Minister of digital development, communications and mass media Konstantin Noskov announced appearance of deputy ministers for digital development in all key ministries. The official spoke about that at Digital economy: Breakthrough to the future conference at the Analytics Center of the Russian government.
According to Konstantin Noskov, candidates to digital deputy ministers (in healthcare, construction, transportation, energy and other ministries) will have to be approved by the Ministry of digital development and Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov. At the moment, positions are being introduced and candidates selected.
“Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has made a decision. A respective instruction has been drafted on introducing special positions of deputy ministers for digital development at all key ministries. We refer to such a position as CDO or Chief Digital Officer. The decision is now being implemented. CDOs will be digital transformation agents working as a united team under guidance of the respective Deputy Prime Minister”, Konstantin Noskov stressed.
As the newly appointed minister of the reformed ministry believes, that is evidence of the political landscape changes with Digital Economy state program living through its new iteration.
“In its previous iteration the ministry was insufficiently involved with the program development and implementation. It is not a reproach to the Ministry [of communications and mass media], since the overall mechanism was structured in such a way that a good share of powers and responsibilities was vested with businesses. Yet it is not possible for business alone to maintain a dialogue within the budget process”, the Minister noted.
He therefore believes that the government’s role in the digitalization process should grow.