Heaptalk, Jakarta — Indonesia and Estonia are exploring bilateral cooperation in the field of digital government transformation. This initiative emerged during a meeting between Indonesia’s Minister for Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform (PANRB), Rini Widyantini, and Estonia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, H.E. Margus Tsahkna, at the PANRB Ministry Office in Jakarta on Wednesday, April 23. Also in attendance was Estonia’s Ambassador to Indonesia, Singapore, and ASEAN, H.E. Priit Turk.
Minister Rini emphasized Estonia’s global reputation as a leader in bureaucratic reform and citizen-centric digital governance. “Indonesia can learn a great deal from Estonia in accelerating bureaucratic transformation to ensure digital government benefits are directly felt by the public,” she stated.
Rini noted that the PANRB Ministry plays a central role in achieving Indonesia’s Golden Vision 2045, particularly through driving bureaucratic reform, building a world-class civil service, enhancing digital public services, and institutionalizing innovation. Learning from Estonia’s experience can help Indonesia advance its digital government agenda more effectively.
One notable example from Estonia is the X-Road platform, which facilitates secure and efficient data exchange between government agencies and across the public and private sectors. Minister Rini expressed interest in studying X-Road as a model for achieving digital system interoperability in Indonesia.
She also highlighted Estonia’s focus on public trust, built through strong accountability measures in digital service delivery. Ensuring data security is crucial for building confidence in government technology among citizens. Indonesia is currently developing its Digital Population Identity (IKD) system to expand access to public services. It has also launched INAku, a national digital service portal designed around citizens’ life-cycle needs.
Minister Rini also acknowledged the growing threat of cyberattacks and the importance of enhancing cybersecurity and digital resilience. While Indonesia has established Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CISRTs) within government institutions, she stressed the need to learn from Estonia’s advanced capabilities in cyber defense and crisis management.
“Digital governance requires digital talent,” Rini added. She emphasized the importance of developing public sector digital skills to manage infrastructure, services, and digital transformation. Through collaboration with Estonia, Indonesia can offer civil servants digital competency training to strengthen its digital government ecosystem.
Good governance, Rini noted, is equally critical. A robust institutional framework, aligned regulations, and coherent policy structures are necessary to support comprehensive digital transformation across all government entities. Estonia’s globally recognized success in this area is underpinned not only by its technological sophistication but also by the strength of its governance model.
“The opportunity for cooperation and collaboration between Indonesia and Estonia is wide open, especially in building a digital government that is integrated, secure, and inclusive,” she concluded.
In response, Minister Tsahkna praised Indonesia’s efforts in developing digital governance and expressed Estonia’s readiness to support Indonesia’s transformation journey.
“Estonia is prepared to assist Indonesia in accelerating its digital government transformation,” he said, adding that cooperation could include training programs to improve digital competencies and cyber defense.
He also emphasized that public trust is key to successful digital transformation. Citizens should have transparency on who accesses their data to foster trust through security and control.
“Indonesia can approach digital transformation step by step, and Estonia stands ready to support every phase of this progress,” Minister Tsahkna concluded.
