First phase of the project "Establishment of BiH portal", which is in the process of implementation by the Public Administration Reform Coordinator’s Office, in cooperation with the Department for maintenance and development of electronic business system and e-Governance of the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers of BiH, has been presented today in Sarajevo.

Through the portal electronic information will be available by the concept "one stop shop".  This way the citizens and business parties will, for the first time in BiH, have the information on services provided by public institutions at one stop. Through the project 227 such services have been identified.

"At only one stop the citizens will have a clear insight into the services offered by public institutions to citizens and business parties. First phase has stipulated only the information on services offered by public institutions and downloading forms, while the next phase stipulates taking the electronic service to the higher level. However, it will depend on realization of projects such are mutual e-services and public registries as well as on the adoption of certain law and bylaw solutions", has been pointed out to media by Semiha Borovac, State Public Administration Reform Coordinator, who also added that "by connecting all these projects and coordinating the power by the end of 2014 we will be able to have our first electronic service by public institutions".

"Citizens will be able to verify which level of service they can receive by government bodies, how to get to that service, what are the documents they need to submit in order for them to reach the certain service. They can also download the electronic form for submitting request, while in the next phase they will be able to submit the request electronically and do the payments and receive their service delivered to their home address", Borovac has said and pointed out that this is the basis for further work and establishment of electronic governance in communication between citizens and public administration in BiH.

"We think that these projects will contribute to better satisfaction of beneficiaries, i.e. citizens and business parties and that this will be the way for us to get closer to standards of European countries when speaking of providing services to citizens and business parties through electronic communication. Also, this will impact the better functionalism of government bodies in BiH", has been said by state coordinator.

By addressing the representatives of public institutions, who have attended the presentation of the first phase, Borovac has pointed out that without cooperation between institutions in these affairs there will be no function of this portal because institutions are the ones to take the responsibility of updating the information.

In the Republic of Srpska established has been the similar portal and in the next period expected is the establishment of portal in the Federation of BiH and the District of Brčko. Normally, establishing the BiH portal is one of the measures from the Revised Action plan 1 of the Public Administration Reform Strategy. Support for the project has been provided by the German Society for International Cooperation – GIZ.