4th Ministerial eGovernment Conference in Portugal and European eGovernment Awards 2007 – Reaping the Benefits of eGovernment

The Portuguese Government and the European Commission are jointly organising the fourth Ministerial eGovernment Conference under the title “Reaping the Benefits of eGovernment”. The conference will take place during the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union.

Participants include Ministers, top-level representatives of public authorities (including regional, local levels and the European Commission) as well as delegations from third countries, from the candidates to the European Union, from EFTA and also high level executives from the business community and civil society. More than 1 000 attendees will participate.

On the eve of the conference, 19 September, a Ministerial meeting will take place for EU Member States’ Ministers to take stock of progress since the 2005 Manchester Ministerial Declaration and the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan. Ministers will also seek to reconfirm the Member States’ commitment to the targets set and to identify/assess emerging policy priorities towards 2020, both at national and EU-level.

While providing a platform for high-level political debate and the exchange of ideas, the conference will highlight the direct impact of eGovernment on economies and citizens as well as its contribution to achieving the goals set out in the Lisbon Strategy. In this light, various plenary sessions, tutorials and workshops will revolve around four main themes relating to ICT and Public Services, namely:

• Better public services for growth and jobs;
• Participation and transparency;
• Social impact and cohesion;
• Effective and efficient administration, with special emphasis on the local and regional level.

During the Conference, a major display of 52 real-life eGovernment solutions and applications will be organised to highlight new developments in Europe and to build upon these in order to stimulate the take-up and dissemination of good practices. These examples of eGovernment good practices have been selected through a call for applications and the best submissions will receive one of the four European eGovernment Awards 2007; one per conference theme. The winning practices will be presented on 20 September by Siim Kallas, Vice President and member of the European Commission.

Moreover, the 'Most Inspiring good practice Award', resulting from the online vote of the ePractice portal's users, will be announced together with the four winners of the European eGovernment Awards 2007. Online voting for the Most Inspiring good practice Award is possible until 20 September at 16:00 CET. More information on the voting rules is available at http://www.epractice.eu/info/36.

The full programme is now available at the conference website.

Event website:
http://www.megovconf-lisbon.gov.pt/

Venue:
Lisbon International Fair
Expo grounds
Rua do Bojador - Parque das Nações
1998-010 Lisboa
Portugal

Contact:
E-mail: ucma@ucma.gov.pt