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Yesterday, Ghana’s Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, engaged in separate bilateral discussions with Estonian President Alar Karis and Prime Minister Kaja Kallas in Tallinn, Estonia. This engagement is part of his three-day working visit to Estonia, focused on understanding the country’s digital economy, which is renowned globally for its advancement.
Estonia’s digital progress is significant, and this visit by Dr. Bawumia, who embarked on his journey from Accra last Tuesday, is aimed at gaining insights from a country at the forefront of digital innovation. On his first day in Tallinn, he not only met with the Estonian President and Prime Minister but also engaged with officials from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and toured various facilities that are central to Estonia’s digital achievements.
During these meetings, Estonian leaders shared their two-decade-long journey of investing in and implementing digitalization, which has substantially transformed their economy. They discussed how digitalization has impacted various sectors, including job creation, service delivery, and taxation. Dr. Bawumia, in turn, shared the strides Ghana has made in digitalization over the past seven years, highlighting its positive effects on the nation, particularly in areas like corruption reduction, public service efficiency, and government revenue enhancement.
A significant meeting with the Ministry officials, led by Government CIO and Undersecretary for Digital Transformation Luukas Ilves, involved a detailed discussion on how digitalization influences economic transformation.
Interestingly, despite Estonia’s longer experience in digitalization, known as e-Estonia, its journey shares remarkable similarities with Ghana’s digital efforts. Both countries have centered their digital frameworks around their national digital identity cards. Other parallels include the development of digital address systems, online government services (e-Government in Estonia and Ghana.Gov in Ghana), and advancements in financial inclusion, which have notably enhanced online banking and mobile money transactions in both nations.
Since becoming Vice-President in 2017, Dr. Bawumia has been a key driver of Ghana’s government’s digitalization initiatives. These initiatives encompass the introduction of mobile money interoperability, a digital property address system, the Ghana.gov platform, National Identification cards, a paperless port system, and online applications for passports and driver’s licenses.
Dr. Bawumia is scheduled to conclude his visit and return to Ghana on Saturday, January 27.
