"Baby, Welcome to the World - parental allowance" project successfully implemented in all maternity wards in Serbia

The Prime Minister emphasized that parents, regardless of their place of residence, can from now on in every maternity ward in Serbia register a child in the Registry of Births, register residence and health insurance, apply for a health insurance card, as well submit a request for parental allowance.

The Prime Minister, Brnabić, especially stressed the fact that over 130,000 babies have been registered through this information system so far, which saved more than 910,000 hours of waiting in lines and more than 320 million dinars.

The information system "Baby, Welcome to the World" integrated data from the maternity wards, centers for social work and child care offices, linked the databases of the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Central Registry of Compulsory Social Insurance and the Republic Health Insurance Fund. At the same time, this information system is unique and does not exist in any other European Union country.

"Baby, Welcome to the World - parental allowance" project successfully implemented in all maternity wards in Serbia

In the previous years, parents had to visit multiple counters of municipalities, police stations, National Health Insurance Fund branch offices, city secretariats to register their baby and for all of this, they would spend an average of 7 hours waiting at different counters. Today, the entire procedure ends in the maternity ward in less than 15 minutes. All documents are delivered to parents at their home address, free of charge, and they receive all the information via SMS or e-mail address.

This service saves time and money for citizens, makes it easier for parents to register a child, as the procedure is faster and more simple, and the most important thing is that citizens are no longer couriers carrying documents from counter to counter, but the state is doing it for them.

The information system "Baby Welcome to the World" is certainly the best example of what eGovernment provides - it makes public administration more efficient in order to provide citizens with easier and higher quality lives.

At the beginning of December, the Office for Information Technologies and eGovernment established a special Contact Center for Public Administration, in order to support the introduction of new digital eGovernment services and ensure their uniform application. The Center is intended for two-way communication with employees in the state administration and local self-government bodies for the "Baby, Welcome to the World", "eZUP" and "eInspector" projects and the Local Tax Administration. In order to provide real-time support, as of February 4th, a telephone line was also set up for employees in maternity wards working in the "Baby, Welcome to the World" Information System.

The Contact Center was implemented by the Office for Information Technologies and eGovernment within the framework of the project "Serbia at Your Fingertips - Digital Transformation for Development" financed by the Government of the Republic of Serbia and the Government of the United Kingdom through the Good Governance Fund, and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Operational and professional support to the Office of IT and eGovernment in establishing the Contact Center for Public Administration was provided by the National Alliance for Local Economic Development (NALED).