Public Disclosure Authorized GOVERNANCE Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized GOVERNANCE EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT Mobile Government Public Disclosure Authorized How-to Note EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 1 © 2023 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank 1818 H Street NW, Washington DC 20433 Telephone: 202-473-1000; Internet: www.worldbank.org This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or currency of the data included in this work and does not assume responsibility for any errors, omissions, or discrepancies in the information, or liability with respect to the use of or failure to use the information, methods, processes, or conclusions set forth. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Nothing herein shall constitute or be construed or considered to be a limitation upon or waiver of the privileges and immunities of The World Bank, all of which are specifically reserved. Rights and Permissions The material in this work is subject to copyright. Because The World Bank encourages dissemination of its knowledge, this work may be reproduced, in whole or in part, for noncommercial purposes as long as full attribution to this work is given. Any queries on rights and licenses, including subsidiary rights, should be addressed to World Bank Publications, The World Bank Group, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA; fax: 202-522-2625; e-mail: pubrights@worldbank.org. >>> Contents Acknowledgments vi List of Acronyms viii Executive Summary 1 1. Introduction 7 2. Opportunities and Challenges 9 2.1 Opportunities 10 2.1.1 Improving Access to Government and Providing Digital Identity 10 2.1.2 Enhancing Financial Inclusion 11 2.1.3 Reducing Costs and Improving Government Efficiency 12 2.1.4 Realizing Climate Co-Benefits 14 2.1.5 Enhancing Quality, User Experience and Digital Portfolio 14 2.2 Challenges 14 2.2.1 Fragmentation of Administration 15 2.2.2 Lack of Digital Foundations 16 2.2.3 Price and Affordability 17 2.2.4 Trust and Information Security 18 2.2.5 User-Friendly Design 19 3. Potential Use Cases 20 3.1 Core Government Operations 21 3.2 Public Service Delivery 23 3.3 Citizen Engagement 32 4. Holistic User-Centered Approach 37 4.1 Whole-of-Government Coordination and Strategy 38 4.1.1 Cross-Agency Coordination 38 4.1.2 Strategy Development 39 4.1.3 Digital Foundations for mGov 41 4.2 Policy, Legal Aspects, and Trust 42 4.2.1 Digital Policy Framework 42 4.2.2 Trust Aspects 45 4.2.3 Subject-Specific Policies 45 4.3 Service Design and Implementation 46 4.3.1 Approach for User-Centered Service Design 46 4.3.2 Stakeholder Engagement 47 4.3.3 User Experience 49 4.3.4 Core Team 49 4.4 Examples and Lessons Learned from Failed Projects 50 5. Technology, Architecture, and Security Requirements 51 5.1 Technology and Architecture 51 5.1.1 Multichannel Communication 51 5.1.2 Smartphone Features 52 5.1.3 Dumb Phones 53 5.1.4 Form Factor Aspects 54 5.1.5 Architectural Considerations 54 5.2 Information Security 55 5.2.1 Identification and Authentication 55 5.2.2 Dealing with Risks and Diversity in Security Features 57 6. Recommendations for Specific Levels of Development 59 6.1 Basic Development Level 62 6.2 Advanced Development Level 64 6.3 Very Advanced Development Level 66 6.4 Sample Approach 67 References 71 Annex I: Working Group Members 77 Annex II: Working Group Survey 79 Annex III: World Bank mGov Working Group Country Overview 83 Figures Figure ES.1. Potential Use Cases for Mobile Government 2 Figure ES.2. Key Elements and Systematic Approach to Introduce Efficient and Sustainable mGov 3 Figure ES.3. Overview of Recommendations for Various Development Levels 4 Figure 2.1. Overview on Opportunities of mGov 9 Figure 2.2. Population Coverage by Type of Mobile Network and Area 10 Figure 2.3. Overview on Quota of Adults with a Bank Account 11 Figure 2.4. Number of Unique Customer Accounts Receiving G2P Payments by Region 12 Figure 2.5. Potential for Digital Spending and Government Operations 13 Figure 2.6. Challenges in Establishing Sustainable mGov 15 Figure 2.7. Percentage of People with Basic ICT Skills 16 Figure 2.8. Average Costs of Data Services 17 Figure 2.9. Mobile Connections by Device Type for High-Income Countries and LMICs (by Region), 2020 18 Figure 3.1. Overview and Categories of Potential mGov Solutions 20 Figure 3.2. Mobile Document Verification in Switzerland 22 Figure 3.3. India’s Unified Mobile Application for New-Age Governance 24 Figure 3.4. Examples for Tax Filing Apps in Australia, South Africa, and Austria 27 Figure 3.5. South African Social Accountability and Monitoring Platform MobiSAM 33 Figure 3.6. UNICEF’s Participation App U-Report 35 Figure 4.1. Overview on Key Elements and A Systematic Approach to Introduce Efficient and Sustainable mGov 38 Figure 4.2. Nine Pillars of Digital Government Readiness Assessment 40 Figure 