How data, digitalisation, and governance have revolutionised government in Europe and Central Asia

This article is written by Patricia Paskov, analyst, and Daniel Rogger, economist with the World Bank’s Bureaucracy Lab.

• The problem: Despite a huge increase in the availability of data and digital tools, public service roles are frequently not designed to encourage learning that effectively capitalises on these tools.
• Why it matters: Much of the world is becoming increasingly complex, and public servants must learn to use and learn from data and digital solutions.
• The solution: Learning from the data revolution will require structural shifts in public service management, design, and organisation as much as in access to shiny new apps.

As members of a large bureaucratic organisation, we find ourselves bombarded with invitations to learn about new topics, hear the presentation of program evaluations, or capitalise on new data and digital tools. It often feels a bit too much. Moreover, working in a team-based system, an idea often creeps into decision making: I’ll let someone else learn about or how to do that, and they can do it for the team.

• Want to write for us? Take a look at Apolitical’s guide for contributors

These tensions are at the heart of a new World Bank report on the use of data and digitalisation in Europe and Central Asian public sector organisations on which we are co-authors of (see Part I, Chapter II). As the quantity and granularity of social and economic data skyrockets, how can public administrations be designed to meaningfully engage with this data? What would make analysts like ourselves learn from the data and digital tools on offer? And will new data landscapes trigger a shift in the way that citizens interact with — and hold accountable — public administration?

The interaction of technology with officialdom proves far more important for government effectiveness than any particular software or platform available.

The report’s main response is that data on its own has not, and will not, change the key features of public administration and citizen action. Therefore, public administration can best react to the data revolution by using the tools it offers to change the way the public service itself is run – while understanding the limits to data's impact in that process. The answer is not to simply measure everything we can in the public administration itself and make that public. The answer is to develop tools and organisational cultures that make it attractive and worthwhile for officials to use data and digital tools more thoughtfully and intensively.

Small-scale improvements

For example, our department of the World Bank has a research analytics team that encourages us to learn new digital tools relevant to our work. They do very little high-frequency monitoring of our activities. Rather, they build a team culture of using frontier tools, provide peer-mentoring and training, generate accessible resources, and embed within our department professional norms that we all strive to achieve. These practices engender an intrinsic interest in our learning, and in turn they frequently make us more likely to capitalise on data and analyse it in a more effective way. As such, we are far less tempted to leave learning from digitisation to others.

The public sector plays a key role in the economies of Europe and Central Asia (ECA), where it employs 25% of the total workforce and constitutes nearly 40 percent of the gross domestic product via government expenditures. Aging economies, growing support for state ownership, and COVID-19-induced demands suggest that the role of government in ECA may increase with time. The response of governments across the region to the data revolution will determine their capabilities and how they are perceived by citizens above almost everything else.

Lessons from across the bloc abound. According to a composite score of the Worldwide Governance Indicators, ECA is home to the greatest sub-regional disparities in governance quality in the world.

Countries like Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland lead the way in governance quality, while others like Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan lag behind. It is therefore one of the world’s great laboratories for governance reform.

Case study: Estonia

Take for example Estonia, which has been at the forefront of public sector digitisation. Estonia bounded ahead not only because of its innovative IT infrastructure. It made agencies and individual public servants an integral part of the revolution. Ministries were brought into the movement through a wealth of coordinated but decentralised digital agendas. These were stimulated through the creation of innovation labs inside government. That individual officials believed their service was forging an innovative path was the cultural foundation for success. Backing all of this up was a broad cross-party support. The dividends to innovation multiply: we are currently working with the Estonian government on how digital advances foster participatory governance and encourage new insights and ideas from citizens.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the opportunities of data and digitalisation in managing public policy; and underscored the costs associated with delaying public sector modernisation. Successful responses to COVID were an interaction between digital tools and the actions of public servants that interfaced with them. Now, as governments in ECA begin to build back, a timely and incremental embrace of empiricism and modernisation within the public administrations offers the tools to sculpt a more efficient and resilient tomorrow. The section at the end of our report provides a range of recommendations for building such a public administration, from innovation prizes to monitoring of management quality.

Data and digitalisation offer meaningful pathways through which governments can increase efficiency, transparency, responsiveness, and citizen trust. Data and corresponding improvements in analysis open doors for improved decision-making, optimised operations, and more effective resource allocation. When it becomes an integral part of the public service, digitalisation enables governments to provide timely and accessible services to citizens; minimises opportunities for corruption; and lays the grounds for greater government accountability. But all this hinges on structural shifts in public service management, design, and organisation. Public servants are the core technology of the public service. Data and digitalisation will only improve government as far as it interacts with these actors. The interaction of technology with officialdom proves far more important for government effectiveness than any particular software or platform available. — Patricia Paskov and Daniel Rogger

The Spring Edition of the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia Economic Update is available here and a summary interview with the Chief Economist of the region is available here.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Pitch an article to us or send your comments to discussion@apolitical.co

(Picture credit: Unsplash)