The Use of ICT During the Covid-19 Pandemic in the City of Belgrade

The current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic has indicated the need to use modern ICT to manage different systems. Local self-governments are forced to implement various measures to combat the pandemic and prevent the growth of the number of infected people. Moreover, the activities carried out by local self-governments often change and this is one of the reasons why efficient and effective information management has been imposed as one of the primary goals. The use of ICT has greatly facilitated the monitoring of the several parameters that affect efficiency in the combating current COVID-19 pandemic. At the level of local self-governments, various entities are engaged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, coordination must be at a high level to implement various measures and achieve the desired results. Hospitals and other medical institutions, police, army forces, utility companies, Red Cross, volunteer organizations are some of the engaged institutions and organizations during pandemic. This paper is the report one and direct contribution of this paper is to point out the way ICT is used by the city of Belgrade, as a local self-government, during COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to all the above listed institutions and organizations, local self-governments in the Republic of Serbia have the task of coordinating the entities at the local level through their headquarters for emergency management. The primary results of the paper are to focus on positive aspects of the use of ICT at the local level during COVID-19 pandemic, primarily in the area of easier and efficient coordination with citizens and institutions. In addition, the paper presents the weaknesses of the use of ICT some of which are the unavailability of such technologies in rural areas, different approaches to the use of ICT and the need to control access.