4.3. Reasons Most Frequently Cited by People for Not Taking up Data Services 42 Figure 4.4. Interoperability Governance in the European Interoperability Framework 44 Figure 4.5. Approach to Develop mGov Solutions and Examples 47 Figure 5.1. Evolution of Wireless Communications 52 Figure 5.2. Secure Identification in Brazil and Belgium 57 Figure 5.3. Seven Principles of Privacy by Design 58 Figure 6.1. Overview of Typical Circumstances for Various Development Levels 60 Figure 6.2. Overview of Recommendations for Various Development Levels 61 Figure 6.3. Sample Approach of Define a Challenge 67 Figure 6.4. Sample Approach to Identify, Select, and Describe Ideas 68 Figure 6.5. Sample Approach to Design, Develop, and Test a Concept and Prototype 69 Figure 6.6. Sample Approach to Implement an mGov Solution 70 Figure A2.1. Types of mGov Solutions with the Greatest Potential for Developing Countries 80 Figure A2.2. Most Relevant Benefits for mGov in Developing Countries 81 Tables Table 6.1. General Recommendations for mGov Initiatives in Countries with Basic Conditions 62 Table 6.2. Additional Recommendations for Countries with Advanced Conditions 64 >>> Acknowledgments This note has been developed under the World Bank GovTech Global Partnership by a team led by Khuram Farooq (Senior Governance Specialist) in cooperation with the government of Austria. Other World Bank team members were Reinhard Haslinger (Program Manager) and Gerhard Embacher-Köhle (Consultant). Contributions by the government of Austria were provided by Peter Kustor (Director of the Department International and Legal Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Austria), Herbert Leitold (Secretary General of A-SIT), and Daniel Medimorec (Department of International and Legal Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Austria). Overall guidance for the report was provided by Arturo Herrera Gutierrez (Global Director for Governance, World Bank) and Donna Andrews (Global Lead for Public Institutions Reform in the Governance Global Practice, World Bank). The guidebook benefited from the expertise of the following peer reviewers: David Santos Ruano (Senior Public Sector Specialist), Lucy Temple, and Gregor Eibl (Center for eGovernance, Danube University Krems, Austria), Samia Melhem, (Lead Digital Development Specialist), Silvana Kostenbaum (Senior Public Sector Specialist), and Zubair Khurshid Bhatti (Lead Public Sector Specialist) The following members of a Mobile Government Working Group initiated by the World Bank GovTech initiative contributed their expertise: Peter Kustor (Austria, Co-Chair, Director of the Department International and Legal Affairs, Ministry of Finance); Daniel Medimorec (Austria, Co- Chair, Department of International and Legal Affairs, Ministry of Finance); Ciro Pitangueira de Avelino (Brazil, Co-Chair, Advisor, Secretariat of Digital Government, Ministry of Economy); Felipe Cruz (Brazil, Co-Chair, General-Coordinator for Content Management and Digital Channels, Secretariat of Digital Government, Ministry of Economy); Anir Chowdhury (Bangladesh, Policy Advisor, Aspire to Innovate (a2i) Programme, Cabinet Division/ICT Division, UNDP Bangladesh); Frank Leyman (Belgium, Head of International Relations, Digital Transformation Office); Raimo Reiman (Estonia, Business Architect, Information System Authority); Nikos Vasilakis (Greece, Head of Strategy Department, GRNET S.A); Yiannis Giannarakis (Greece, Coordinator, GR digiGOV-innoHUB, GRNET S.A); Cahyono Tribirowo, (Indonesia, Assistant Deputy of Policy Formulation and Coordination of e-Government Implementation, Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform); Joko Parmiyanto (Indonesia, MEDC Senior IT Officer/ Coordinator of Statistics Information System Integration Function, Indonesia Statistics Agency); Lorenzo Fredianelli (Italy, Chief Business Development & Strategy Officer, PagoPA); Cristiano Zagari (Italy, Head of International & EU Affairs, PagoPA); Toshiyuki Zamma (Japan, Head of EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< vi International Strategy, Digital Agency); Sungjoo Son (Korea, Director, Ministry of the Interior and Safety); Sergiu Bedros (Moldova, Chief Digital Officer, e-Governance Agency); Artur Reaboi (Moldova, Chief Enterprise Architect, e-Governance Agency); Hajar Khyati (Morocco, Head of the Department of Development and Operability, Agency for Digital Development); Sérgio Mapsanganhe (Mozambique, Deputy, Director General, INAGE - National Institut on eGovernment); Amâncio Ubisse (Mozambique, Technical Specialist INTIC (National Institute of Information and Communication Technology); José Lee (Panama, Deputy Administrator General National Authority for Government Innovation); Alberto Delgado (Panama, Systems and Computer Methods Analyst, National Authority for Government Innovation); Marushka Chocobar Reyes (Peru, Secretary, Secretary of Government and Digital Transformation); Paola