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Why Digital Governance Matters in Tackling COVID-19

This article is written in the context of the OECD Working Party of Senior Digital Government Officials (E-Leaders) COVID-19 co-operation.

The COVID-19 crisis has shown how important the role of the government is in addressing citizens’ needs in an emergency. Good public governance stood out as a critical requisite for countries to effectively and efficiently tackle the pandemic. Governments that demonstrated:

• clear and evidence-based leadership,
• strong and agile co-ordination across the public sector,
• consistent and trustworthy communication with the public,
• and the right capacity and capabilities to manage the crisis

undisputedly showed a higher ability to suppress the outbreak, tide over the climate of high uncertainty and consequently produced more equitable, sustainable and resilient economic and social outcomes.

In the context of digital government, good public governance is the foundation on which the advancement of digitalisation can take place in the right direction and at the right pace.

The OECD Recommendation of the Council on Digital Government Strategies highlights the importance of this topic. One of its three pillars captures the essence of good digital government governance in five key recommendations:

• To secure leadership and political commitment;
• To ensure coherent use of digital technology across policy areas;
• To establish effective organisation and governance frameworks to co-ordinate within and across levels of government;
• To strengthen international co-operation with other governments;
• To reinforce institutional and project management and monitoring capabilities.

The E-Leaders Governance Handbook also explores this policy topic in presenting three fundamental facets of governance for digital government: contextual factors, institutional models and policy levers, with corresponding dimensions and sub-dimensions of governance that users of the Handbook can self-assess and reflect on.

E-Leaders Governance Framework (2019)

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the E-Leaders convened on 29–30 April 2020 to discuss their responses and the possibility for closer international co-operation. The E-Leaders were asked to share their experiences and learning lessons in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, namely:

What are the things you were grateful for having in place that made this period easier? What are the things you would have wanted to do differently? What do you wish you had prioritised, or done, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic to enable the digital transformation needed?

In this meeting, the E-Leaders shared a consensus that it is critical to continue exchanging insights and practices in the spirit of mutual learning and support.

On this basis, we will launch the ‘E-Leaders COVID-19 Co-operation’ webinar series on 29 September 2020 with the inaugural webinar focusing on the governance of digital government and data in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges around it.

Three pillars of governance will be discussed:

1. Leadership
2. Co-ordination and integration
3. Capacity for implementation and clear objectives

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Leadership

When the COVID-19 pandemic began to trigger a multitude of economic and social crises, governments were faced with a whole new set of acute pressures such as moving the public sector workforce to full teleworking, executing time-critical communications, continuing to deliver essential public services relating to healthcare, fiscal support, transport, food distribution, employment and education.

In such a crisis that permeates the global, national and local levels, good leadership that directs the public sector’s digitalisation and data strategy, action plans and efforts requires a well-defined mandate and scope of roles, responsibilities and priorities. This governance leadership should encompass the following factors and traits:

• Political support, commitment and accountability to execute policy decisions and solutions for the COVID-19 pandemic decisively and effectively in different sectors and levels of government;
• Strong awareness and sensitisation to the specific needs, demands and capabilities of different public sector organisations in order to adequately define objectives and steps that can target the problem at the right time and through the right means to deliver the right results;
• Agility to quickly adapt to the changing circumstances in a crisis and channel efforts to areas where the needs are the greatest, such as digital infrastructural improvements, digital architectural redesigns, digital enablers development and design and delivery of services;
• Willingness to co-operate regionally and internationally and co-ordinate responses to manage shared problems and cross-border challenges and issues, such as people’s movement across borders during a pandemic, cross-border data flows for better information access, goods and service delivery with adequate privacy protection.

Co-ordination and integration

The COVID-19 crisis has accentuated the need for co-ordination and integration across the public sector too. To ensure that digital government and data benefits are delivered comprehensively, governments should:

• Have in place a systems-perspective approach;
• Be able to integrate data sets coming from different sources;
• Focus on coherent policy action.

A whole-of-government approach should ensure that data sharing and information exchange support integrated public service delivery and consistent communication with the public, across sectors and different levels of government.

During a crisis, having in place sound governance measures and mechanisms that can co-ordinate and leverage the ecosystem of public, private and civil society stakeholders allows governments to define common goals and priorities, align responses and ensure the re-use and sustainable deployment of existing solutions without overlaps.

The existence of stable digital government co-ordination mechanisms also enables better monitoring, providing policy and decision-makers with a broad picture of projects and initiatives across different sectors and levels of government and a better assessment of ICT investments.

Capacity for implementation and clear objectives

Initial evidence appears to show that the digital maturity of governments proved to be an important factor in securing the continuity of public policies and services. The capacity to implement long-term reforms such as nationwide adoption of key enablers, and not short-term emergency measures or accelerator programmes is a true indicator of digital maturity.

Key enablers such as digital identity and interoperability, together with data-driven and omni-channel approaches enable coherent and integrated service delivery and enhance interactions among the government, citizens and businesses in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, governments still faced challenges of ensuring streamlined and secured data flows across the public sector and a lack of resilient digital infrastructure to fully support digital services and processes in the public sector.

Higher digital maturity demands a holistic whole-of-government approach to these challenges through comprehensive and sustainable digitalisation strategies for the long-term.

Responding and recovering from the COVID-19 crisis while increasing the country’s readiness and resilience to deal with future crises requires this unshakeable endurance. Governments need the capacity to implement policies that secure long-term outcomes like increasing the digital awareness and skills of the populace and fostering international digital co-operation, which is a true measure of digital maturity.

Regardless of the level of maturity, the crisis has presented opportunities to define a future roadmap for digital transformation and reinforce the foundation of a digital government that supports sustainable, inclusive development and improved social wellbeing either in times of normality or when facing disruptive events.

With most countries having dealt with the initial shock brought by the crisis, governments are now increasingly focused on managing the short- and medium-term effects of the crisis.

More consideration has to be given to the long-term repercussions too. Public sectors need to re-examine their digital government strategies and policies, test their resilience to shocks and appraise their contingency crisis mechanisms and strategic foresight analysis.

Lastly, the need to strengthen public trust is now greater than ever. One reliable way to do so is to further engage with the public on secure digital platforms to gather feedback and allow exchanges on the COVID-19 responses and long-term reforms, such that improvements in policies, processes and services can be made transparently, with public support and consideration of new needs and preferences.

Written by Ethel Hui Yan Tan with contributions from Mariane Piccinin Barbieri, Junior Policy Analysts of the Digital Government and Data Unit at the Open and Innovative Government Division, Directorate for Public Governance of the OECD.

Edited by João Ricardo Vasconcelos and Benjamin Welby, Policy Analysts of the Digital Government and Data Unit and Barbara Ubaldi, Acting Head of Open and Innovative Government Division and Head of the Digital Government and Data Unit, Directorate for Public Governance of the OECD.