes, products, and services. The third webinar will concentrate on defining
service standards in consultation with users, aligning services and service provision in order to commit to
these standards and monitoring them by actively seeking user feedback.
📅📅 5 July 2022 (09:30 – 12:30 CET)
📍📍 Virtual event via ZOOM - Register HERE

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ABOUT THIS WEBINAR
Creating an infrastructure of trust for new online access to government services is high on every
government's agenda in the EU, in the Western Balkan economies and on a global scale. This entails
improving security, reducing identity fraud and identity theft, together with the necessary legislation to
implement them. It already has a significant impact on contemporary life, providing various enablers for
societal growth and transformation, enabling multichannel service delivery, and stimulating (digital)
economic growth.
The European legal and regulatory landscape enabled balance between practical purpose, privacy, and
security of the digital identity and trust services such as Electronic Identification and Trust Services
Regulation (eIDAS Regulation 910/2014/EC), the General Data Protection Regulation of May 2018 (GDPR.)
Last year (June 2021), the European Commission proposed creating a European Digital Identity Wallet as
a framework for a European Digital Identity available to all EU citizens, residents, and businesses in the EU.
The EU member states are expected to agree on technical details related to the Digital Wallet by autumn
2022. A recent publication (2022) conducted by ENISA Digital identity - Leveraging the Self-Sovereignty
Identity (SSI) Concept to Build Trust presents the current technological landscape of existing eID solutions
and supporting initiatives, highlighting technical and governance solutions for improvement. Regional
Interoperability and Trust services (2021) publication, co-ordinated by the RCC, discloses the trends in the
Western Balkans. According to the RCC’s publication, the Western Balkan economies to a great extent are
compliant or are working on compliance with eIDAS, and have made good progress concerning eID and
trust services, as well as interoperability frameworks. Cross-border services are still in an initial phase.
Understanding the complexity of the DI, the webinar will focus on some of the following aspects:
 Overview of existing digital identity standards and technologies with advantages and
disadvantages and taking into account current situations and planned developments,
 Specific and practical, real-life digital identity applications,
 Inspiring practices in EU member countries,
 Present and discuss the usage of DI, raise awareness on DI, and use DI for cross-border services.
AGENDA 31 MAY 2022
09.30 Welcome
Nick Thijs and José Diaz, Senior advisors, SIGMA
Florian Hauser, DGNEAR European Commission
09.45 Digital Identity, Leveraging the Self-Sovereignty Identity (SSI) Concept to Build Trust
Evgenia Nikolouzou, European Union Agency for Cyber Security (ENISA)
10.30 Regional Interoperability and Trust Services in Western Balkan region
Pranvera Kastrati and Tanja Maraš, Regional Cooperation Council (RCC)
11.00 A Digital identity and trust service strategy
Raf Buyle, Digital Flanders (Flemish Government, Belgium)
11.45 The journey of electronic trust services and electronic identification
Ludmyla Rabchinksa, former deputy minister for digital transformation (Ukraine)
12.15 Closing discussion and Conclusions
José Diaz, SIGMA
12.30 End of the webinar
Interpretation provided in Albanian, Macedonian and BSC languages

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ABOUT SIGMA
SIGMA (Support for Improvement in Governance and Management) is a joint initiative of the OECD and
the European Union, principally financed by the EU. Its key objective is to strengthen the foundations for
improved public governance, and hence support socio-economic development through building the
capacities of the public sector, enhancing horizontal governance and improving the design and
implementation of public administration reforms, including proper prioritisation, sequencing and
budgeting. We have been working with our partners on strengthening their public governance systems
and public administration capacities since 1992.
CONTACT
Nick Thijs – Senior Policy Advisor, SIGMA (Nick.Thijs@oecd.org)
Maggie Redmond – SIGMA (Maggie.REDMOND@oecd.org)
www.sigmaweb.org