Gálvez (Peru, Strategic Adviser, Tech Policy & Regulation, Secretary of Government and Digital Transformation); Jose Clastornik (Peru, Government Consultant, Secretary of Government and Digital Transformation); Paulo Vale (Portugal, Project Manager, Agency for Administrative Modernization); Cláudia Gonçalves Barroso (Portugal, Head of Unit, International Relations, Agency for Administrative Modernization); Catarina Almeida (Portugal, International Relations Officer, Agency for Administrative Modernization); Yousuf Yacoub Al-Sahlawi (Qatar, Planning Researcher, Ministry of Transport and Communications); Aljazay Saleh Al-Sulaiti (Qatar, E-Government Portal Acting Director, Ministry of Transport and Communications); Carlos Orjales (Switzerland, Program manager, SECO); Jérôme Duperrut (Switzerland, Officer, SICPA); Khaled Sellami (Tunisia, Director General of the e-government Unit, Presidency of the Government of Tunisia); Sana Oueslati (Tunisia, Director, Presidency of the Government of Tunisia); Dr. Tariq al Hawi (UAE, Director Digital Adoption and Enablement, Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority); Suleman Bakhsh (UAE, Director Digital Policies, Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority); Mstyslav Banik (Ukraine, Director of eServices Development Directorate, Ministry of Digital Transformation); Karime Ruibal (Uruguay, Citizens Services Director, Electronic Government and Information and Knowledge Society Agency (AGESIC). Richard Crabbe provided editorial services and Maria Lopez designed the final publication. This report was made possible by the World Bank’s GovTech Initiative and the GovTech Global Partnership trust fund, building on support of financial and in-kind partners that include the Ministry of Finance of Austria, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) of Switzerland, the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MOEF) of the Republic of Korea, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Interior and Safety (MOIS) of the Republic of Korea, the Government of Japan and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of Germany. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< vii >>> List of Acronyms 2G Second Generation of Broadband Cellular Network Technology 3G Third Generation of Broadband Cellular Network Technology 4G Fourth Generation of Broadband Cellular Network Technology 5G Fifth Generation of Broadband Cellular Network Technology ATMs Automated Teller Machines CDO Chief Digital Officer eIDAS Electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust Services EIF European Interoperability Framework EU European Union FIDO Fast Identity Online G2B Government-to-Business G2E Government-to-Employees G2G Government-to-Government G2P Government-to-Person GDPR General Data Protection Regulation GovTech Government Technology GPS Global Positioning System, Global Positioning System GSM Global System for Mobile Communications ICT Information and Communications Technology ID4D Identification for Development ITU International Telecommunication Union IVR Interactive Voice Response, LDCs Least Developed Countries LLDCs Landlocked Developing Countries NFC Near Field Communication OCR Optical Character Recognition OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OIDC OpenID Connect EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< viii PC Personal Computer PKI Public Key Infrastructure QR Quick Response, Quick Response Codes SCOOP4c Stakeholder Community Once-Only Principle for Citizens SMS Short Message Service UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System UN United Nations UNICEF United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund USSD Unstructured Supplementary Service Data UX User Experience WAP Wireless Application Protocol WCAG Web Content Accessibility Guidelines EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< ix >>> Executive Summary Mobile phones have become the main communication tool and helped countless people to improve their lives in many countries. The use of mobile phones has grown exponentially over the past 30 years from 11 million subscriptions in 1990 to 8.6 billion in 2021.1 Ninety- five percent of the world’s population now has access to a mobile network. Acknowledging the ubiquitous presence of mobile phones in our lives, European Union governments have embraced the paradigm shift from electronic government (eGov) to mobile phone-based access to government services (mGov) through the Berlin Declaration 2020. The rationale was simple: even if governments have implemented eGovernment portals and online solutions, not everyone has access to the internet via a laptop or personal computer. Mobile phones, on the other hand, are almost universal. Though 17 percent of people in Least Developed Countries still lack mobile access, active broadband subscriptions are increasing fast in all regions of the world, topped