In light of increasing demand for comprehensive assessment of digital government reforms in our client countries, the digital development and governance teams of the World Bank have been designing several approaches and methodologies that could provide a broad summary about the status and perspective of digital government development in our client countries to support governments in their digital transformation and inform the World Bank’s potential operations and strategies.

The Digital Government Readiness Assessment Toolkit:

During fiscal year 2018, the Digital Development team tested, improved, and completed the Digital Government Readiness Assessment (DGRA) Toolkit. DGRA is an analytical tool to assess the state of digital government transformation readiness in a specific country. Its objective is to inform governments on their “as is” status; and to highlight gaps, and priority actions, to improve public administration and empower all citizens and entrepreneurs in low- and middle-income countries. The tool has been used to assess the digital government readiness of Myanmar, Senegal, Lebanon, Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It has been translated into French, at Gov of Tunisia’s request, and is being currently used in Burkina Faso as part of eBurkina’s digital government strategy elaboration. It’s a companion tool to the Digital Economy Assessment Toolbox, focusing on the public-sector supply side. It will be transformed into an online open source application, with funding from the Digital Development Partnership (DDP) which funded the DGRA since its inception.

Alternative Approach Used for Digital Government Assessment in Ukraine:

The recent digital government assessment in Ukraine proposed a new methodology that focuses on identification of core governance and institutional challenges and forecast impacts of digital transformation. Conceptually the new methodology is based on three major pillars – the twelve principles of the OECD Digital Government Toolkit, the World Development Report 2016 on Digital Dividends, and the priorities of institutional and governance reforms from operational learning. During the session the co-authors of the methodology will present it to Digital Government (DG) CoP members to highlight the specific features that make it different from other assessments.

Learning Objectives:

•Gain familiarity with the most recent assessment methodologies and their application in WB’s client countries.

•Learn about the key features of DGRA developed by the digital development team.

•Learn about the key features of the new digital government assessment methodology developed by the governance team and piloted in Ukraine.

•Understand the differences and decide on applicability of both methodologies in specific country contexts.