Cambodia's pentagonal strategy, India's digital twin, and Estonia's AI vision
Edition #68 The Cambodian PM kicks off the next phase of the country's digital government efforts, while elsewhere we are thinking about how to maintain central digital units...
In our previous roundup - in keeping with a theme running throughout this year - our focus was on data sovereignty. We looked at how governments ought to, and sometimes fail to, respect the sovereignty of groups, individuals, and citizen populations, with case studies from France, Australia and Japan.
This week, in a change of pace, we are thinking about delivering digital transformation from the center. Various leading digital governments - from the UK to Israel to Singapore - can attribute much of their successful to small, often insurgent units delivering and managing change from the center of government. In this week’s edition, we look at two of these examples, through a Global Government Forum interview with Shira Lev-Ami and the news that the UK has appointed a new Chief Digital Officer (CDO).
Our main stories this week:
Italy publishes 2024-26 Three-Year Plan for Information Technology in Public Administration
“We put a lot of effort into not becoming a centralized obstacle”: Shira Lev-Ami and Astrid Desset on the role of central digital units
Future of Government Awards see Europe and Asia lead the way
As a reminder, we have recently begun to expand our digital government coverage away from just Substack and onto Linkedin, Twitter and Instagram. For original content, audience engagement, and roundups of all our pieces, feel free to follow us over on those channels.
Italy publishes 2024-26 Three-Year Plan for Information Technology in Public Administration - AgID
Italy’s Digital Agency (AgID) has published its strategic planning document for public sector digital transformation.
The strategy is structured around 11 guiding principles, chief among them being digital first, interoperable, and inclusive. Notably, given Italy’s challenges in Digital ID rollout, one of the principles is also “exclusive access via digital identity (digital identity only)”.
AgID’s vision is wide-ranging, covering everything from procurement to cyber security. But central to the philosophy of the whole document is a paradigm shift from so-called “Platform for Government” - platforms for individual purposes or services - to a deeper vision of “Government as [interconnected] Platform”, following the lead of countries from Singapore to Ireland.
The plan also addresses AI for the first time. Couched in the contexts of EU legislation including the AI act, discussion is largely focused on a risk-based approach to AI, including in its use in the Public Sector.
Our Take: This strategy, especially in its discussion of AI, is clearly a landmark for Italy’s digital government ambitions. Right now, given the breadth of its scope, it is light on detail, and time will tell whether these ambitions will be substantiated. In its discussion of AI, the plan misses an opportunity to set out concrete use cases, or a road to public sector adoption, and Italy should be careful that its (rightly) cautious approach does not push too far into adoption paralysis.
“We put a lot of effort into not becoming a centralized obstacle”: Shira Lev-Ami and Astrid Desset on the role of central digital units - Siobhan Benita, Global Government Forum
The CEO of Israel’s National Digital Agency and the former Director-General of Catalonia’s Open Administration Consortium talk about how to ensure that central digital agencies fulfill their promise as central drivers of digital change.
One of the key themes running throughout the podcast - and much of interweave’s work - is how to convince leaders of the opportunities of digital transformation. Lev-Ami describes Israel’s approach to doing so through the Digital Leaders Initiative, a year-long program in which leaders of various ministries are able to visit governments overseas to see first-hand the success of digital transformation.
As for cross-departmental interoperability, Lev-Ami discusses the case study of the Health Information Exchange, an Israeli Ministry of Health-led network that connects the country’s medical infrastructure through a common data platform.
In building a central digital agency, it is important to not become a “centralized barrier”, Lev-Ami says. What that means is limiting the scope of one’s agency to creating economies of scale and plugging resource gaps, rather than trying to lean into projects that might more clearly benefit from the expertise of agencies (e.g., a driving license platform under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Transport). Paradoxically, she says, successful central agencies often deliver greater change when they are prepared to take on less, rather than more, control.
Future of Government Awards see Europe and Asia lead the way - UNDP
The UNDP’s Future of Government awards saw five prizes handed out, selected from 330 entries from 60+ different countries.
The awards included Open Source Creation, Open Source Adaptation, Digital Advocates, Digital Leader of the Year, and the Lifetime Achievement Award. While some were given prizes, it’s important to recognize that digital government isn’t zero sum, and many initiatives help others innovate via collaboration.
Bahmni (Bangalore, India) is a Digital Public Good that won in the Open Source Creation category, serving as a free-to-use aggregator of electronic medical record (EMR) and hospital systems with more than 2M+ patient records in 50+ countries.