by Africa with 28 percent growth and Asia with 27 percent between 2018 and 2020.2 Mobile phones are thus helping more and more people connect to the jobs, business opportunities, and services they need to escape poverty.3 Opportunities and Challenges Whether via simple low-tech feature phones or high-tech smartphones, through quick-win solutions or comprehensive approaches, mobile government offers enormous opportunities. mGov can essentially improve access to government, support in reaching more people, especially in remote areas, and improve social inclusion. Mobile devices and network subscriptions can be used to provide identification to citizens as well as information like health cards, birth certificates, driver’s license or school admissions in mobile e-wallets. Mobile money can help to distribute cash among the poor, especially those who do not have a bank account. mGov can boost digital transformation, efficiency of government operations, and reduce costs by exploiting the mass usage of mobile devices and multiplying the return of investment for digital solutions. By reducing forms and travel to public agencies, mGov saves citizens money and 1. ITU (International Telecommunication Union). 2022. World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database 2022 (26th edition/July 2022). Geneva: ITU. 2. UNDESA. 2020. E-Government Survey 2020: Digital Government in the Decade of Action for Sustainable Development. New York: United Nations. 3. Klapper, Leora. 2019. “Mobile phones are key to economic development. Are women missing out?” Future Development (blog). https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2019/04/10/mobile-phones-are-key-to-economic-development-are- women-missing-out/. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 1 time; it also benefits the national economy, the environment, and foundations like digital skills, high-quality network and the combat against climate change. By using rising infrastructure, and shared digital services. mobile phone capabilities, governments can extend quality, usability, and the portfolio of their digital solutions. Mobile data and citizen engagement can improve the quality of Making the Case public service delivery. Despite the impressive range of opportunities for mGov, Most successful mGov initiative are oriented on essential challenges to exploit the full potential remain, particularly in social, citizen-oriented or administrational challenges and developing countries. Prices of network subscriptions and the specific needs to be met. Possible areas typically include devices are often costly for the poor and the variety of user enhancing core government operations, improving public needs makes it difficult to find the right balance between a service delivery, and strengthening citizen engagement. Figure good level of trust and high usability. Governments also often ES.1 presents potential use cases for these three areas. Many lack central coordination, a whole-of-government strategy, of the tasks can be implemented with little effort, others rely on a cohesive approach, an overarching legal framework, prerequisites like identification or payment solutions. > > > F I G U R E E S . 1 - Potential Use Cases for Mobile Government • Support daily operative work of public officials in the field: inspections of schools and building sites, automated translation, crime-scene reports, verification of documents, emergency managment, etc. • Make back-office tasks more efficient: access to knowledge bases and digital filing systems (approve acts), secure messaging and decision-making, Core Government administrational tasks (approve time records, leaves, ...), etc. Operations • Improve efficiency and accountability of government operations: real-time and predictive analytics (road conditions, disaster prediction and management), feedback and monitoring of officials, etc. • Provide information to citizens: existing information from web-portals, order copies of official documents • Carry out binding transactions and payments: identification and registration (child, address, unemployment), applications (social benefits, food coupons), simple tax declarations, mobile payments to and from citizens • Offer mobile one stop shops: integration of all public and relevant private Public Service services, official documents, etc. Delivery • Support sectors with basic low-tech and advanced solutions: health, agriculture, education, etc. • Broadcast information: push- or pull-oriented messaging services (disaster warnings, terrorism alerts), reminders (tax duties, passport renewals), etc. • Gather citizen feedback: problem, incident, and complaint reporting enriched with geo-location, photos, videos (road damages, pollution, illicit products, public service delivery, violent behaviour, bribery, etc.) Citizen Engagement • Support participation processes: obtain citizen views and opinions in Services surveys (e.g., to optimize public services and policies), support voting processes by mobile registration and ballot monitoring Source: Authors. