What Is GovTech?

According to the World Bank, the term GovTech is a “whole-of-government approach to public sector modernization.” The idea is to promote “simple, efficient and transparent government with the citizen at the center of reforms.”

Based on technology, the GovTech agenda is driven by the GovTech Solutions Group (GSG) and GovTech Global Partnership (GTBP) under Governance Global Practice (GGP). But what does GovTech do? What are its objectives and challenges, and how can it best fulfill them?

As people interact regularly with public agencies and administrations on municipal, local, and national levels, GovTech aims to optimize and simplify their experiences using digital tools. As you can imagine, if it’s done well, GovTech has the potential to improve the relationship between government organizations and the citizens who interact with them.

GovTech is focused on modernizing government in a few key areas:

• Core government systems — modernizing core government systems such as financial management, human resources, public procurement, investment management, and tax administration

   

• Citizen engagement — creating and deploying tools to streamline citizen feedback and complaint handling, service charters and standards with mechanisms for monitoring, enforcement, and transparency

   

• Public service delivery — designing simple, transparent online services that can be accessed by low-cost devices like mobile phones and open-source applications

   

• GovTech enablers — building the public sector’s digital skills and fostering an environment for innovation

   

GovTech is a natural evolution of decades-old approaches. The infographic below illustrates the progression from analog, to e-Government, to digital, and now GovTech solutions.

To achieve its goals, GovTech’s agenda makes use of technologies like AI, the internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, and public data platforms. Using public-private partnerships, the agenda also seeks to leverage the innovations, skills, and investments of the private sector in order to solve public sector challenges. But what are those challenges, and how can GovTech meet them?

Implementation of GovTech systems promises to simplify government operations and processes. In order to do so, it must be able to overcome three main obstacles that stand between the development of GovTech tools and adoption and trust on the part of users.

Universal Accessibility

In developing more advanced technologies, government agencies and their technology partners will need to avoid designing tools that can’t be used or accessed by their citizens. GovTech tools used internally by agencies must also be accessible to employees who may not be centrally located and who may have lower levels of connectivity.

Because not everyone has access to the devices and connectivity services required to use advanced digital tools, advancing GovTech too far or too rapidly may be counterproductive and leave people behind.

User Expectations

As more of human life happens online, expectations for digital interactions (even those with government) continue to evolve. From grocery shopping to healthcare visits, people have become accustomed to doing everything online. While this tears down a lot of barriers that used to exist between users and their trust of online services, it also sets a higher bar for how effective those digital interactions should be. GovTech will need to deliver systems that help both citizens and government workers efficiently achieve their desired objective.

Balance Between UX and Security

People can pick and choose from a host of online services depending on their needs and the user experience (UX). They can choose one pizza delivery app over another, or shop at one site over another based on convenience. However, citizens and government employees don’t often have a choice when it comes to interacting with government services and tools.

While GovTech needs to create a pleasant UX for digital-based services, it also needs those interactions to be secure. People already perceive more risk in handing over their private information to public entities than they do to private ones. This makes it even more important for GovTech to build and honor user trust by protecting their data.

In public sector systems, concerns over security have usually been given priority over providing a seamless UX. But as GovTech begins to leverage more modern technology and security tools, they have an opportunity to achieve balance between UX and security.

Identity plays a critical role in helping GovTech address its challenges by providing security and accessibility without sacrificing user experience. Identity solutions can be applied to the public or private cloud, fully on-premises, or in hybrid environments and are accessible even in areas with air gaps or poor bandwidth.

As governments work toward modernizing outdated and siloed legacy identity and access management (IAM), they are also beginning to embrace solutions like Zero Trust, accelerated cloud transformation, and secure telework technologies that operate seamlessly across agencies and partners.

Read the PingOne for Government brief to learn more about how modern identity solutions can help you address your mission-critical needs.