The roadmap for digital transformation 2024–2030 for North Macedonia

The Roadmap for Digital Transformation 2024–2030 for North Macedonia presents a detailed and ambitious plan for reshaping public services and governance through digitalisation.

The roadmap is grounded in the Concept for Digital Transformation of Society, a high-level policy endorsed by the National Council and supported by USAID’s CIDR program. The Government of North Macedonia considers digital transformation a national priority to:

• increase transparency and good governance,
• fight corruption,
• improve efficiency, and
• enable citizen-centric services.

The roadmap complements existing strategies such as public administration reform and the national ICT strategy. It includes a visual timeline, budget estimates, and short-, medium-, and long-term milestones extending to 2030.

Guiding principles

The roadmap is built upon several fundamental principles:

• Rule of law
• Social cohesion
• Public-private partnerships
• Free access to public information
• ‘Single source of truth’
• ‘Digital-by-default’
• ‘Once-only’ principle

Implementation approach

To ensure effective digital transformation, the roadmap promotes:

• Regulation that is rights-respecting and tech-neutral
• Early and wide engagement with stakeholders
• Continuous capacity development and collaboration
• Infrastructure and data management
• Broad education on digital literacy (ages 7 to 77)
• Reuse and sharing of digital tools
• Cybersecurity embedded from the start
• Promoting success stories and innovations

Strategic initiatives by area

1. political and institutional foundations

• Establish Agency for Network and Information Systems (with a cybersecurity mandate) by end of 2025 – €2M
• Legal framework for e-ID cards – no additional cost
• Innovation support policy (including AI R&D) – 2% of GDP
• Reform IT roles in public administration – no additional cost
• Revitalise e-democracy platforms with inclusive design – €200K

2. open public information

• Upgrade and maintain the open-data portal (data.gov.mk) – €150K
• Add analytics and real-time tools to the portal – €100K

3. single sources of truth

• Digitalise key national registers (population, land, tax, health, etc.) and adopt data quality standards – €1.5M
• Update the Law on Central Population Register – no cost
• e-Health Record system with analytics – €750K

4. digital-by-default services

This is the largest and most ambitious pillar, with 17 initiatives:

• Human-centred design in service delivery – €100K
• Legal alignment with eIDAS (Electronic ID regulation) – continuous
• Digital infrastructure (equipment, servers, security, tools) – €4M
• Common platforms across all institutions (ERP, HRMIS, LMS, etc.) – €70K per institution
• New Law on Recordkeeping and implementation of ARCHIMAK system – €1M
• National eID and Mobile eID systems – €20M
• Institution-specific internal process digitalisation – €150K per institution
• New and improved e-services – €500K/year
• GovCloud infrastructure – €3M
• Data Embassy abroad for national data backup – TBD
• National transport portal – €500K (initial phase)
• Integrated financial management system – €20M
• Upgrade school management systems – €300K
• E-textbooks portal for students – €200K
• Text-to-Speech/Speech-to-Text (AI-based) – €200K
• EUDI Wallet (digital IDs and credentials) – TBD

5. once-only principle

• Enhance Interoperability Platform (Push/Pull, API) – €2M
• Law amendments for public e-services fee list – €100K

Timeline overview

• 2024–2025: Priority on foundational laws, e-services, e-ID, innovation, recordkeeping, and human-centred design.
• 2026: Completion of digital registers, ARCHIMAK, digital infrastructure, GovCloud.
• 2027–2029: Integrated financial systems, transport portal, Data Embassy.
• 2030: Full implementation review.