Tekwill (Chisinau, Moldova) was commended as a finalist for the Digital Advocates of the Year Award for its use as an interactive digital education content service with a “flipped classroom” approach to learning. Check out interweave’s interview with Olga Tumuruc, Head of Moldova’s eGovernance Agency, if you missed it.
GovTech News in Brief
Facilitating the issuance, recognition, and acceptance of digital student university certificates to enable their cross-border use - European Commission
Universities from Spain, Greece and Switzerland have come together to create a program to standardize and recognize university documents across European borders as a part of the broader European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) initiative.
India seeks Artificial Wisdom and plans city-scale digital twin - Samaya Dharmaraj, OpenGovAsia
India has announced an expression of interest (EOI) for a new project to build a city-scale digital twin, which would incorporate advanced technologies to plan, monitor, and connect a city based on data.
Our Take: There is a lot of excitement around this project which, if successful, could revolutionize urban design in India. But it is important not to overstate its potential just yet - the project is still in its initial consultation stages, and right now we have little indication of delivery dates, capabilities, or project scale.
New Chief Data Officer for the UK Government - Sam Birchall, Government Transformation Magazine
After almost nine years without a Chief Data Officer, including multiple strategies to instate one and various recruitment attempts, the UK has finally appointed Craig Suckling - a former Head of Data Strategy at AWS.
Our Take: For more detail on this story, check out Gavin Freeguard’s excellent Data Policy Digest. In other UK data news this week, the government has revealed that data sharing powers introduced in 2017 have saved taxpayers £137m since coming into force.
Estonia’s AI vision: building a data-driven society and government - Ula Rutkowska, aPolitical
An interview with Estonia’s Chief Data Officer on Estonia’s new AI strategy, and how the government is changing the way it uses data to support it.
Cambodian PM Calls for government departments’ digital change - Mom Kunthear, Phnom Penh Post
In what looks like a shift in emphasis for Cambodian Digital Government, the Prime Minister has renewed a pledge to prioritize digital government in the country at the same time as its Ministry of Telecommunications announced that Phnom Penh would be hosting an international digital transformation summit.
Our Take: As Cambodia’s Pentagonal Strategy - a 2023 digital plan themed around five strategic objectives - kicks into gear, we should watch this space!
The Copenhagen Framework on Citizen Data - UN
The Copenhagen Framework on Citizen Data serves as an outline for how governments should maintain and consider the data they collect on citizens to ensure responsible and ethical data policies that empower citizens.
Digital Leaders’ Download: Treasury Leader Cat Little on how policy and digital can combine to deliver radical new outcomes - Sam Trendall, Public Technology
Former CEO of the UK’s Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), Megan Lee Devlin, interviews the Government’s Head of Finance Function on being a digital leader, data-driven policy, and how digital can transform Treasury functions in particular.
The Theory Behind the Practice
Building generative AI-powered public services: what have we learned so far? - Paul Maltby, Faculty.ai
With the mass adoption of ChatGPT in full swing, Faculty AI brings an overview of the use cases of generative AI in government - the most common clustered around one-off personal productivity, automating routine processes, and creating next-generation business models.
What governments could learn from startups on AI - Robyn Scott, Sifted
Robyn Scott, Founder and CEO of Apolitical, looks at how governments can better capitalize on digital technologies and be more agile, particularly since Gen AI has now become mainstream.
Our Take: Gen AI is transforming global government services, as we’ve seen here at interweave time and time again. Here are three excellent case studies from Robyn around the world of Gen AI in use: 1) Portugal’s digital authentication system, 2) Tokyo’s internal productivity tools, and 3) Kelowna’s streamlining of permit issuance.
Six key takeaways from season two of Reimagining Government - Adrian Brown, Naja Nelson & Athena Hughes, Reimagining Government
The Centre for Public Impact’s podcast series “Reimagining Government” has just wrapped up season two, with themes ranging from dealing with government failure, changing paradigms, and earning legitimacy in government.
Our Take: While not digital government specific, it may be worthwhile to consider how “non-digital” government paradigm shifts might still manifest in digital transformation. For example, the focus on overcoming governmental failures covered in the series might be useful for examining some of the high-profile digital government missteps we’ve seen in prior newsletters.
Upcoming GovTech Events
Can your research support sustainable digital transformation? - International Telecommunications Union
Submit your research in digital innovation for sustainability to the ITU Kaleidoscope 2024 conference in New Delhi to spread your research, meet people working in the digital transformation space, and even win prizes.
UNITAC open call for projects 2024
UNITAC Hamburg has announced a call for innovative projects that contribute to smart cities being more people-centered, with a deadline of 3rd March