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 2 Holistic User-Centered Approach Beyond the opportunity to implement low-effort quick- to solve specific challenges with relevant stakeholders, wins with great impact, a systematic, user-oriented, holistic iteratively develop concepts, prototypes and pilots, test them approach enables efficient and sustainable mGov. The with users, and finally roll out the solutions. Engaging policy foundation for this is a whole-of-government coordination and and decision makers, a central coordination team, software digital transformation strategy. With this mandate, a dedicated developers, and citizens (the beneficiaries) ensures that agency responsible for digital transformation can issue a digital solutions are developed, deployed, and function as required. policy framework with general requirements and standards. Agile innovation labs that use design thinking methods and Subject-specific policies need to consider these and aim to bring together interdisciplinary teams from multiple agencies facilitate user-centered end-to-end solutions. with other key stakeholders like businesses and citizens can act as catalysts for innovative mobile solutions. As shown below in Figure ES.2, based on common concepts of human-centered design, a design team can identify ideas > > > F I G U R E E S . 2 - Key Elements and Systematic Approach to Introduce Efficient and Sustainable mGov Policy, Legal Aspects & Trust Digital Policy Framework Coordination & Strategy Whole-of-Government Subject-Specific Policies Service Design and Implementation Challenge Idea Prototype Solution Design Team Architecture Stakeholder Engagement Source: Authors. Governments over the years often developed a variety of experience guidelines for the mobile channel can significantly websites, platforms, and digital solutions. Instead of developing improve user acceptance. A multichannel strategy that at least many apps for various purposes, an integrated approach, a covers the channels currently most established in a target modular system of building blocks or open interfaces can result group can provide the most sustainable benefit for mGov. in more user-friendly digital public services. While it might be Smartphones provide the most extensive features, but dumb difficult to consolidate all existing solutions, a single user- phones or smart feature phones also need to be considered, centered access point with digital identification or unified user as well as specific screen size and input types. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 3 Recommendations Mobile Government is a multifaceted field and initiatives need project. The Note presents recommendations for countries to be designed specifically to fit each situation. Whether in a with basic, advanced, and very advanced levels of digital developing or a developed context, circumstances vary from development as shown in Figure ES.3. country to country, region to region, or even from project to > > > F I G U R E E S . 3 - Overview of Recommendations for Various Development Levels Very Advanced Level Advanced Level • Roll out strategies Basic Level • Enforce overarching and policies to all strategy, shared public entities • Establish cross-agency services, mobile first, • Increase efficiency of coordination, strategy, 1. Strategy one stop shops & backend processes and policy framework & Policy once-only and interoperability • Increase affordability, • Expand network • Integrate further services network quality, and quality & skills in mobile one stop shop / digital skills • Design policies eWallet • Devote resources to establish architectural hand in hand with layer and shared mGov solutions digital services • Form skilled teams and • Establish a “Design for • Cooperate with private cooperate with local All” approach sector for cross-sectoral 2. Approach initiatives • Extend user-centered one stop shops around • Identify essential design to all relevant life situations challenges and initiatives • Extend design skills quick-wins & adoption of user- • Driver user-centered centered approach design, prototyping & implementation • Consider architectural • Exploit device features • Further consolidate 3. Technology options & low-tech but consider low-tech and expand shared Architecture conditions conditions digital services Security • Establish an architectural • Establish high-security and architectures layer with shared identification & • Ensure staying up digital services (e.g. authentication to date regarding mobile ID, payment) • Consolidate architectures technology & and an information and enforce Privacy information security security framework by Design Source: Authors. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 4 The following recommendations are relevant for all levels of 6. Drive user-centric approach and co-creation. development as they set the foundations for mGov: Integrating users into design, development, prototyping and implementation will enable fast, cost-efficient mGov 1. Set up cross-agency coordination and strategy. solutions that are designed to user needs. By cooperating Governance, institutional arrangements like a central with the private sector and social organizations, a real board for coordination, and a cross-agency strategy will one-stop shop experience can be created that does not enable citizen centricity and cost efficiencies. A mobile first only cover governmental affairs, but all matters relevant to strategy prioritizing front-end mobile channels can increase a person in a certain situation. This can lead to impactful penetration of digital solutions and reduce personal win-win-situations for governments, citizens, and interaction with the bureaucracy. A once-only strategy can related organizations. facilitate that data is fetched from existing systems and only interaction-specific additional information is needed 7. Establish architectural layers with shared digital to progressively build a citizen profile for future re-use. services. Design the big picture of the whole-of- government technology architecture to avoid duplication 2. Establish a legal and policy framework. Such a of common building blocks. Initiatives may have a short-, framework provides the authorizing environment for medium-, or long-term focus and require minimum or large sustainable, efficient digital public service delivery and effort. They may include elements like identification and mobile Government that transcends political cycle and authentication, digital payment, push notification systems, leadership tenures. central data management, enterprise buses, information security services and application development tools. A 3. Identify essential challenges and quick wins. mGov common interoperability platform can ensure integration initiatives are most successful if they address and solve key of various elements and enable the adoption of a once- social and administrative challenges. Identifying potential only strategy. quick-win solutions for services with high demand and hence high impact can show fast and impressive benefits 8. Adopt inclusive and equitable approaches for without waiting for the full automation of backend systems, accessibility to ensure underserved communities, which typically take a long time to be implemented. including people with disabilities, low digital skills, old age, eye sight issues, and slow connectivity are catered for. 4. Promote use cases for low-tech phones. Particularly Involvement of a broad range of user profiles in the design developing countries can with relatively little effort achieve and testing phase can make sure that mGov solutions a great impact with simple, low-tech mGov solutions, e.g. reach as many people as possible. by providing information services (broadcast messages on nutrition, clean drinking water, drought, famine, pests, 9. Increase affordability. Unaffordable prices are among food shortages, pesticides, vaccines, voting); collecting the highest barriers to adopt data services. Initiatives that information (geotagged pictures for monitoring services make mobile subscriptions and devices affordable to the on mosquito sprays, school attendance, electoral rolls, poor will promote mGov and digital transformation. child and maternity nutrition); engaging citizens (for getting feedback on infrastructure project completion and quality, 10. Ensure trustful conditions and a high level of gender violence, crime scene reports); and making digital information security. Since using information of mobile payments (for sending social welfare payments, subsidies devices may be perceived as privacy invasive, security and other government-to-person payments). measures are of key importance. Weaknesses in the mobile network infrastructure tend to prevail and governments 5. Form skilled teams. Interdisciplinary teams of design therefore need to take devices with low security into thinking facilitators, process owners, user experience and consideration. Principles like data minimization and cybersecurity experts, architects, and developers are best Privacy by Design can help in establishing an appreciable suited to design citizen-centric user journeys and develop level of security mobile solutions with optimal user experience. Multiple teams working in agile sprints can deliver several services in parallel. