GovMesh Digest: Azerbaijan’s great digital leap through a single window system

Azerbaijan’s story is one of those featured in the GovMesh Digest special report. You can find the individual stories on the other participating governments at GovMesh 1.0 here. 

Proactive social payments by the Azerbaijan government showcased the tangible benefits that citizens experience thanks to the power of integrated data across the government.  

When a citizen reaches the retirement age of 65, the pension payout is automatically triggered by the country’s Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population, verified across several ministries (Internal Affairs, Justice and others), and delivered by the system.  

The system is enabled by the Centralised Electronic Information System (CEIS) that was set up in 2014. 

Sabina Huseynova, Advisor to the Director of the DOST Innovations Center, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population, was sharing about this at GovMesh. 

GovMesh is a by-invite-only event for emerging digital governments in the region, and its inaugural edition happened in March 25 in Singapore. 

In an earlier GovInsider interview, DOST Digital Innovations Centre’s Deputy Director, Orkhan Salahov, shared more about how the social payments are automatically triggered and paid without human intervention. 

"We do not wait for the citizens to declare any kind of services, rather the system creates and collects information about citizens and establishes their rights,” he said previously.

The automatic processes are all done within an average of two to three hours, Huseynova shared. 

A single window system 

Managed by the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population, CEIS is hosted on the government cloud and has integrated more than 80 information systems across public agencies and private entities such as banks, utility companies, payment providers and more. 

“Regardless of the fact that CEIS has so many subsystems in it, the systems are unified into one system. It offers one window to all the employees of the ministry, and another window for all citizens to access the data and services,” she said. 

Citizens, temporary or permanent residents in Azerbaijan can download the “e-Social” mobile app to access a wide range of public services, including social payment status, electronic references, visa applications and more.  

The app has been downloaded by over two million users, and uses several methods of authentication including single sign-on, biometric-based face recognition and more.  

Integrating systems through a digital bridge 

According to Huseynova, the government is fostering national integration of CEIS through a Digital Bridge.  

Within this framework, the Digital Finance is a specific mechanism that enables CEIS to be integrated with private sector entities. She has noticed increasing requests made through this framework, underscoring the demand to integrate public and private sector data.  

She cited a success use case of adopting digital labour contracts and electronic signatures. 

This shift has significantly reduced administrative overheads: Addressing state queries takes only 2-5 minutes compared to the previous 15-30 days; finalising employment contracts now takes 15 minutes compared to three days; and accessing references now takes a few minutes compared to 2-3 days previously. 

Going back to the single window system, a single platform now consolidates all online applications instead of agencies engaging in disparate ways of managing these job applications – be it via the centres, physical letters, emails or calls. 

Since 2016, the government has been using the ASAN index to measure the quality of public service delivery. 

Huseynova notes that the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population, which is currently at over 97 per cent digitalisation, has been ranked top in the index for the last three years. 

Read also: How Azerbaijan uses artificial intelligence to provide services to vulnerable groups, April 15, GovInsider