INTERVIEW Kyrgyzstan runs its own digital gov't after 5-year Korean partnership
Nurlan Aidiev / Courtesy of Nurlan Aidiev
For most Kyrgyz citizens, obtaining an official document or updating an administrative record used to mean days of legwork under a paper-based system. Physical mail between regions could take up to two weeks.
That changed last year when a five-year development initiative by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) helped the Kyrgyz government build an e-government system that lets citizens secure government certificates online from home in minutes.
“We digitalized everything. We have an electronic document management system (which) almost covers all of our territory and all of our government bodies, and now it takes up to five minutes to deliver any letter,” Nurlan Aidiev, a Kyrgyz government official, said in an interview with The Korea Times.
Aidiev oversaw the technical buildout of G-Cloud — the centralized government cloud system that now underpins all state data in Kyrgyzstan — as deputy director of IT infrastructure at InfoCom, the country's state information technology agency. The project, formally titled Modernization and Capacity Development of the Advanced Administrative Information Sharing and Interoperability System in Kyrgyzstan, ran from 2020 through 2025 under KOICA's official development assistance (ODA) project. He currently serves as deputy director at Kyzmat, a state institution under the Presidential Affairs Department of the Kyrgyz Republic.
Kyrgyzstan was a natural fit for the initiative. Compared with its Central Asian neighbors, the country had a relatively solid digital infrastructure base and higher citizen participation in online services, which translated into strong demand for government digitization. That profile aligned with KOICA's evolving ODA strategy, which increasingly prioritizes digital and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven solutions.
Kyrgyz IT officials manage systems inside the G-Cloud Center, the Central Asian nation’s first unified state data infrastructure made with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). Courtesy of KOICA
Building from ground up
However, the infrastructure had to be built from scratch, and that proved far from simple.
Korean experts spent months on site sharing the government's expertise in data migration and systems engineering, but the complex source code presented a steep learning curve for the Kyrgyz team, Aidiev recalled. Local engineers, including system administrators and software developers, worked closely with their Korean counterparts and pushed themselves to master the system so they could run it independently after the project's completion.
“It was a really complex task because many of our specialists were involved, including not only system administrators but also software developers, because some legacy informational systems needed modernization deeply in source code,” he said. “The project was not simply about installing technology. It was about creating a sustainable digital government infrastructure and local capacity to operate.”
He spoke warmly about the working relationship with the Korean team, recalling how one engineer — a key architect of the project — grew close enough with local colleagues to be given a Kyrgyz name.
“We became really close friends and gave him a Kyrgyzstan name, Nurbek … Korean guys are really open-minded. They can make friendships and are very helpful.”
Technology was only half the challenge. The other half was persuading public servants — many of whom had limited digital literacy and little motivation to change — to adopt the new system.
“(Some people) just didn't want to change anything and didn’t want to cooperate with us when we came to launch our electronic systems,” Aidiev said.
Kyrgyz IT officials manage systems inside the monitoring room at the G-Cloud Center, the nation’s first unified state data infrastructure made with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). Courtesy of KOICA
The team responded with intensive, ground-level training that started with the absolute basics.
“We had to provide them with very basic training programs. We started from the equipment that you need to work in a digital environment. We trained them on what a keyboard is, what a mouse is, what a monitor is,” he said. “(We warned them that) you must change or else, you will be outside of the system. It was the biggest motivation for them.”
Months of rigorous training and dedicated local staff outreach paid off, fueled by a shared commitment to advancing the country’s digital transformation. The system is now widely adopted and has become second nature to younger public servants, who grew up with mobile devices and computers.
Growing beyond project
The project's most telling outcome may be what happened after KOICA's involvement ended. Local engineers independently integrated AI into identity verification for driver's license issuance — a milestone that demonstrates how the country is building a self-sustaining digital ecosystem on the infrastructure KOICA helped put in place.
Beyond G-Cloud, KOICA and the Kyrgyz government are partnering on two additional e-government initiatives running through 2027: one to digitize the parliamentary system and another to construct a national digital training center. The Kyrgyz government is also upgrading G-Cloud on its own.
“We had a great experience with G-Cloud,” Aidiev said. “We will be very happy to work with KOICA again if possible.”