The Ministry of Justice of Azerbaijan plans to leverage blockchain technology and smart contracts to improve public services.

Ministry Focuses on Housing and Utilities

Azerbaijan is taking steps towards implementing blockchain technology in the housing and utilities sector, according to Osman Gunduz, Chairman of the Azerbaijani Internet Forum (AMF).

Speaking to Trend News Agency, Gunduz explained that the Ministry of Justice, which is facilitating the initiative, had organized a meeting on October 30 where “information was provided about systems and electronic services provided by various structural units of the ministry.”

Services Currently Provided

Gunduz spoke at length about the new initiative, saying:

The agency currently provides over 30 electronic services, and also there are about 15 information systems and registries. The registers of ‘electronic notary,’ ‘electronic courts,’ penitentiary service, the information systems of non-governmental organizations, the register of population, etc. can be mentioned.The planned project entitled as ‘Mobile notary office,’ which provides for the accumulation of all notarial documents in one case, has seemed interesting.

Elaborating on the ministry’s plan to leverage blockchain, Gunduz added

Especially the fact that the ministry is interested in the introduction of the blockchain technology attracted attention. It was announced that in the future, the SMART contracts will be introduced in the field of public utilities (water, gas and electricity supply). […] That is, this refers to the switch-over of existing contracts of citizens for utility services to SMART-contracts, which will ensure transparency and will allow to suppress the cases of falsification in this area. The citizens themselves will be able to independently control all these processes.

The chairman of AMF explained how the use of blockchain was appropriate for implementation for the ministry’s services as they involve registries and databases of the population.

Use of Blockchain for Governance

Azerbaijan is not the only country whose government is looking to leverage the decentralized ledger technology. Live Bitcoin News reported last week about how the government of Dubai is using blockchain to improve government provided services as part of its Smart Dubai initiative.

Belgium’s agency for nature and forests is also looking at using blockchain for forest management. Venezuela plans to use its state-backed Petro for payments for issuing passports while in the neighboring country of Chile, parliament members earlier this month presented a blockchain resolution before the lower house of parliament.

As governments across the world are increasingly evaluating blockchain technology and its use for improving governance, Azerbaijan joins the list of early adopters.

Do you think that use of blockchain can bring significant improvement to government services? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, The News Agency

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