15
3. Goals and Fundamental Principles of Information Society Policy
At international level fundamental principles of information society have been adopted on
December 2003 during World Summit for Information Society, which is an international podium
for a dialogue between countries and international organisations on global society’s progress in
conditions of continuous information and communication technology development and
information volume increase. Overall, eleven key principles were defined to build a
comprehensive information society – to improve access to ICT infrastructure, provide access to
information and knowledge, increase competencies, increase trust and security regarding the
usage of ICT, create an advantageous environment for the ICT usage, use ICT in all aspects of
life, facilitate diversity and identity, develop digital content, avoid limitations in the usage of ICT
in media, address ethical aspects of information society, as well as to facilitate international and
regional collaboration.
Based on the experience acquired during the implementation of Information Society
Development Guidelines 2006-2013, as well as analysing priorities on the national level, the
definition of the guidelines goal is the following: to provide an opportunity for everyone to use
the possibilities offered by ICT, to develop an knowledge-based economy and to improve the
overall quality of life by contributing to the national competitiveness, and increasing an economic
growth and job creation.
Action directions and planned activities defined to reach the goal of the guidelines are described
in Section 5 “Action Directions to Reach the Goal and Solve the Existing Problems”.
Leitmotif of the guidelines is economic growth and job creation. The actions in each of action
directions envisaged in the guidelines are pointed towards enhancement of competitiveness in
terms of economic growth and job creation. For this purpose a special attention in the guidelines
is drawn to introduction of open data principle in public administration, which covers previously
undervalued potential of the digital economy development by changing information resources,
which arise in public administration with the aim to ensure the implementation of public
administration functions and tasks, into new innovative business ideas and services, which can
increase profit and create jobs.
Significant factors are also the enhancement of e-skills and improvement of Internet access and
speed, which is an essential prerequisite for e-commerce and business in general, since the
opportunities for the public to use modern ICT solutions, which have become an integral part in
almost every domain, are limited without e-skills and high-speed Internet.
Another important focal point of the guidelines for promoting economic growth is a determined
reduction of administrative burden by managing optimisation and improvement of efficiency of
public administration basic activities, as well as the simplification for receiving public services
by means of ICT features and tools. Thus, the administrative burden for entrepreneurs and related
costs will reduce and that will allow concentrating more resources on the business itself. By
reducing administrative burden it is expected to increase the number of those entrepreneurs
(especially SMEs), which until now have been deterred from commencing their businesses or
official registration due to the complexity and unwieldiness of bureaucratic procedures.
information_society_development_guidelines_2014_2020.docx; Information Society Development Guidelines
2014-2020