This report was drafted by Hille Hinsberg, Policy Analyst of the OECD Open Government Unit, as part of the Kazakhstan Country programme. It was drafted under the supervision of Alessandro Bellantoni, Head of the Open Government Unit and Martin Forst, Head of the Governance Reviews and Partnerships Division of the OECD Public Governance Directorate. Amelia Godber provided editorial support.
The OECD thanks the peer reviewers who participated in the fact-finding mission to Astana and Uralsk and shared their experience at a workshop held in Astana to reflect on the preliminary findings and recommendations of this report: Dmytro Khutkyy, Manager, E-Democracy Group of Ukraine, Thomas Rogé, Head of the Youth Policy Department in the City of Paris, France, and Iain Murray, policy officer of the Public Service Reform and Community Planning Department of the Scottish Government, United Kingdom.
The report team wishes to acknowledge the significant contribution made by their interlocutors in the Republic of Kazakhstan: the Ministry of Information and Communication and in particular: Vice-Minister of Information and Communications of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nurgul Mauberlinova, Vice-Minister of Information and Communications of the Republic of Kazakhstan Dinara Sheglova, Deputy Head of Policy Department Bekzat Rakhimov and Chief Policy Expert on Access to Information Elmira Nurkisheva; in the Ministry of Social Development (formerly Ministry for Religious Affairs and Civil Society), in particular: Vice Chairman of the Committee for Civil Society Affairs Gulbara Sultanova, and Senior Expert for Civil Society Affairs Kairat Baimuldinov.
Special thanks to Gabidulla Ospankulov, Deputy Akim of the West Kazakhstan region and staff at the Uralsk Oblast Akimat for arranging the fact-finding visit to the West Kazakhstan region.
Special thanks to all interlocutors during the fact-finding mission, including Marat Kogamov, Chairman of the Public Council at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and Altynai Kobejeva, Secretary of the Public Council of the city of Almaty.
Valuable information was provided by Askar Kushkunbayev and Anton Artemyev from the Soros Foundation Kazakhstan.
The authors would like to thank Joao Vasconselos, Policy Analyst from the OECD Digital Government Unit for his contribution to the workshop in Astana on citizen-driven policy-making and public service delivery by digital tools.