Romania - Strategy for the Digital Agenda of Romania 2020

The National Strategy on Digital Agenda for Romania for 2020 targets the development of information and communication technology (ICT) skills for citizens, labour force and digital experts and aims to contribute to economic growth and stimulate competitiveness on local, national, EU and global level. 

The Digital Agenda for Romania sets priorities for key sectors for the Romanian economy and society: Employment, Research and Development (R&D), Climate change and energy sustainability, Education, and Fighting poverty and social exclusion. Skills are tackled across 4 main fields of action, developed on the basis of the European Commission's Digital Agenda for Europe for the period 2014 – 2020, which aim to: 

• Develop a sound knowledge base and skilled workforce in the areas of eGovernment, Interoperability, Cyber Security, Cloud Computing, Open Data, Big Data and Social Media to increase efficiency, reduce costs associated with the public sector and the use of public services, and modernise existing public administration structures. 
• Promote and increase the use of information and communication technology (ICT) tools and solutions in the context of education, health, culture and digital inclusion, through broad support at sectorial level and stable ICT investments. 
• Upskill workforce and develop competences in fields like eCommerce, Research & Development and Innovation in ICT, building on the comparative advantages of various Romanian regions and supporting growth for the public sector. 
• Improve broadband and digital services infrastructure to support increased connectivity, more devices on the Internet, and ensure social inclusion across regions of Romania.

Actions across the fields focus around digital inclusion, upskilling of ICT competences and advanced digital skills to enable key emerging and breakthrough technologies and innovation in the public and private sector, as well as many others. Projects launched within the framework include the delivery of ICT equipment (both hardware and software) to schools with a special focus on rural areas, training programmes aiming to enhance teachers' digital competences, and raising awareness on digital skills and initiatives supporting the digitalisation in the public and private sector. 

According to estimates by the Romanian Government, the Strategy for Digital Agenda for Romania has the potential to boost GDP growth with 13%, increase the number of jobs in digital technology and the ICT sector by more than 10% during the period between 2014 to 2020.