ROLE OF ICT ON STATE REFORM: MUTUAL LEARNING IN OECD AND MENA REGIONS

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1 UNDESA Workshop on Promoting collaborative egovernance through innovation and ICTs, Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain June 2013 ROLE OF ICT ON STATE REFORM: MUTUAL LEARNING IN OECD AND MENA REGIONS Workshop 1: Transformative e-government and Innovation: Creating a Better Future for All Mr. Edwin Lau Head of Public Sector Reform Division Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development OECD

2 Observatory of Public Sector Innovation

3 OECD helps governments to improve public service delivery Creating recognition that good governance at all levels is crucial Strengthening the evidence base Sharing international experience on good practices Developing standards and benchmarks to assess progress Examining the role of innovation in the public sector: OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation 3

4 The OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation MAPPING Member countries Research centres / Academia Other international organisations Database Observator y Research Databas e Platform Private sector PROMOTING ASSESSING

5 OECD Innovation Community

6 Examples of GCC (and MENA) innovations Some examples we are looking as part of OECD public sector innovation work: Bahrain ekey Infrastructure: digital, secure and unified authentication for public (and later commercial) services. UAE Star Rating: evaluation of service delivery centres coupled with hands-on guidance on how to improve public service delivery. Egypt s Election Management System: supporting the first Egyptian elections through websites, SMS services and call centres to guide on processes and increase participation. Tunisia s Ministry of Education on Facebook : social media is used to engage stakeholders in a continuous debate about education policy. 6

7 Innovation in public service delivery: Similar issues in OECD & GCC countries Can public sector innovation help reduce costs, improve productivity, sustain trust in government and support policy outcomes? Are stakeholders taking part in public sector innovation design and implementation? What is the right balance between investing in technological and non-technological innovation? Are countries anchoring innovation capacities in formal institutions and skills frameworks? 7

8 But also specific GCC context factors What is important to keep in mind when looking at public service innovation in GCC countries? Resources availability: large budgets for ambitious innovation agendas and technology investments. Demographics and service quality: rapid population growth, high foreign resident shares, recruitment needs for public sector capacity development. Participation: growing parts of the population are young, educated, connected and demanding. Structural challenges: high environmental footprints, limits to some critical natural resources (e.g. fresh water), rising individual and collective health issues. 8

9 New trends: Open Government Data and m-government

10 Open Government Data Project (OGD) Data analytics: key driver of public sector performance and public value delivery. Better evidence to identify programmes deficiencies and redirect policies, spot operational problems and target resources and improvements in service delivery. Data analytics requires an adequate Open Government Data infrastructure: legal environment (adapting regulations on privacy, security and information sharing, standards, etc), organizational dynamics and culture, skills availability, governance mechanisms, funding models. OECD OGD project focuses on reviewing national policies, initiatives and impact to advice governments on how to capture the benefits of data analytics and OGD at large to spur collaborative governments, deliver integrated services and increase public sector performance

11 From e-government to m-government What is m-government? Differences between e-government and m-government services provision: more than a shift in technologies, a fundamental change (e.g. different relationship between: Mobile state and mobile public officials Mobile state and mobile citizens Mobile citizens and mobile civil servants New collaboration and co-ordination needed to deliver integrated services Key role of mobile technology to pursue next generation of public services: citizen centric, integrated, measurable and transparent New technologies enable more open specifications, greater sharing of resources, interoperability, counting on future market trends, collaborative governance Key question: will e-government be replaced by m- government? Early stage of m government development and part of the overall strategy of Public Sector modernisation and integrated service delivery strategy

12 The ICT value proposition

13 Spending on ICT: up to 2% of government budgets Money well spent? Government more efficient, more effective, more open? ICT-related capital, operations and human resources expenditures (* means no HR data available) or latest available year Note: Data from an OECD survey on government ICT expenditures. It is subject to further harmonisation and cannot be made public in its current form. Not all countries provide data on ICT HR expenditures. NZ and US do not separately provide HR expenditures.

14 Takeup has generally improved, but still lags in some countries Citizens using internet to interact with public authorities (% of total) Government cannot reap productivity benefits without increased takeup Key asset at a time of pressure on the relationship between citizens and government Depends on investment, but also awareness, channel strategy, and usability 14

15 Half of the young in OECD countries seem to be disconnected from e-gov % points year olds are much less likely to interact online with the public administration than year olds. The gap varies between over 25 percentage points for Hungary to about 6 points for Slovenia. What is the trend in other regions? Sources: OECD Government at a Glance 2013 (forthcoming); OECD/Eurostat Survey on ICT usage by Households and Individuals.

16 A changing public governance context In the short-term, ICT investments need to demonstrate productivity gains and help deal with staffing pressures But ICT cannot just mean doing more with less. o New digital policies and choices are needed to enable an open, participatory and ubiquitous public sector o Solving new wicked problems require joined-up administrations capable of adopting whole-of-society approaches to create public value o The paradigm has changed: from government as provider to government as enabler and convener

17 What help do governments need in this new context? Establishing an environment and ecosystems that create value and engage users Leveraging ICT and information resources to connect actors to generate integrated solutions Standards and policy instruments that guide them through the new (digital) public governance context Evidence that show impact to guide choices and corrective actions

18 The value of OECD E-Government Review: the example of Egypt The country, Egypt: Active participant in OECD Public Governance Committee and the PGC Network on E-Government The review: The first full-fledged OECD E-Government Review of a MENA country under the MENA-OECD Governance Programme The strategic aim and outcomes: Improve policies and performance in the public sector use of ICTs; Benchmarking e-government performance with OECD standards; Learning from OECD peers and good practices; Sharing experience and practices with countries in the region.

19 Thank you! ryofpublicsectorinnovation.htm