The Internet environment in Bulgaria as a basis of digital transformation and smart governance

Abstract

Smart cities' goals highlight the need for better interconnectedness, transparent and efficient governance and more effective public services. European cities have been leading the way on smart city development for over a decade. These cities are pioneers in testing and implementing innovative, sustainable and integrated solutions to become greener, more efficient, and better places for life. The Internet is the basis of all these novel developments and the quality of the net environment is crucial for the accomplishment of the digital transformation goals.

The project "Conducting a national assessment of Internet development in Bulgaria through the framework of “UNESCO Internet Universality indicators" is closely related to the principles of the global initiative "Partnership for Open Government": transparency, civic participation, accountability and technological innovation. UNESCO's Internet Universality Framework is a multi-stakeholder research tool designed to produce substantive and far-reaching findings that will be of real value to policymakers, regulators and other stakeholders to improve the quality of digital policy development and implementation.

The assessment through the “UNESCO Internet Universality indicators" is a unique instrument for the evaluation of the national Internet environment and its use. So far, several countries from all continents have undertaken this challenging exercise. After Germany, Bulgaria is the second European country that have produced such comprehensive report following a detailed procedure.

Through transparency, awareness and effective multistakeholder collaboration (governments, civil society, private sector, academia, the technical community, the journalistic community, etc.), we have gathered, consolidated and up-dated information about the network and the quality of services in Bulgaria, which is essential for an open, globally connected, secure and reliable Internet and sustainable digital transformation.

The main method used is the desktop and comparative research but for some areas an analysis of extracts from interviews have been included.

As a result of our experience gained during the implementation of the project, we made two types of proposals – international and national. The first group of proposals addressed UNESCO with the aim of refining the process of formulating new indicators and improving old ones based on the accumulated national practice. The second group of proposals comprised recommendations to statistical institutions, policy makers and legislators.

The report produced is a valuable asset for both theoreticians and practitioners. It allows them to see all problems concerning the Internet in a systematic manner. Statistics analyzed show that Bulgaria lost 10 positions in a year in the global digital quality of life index, the country's e-government is above the world average but the country ranks 36th in terms of Internet accessibility.

Being a good start for the elaboration of appropriate digital policy and legislation and for the enrichment of national statistics the report served also as a test of the effective implementation of the multistakeholders’ approach in Bulgaria.