Authors: Daniel Rogger, Research Manager – Governance and Institutions, World Bank // Christian Schuster, Professor in Public Management, University College London

Public administrations are being transformed by digital systems. Most governments now have digital systems for many of their administrative operations – from paying public servants to procuring goods to processing tax cases. However, all governments are under-investing in repurposing this data for evidence-based management, or what we call ‘government analytics’.

Government analytics empowers governments to leverage data to enhance public administration. It enables organizations to understand, for example, why one tax or passport office processes cases faster than another; why some offices pay higher prices for the same goods and services or offer different salaries for similar roles; why citizens express higher satisfaction with certain public services; or why employees in some agencies feel more motivated than others. These insights are essential for discussions on strengthening government operations, helping identify bottlenecks, best practices, outliers, and areas for improvement.

To support governments in their analytical work on these issues, we have developed The Government Analytics Handbook and a Fellowship Program to train Civil Servants in Washington DC. If you are interested in spearheading government analytics work in your organization or your government as a whole, please apply to become a 2025 Government Analytics Fellow. We are keen to train you.

This year’s cohort of Government Analytics Fellows described the Fellowship as 'perfect and engaging,' 'very insightful,' and said they 'couldn’t have asked for better training.' 94% of the 2024 Fellows rated the training program's quality as high or very high, and 97% felt it was likely or very likely they could apply their new skills on the job. During their Fellowships, participants worked on a variety of impactful projects, from procurement analytics to reduce corruption risks, to service delivery analytics that identify bottlenecks, to public servant survey analytics aimed at understanding drivers of turnover in public sector organizations.

We are looking for a new cohort of 2025 fellows from civil services from around the world. The fellowship programme is free-of-charge (as is the Handbook – you can download it at www.worldbank.org/governmentanalytics). Please apply to become a 2025 Government Analytics Fellow.

Become a Government Analytics Fellow

The Fellowship is aimed at public servants with authority to advance a government analytics project in their organization or government as-a-whole. This could be a senior analyst or department lead, with prior statistical training, for instance. The core of the Fellowship is a two-week training course from March 18 to 27 in Washington DC at the World Bank, with expenses for global south applicants (travel, accommodation, meals) covered by the World Bank (applicants from non-ODA-eligible countries have to cover their own expenses).

The Fellowship includes ongoing in-service support from a team of senior World Bank practitioners and academics over a six-month period to help Fellows develop a government analytics project in their organization. If this is of interest to you, please apply and join the data revolution. The closing date for applications – including a letter of support from your organization – is 10 January 2025.

Want to learn more about government analytics?

The Government Analytics Fellowship builds on the Government Analytics Handbook, which can be downloaded free-of-charge at worldbank.org/governmentanalytics (watch a five-minute introduction here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyXwOEQD0js). The Handbook presents frontier evidence and practitioner insights from a range of governments on how to leverage data to make governments work better. Covering a range of microdata sources—such as administrative data and public servant surveys—as well as tools and resources for undertaking the analytics, it transforms the ability of governments to take a data-informed approach to diagnose and improve how public organizations work.

The Handbook is structured to help you quickly identify sources of data you already have access to, and it offers practical advice about repurposing these data for analytics, as well as examples of the many possible insights that can be generated: 

  • Part 1 of the Handbook offers a broad overview of government analytics. Read this if you are busy or want an introduction to the topic. 

  • Part 2 lays a foundation for government analytics by outlining cross-cutting themes, such as statistical tools and skills, holistic measurement approaches, and ethical principles that make government analytics effective. 

  • Part 3 dives into the many sources of administrative data available in government databases. It includes chapters on (among other data sources) human resources and payroll data, procurement data, case productivity data, and expenditure data, as well as the different questions they help answer about the wage bill, corruption, customs efficiency, cost-effective procurement, spending, and everything in between. 

  • Part 4 explains how to use data from public servant surveys to better understand how public sector organizations work and measure the quality of management. It also offers an overview of the latest research into how to design and implement these surveys as effectively as possible. 

  • Part 5 turns to external assessments—including household and citizen surveys, measures of service delivery, and anthropological studies—to show how these data sources offer a richer overall picture of government processes and outcomes.