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 5 Conclusion Mobile government offers developing countries several policy, user-centered approach, technology, architecture, benefits for their citizens including financial inclusion, wider or information security. Initiatives can start by implementing access to government services, and citizen engagement. simple solutions based on specific challenges to facilitate It would also establish effective channels for redress and harvesting quick wins, or by planning and building holistic feedback, providing key input to further enhance and better mGov systems covering a range of use cases. By moving target public services. Countries with a basic level of digital to mGov, government service delivery can become more development can take actions in all areas presented in the accessible, effective, and efficient. Note regarding cross-agency coordination and strategy, EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 6 1. >>> Introduction Mobile phones have become the main communication tool and helped countless people to improve their life in many countries. The use of mobile phones has grown exponentially over the past 30 years from 11 million subscriptions in 1990 to 8.6 billion in 2021​(ITU 2022)​ five percent of the world’s population now has access to a mobile network. Though 17 percent of people in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) still lack such access, active mobile broadband subscriptions are increasing fast in all regions of the world, topped by Africa with 28 percent growth and Asia with 27 percent between 2018 and 2020 ( to escape poverty​(Klapper 2019)​ . ​ UNDESA 2020)​ Mobile Government (mGov) offers enormous opportunities to connect citizens to the government and enhance their access. Enhanced access reduces isolation, which has . Ninety- . Mobile phones thus help more and more people connect to the jobs, business opportunities, and services they need transformative potential for poverty alleviation. Broadband also provides access but is not as universally available or even used. Around 2 billion people currently access the internet via only their smartphone. Almost three quarters (72.6 percent) of internet users will access the web solely via their smartphones by 2025, equivalent to nearly 3.7 billion people​(Handley 2019). Mobile phones can provide identification to a vast majority of citizens and give them access to government services like health, education, and welfare, thereby mitigating the digital divide and facilitating social and financial inclusion. Be it through simple button-based dumb phones or high-tech smartphones, mobile technologies offer a variety of opportunities in all GovTech focus areas: core government operations, digital public service delivery, and citizen engagement. A paradigm shift has taken place from e-government to mGov. European Union (EU) governments have embraced the paradigm shift through the Berlin Declaration on December 8, 2020, through which the EU governments committed to provide easy access to services for the mobile channel by enabling citizens to use their mobile devices to carry out digital public services ​(European Union 2020)​ . The rationale was simple: even if governments have implemented e-government portals and online solutions, not everyone has access to the internet via a laptop or personal EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 7 computer. Also, mobile offers immense opportunities for and recommendations for various levels of development, citizen engagement through a range of opportunities such as and provide policy makers as well as practitioners a holistic citizen feedback, grievance redress mechanism, and inclusive and practical framework to establish sustainable mGov. policy formulation process. Maximizing these opportunities is especially pertinent when the world is facing a reversal of fortunes in its fight against Maximizing these opportunities will enhance citizen reducing extreme poverty due to COVID on the one hand, and trust and strengthen institutions necessary for rising expectations of citizens who have ubiquitous access to economic growth. This Note aims to highlight these mobiles and social media on the other hand. opportunities, investigate challenges, present use cases DEFINITION mGov, mGovernment, or mobile Government is most commonly understood as any mobile phone-based access to government systems, services, and communication with citizens. The major goal is to connect citizens with the government through mobile devices and to promote simple, accessible, and efficient public services for anyone, anywhere, anytime. Mobile Government has been a growing trend for many reporting bribery in Pakistan, and reporting defective public years. Important primers on mGov were published by the infrastructure by submitting mobile phone images in many OECD and the UN more than 10 years ago, predicting a shift countries around the world show the potential of mGov. from eGovernment to mGov with an abundance of potential. The sustainability of many initiatives, however, suffers from Ever since, many solutions have been implemented, resulting the absence of a comprehensive strategy and a structured in impressive impact. Several publications (Ogunleye and Van approach. As a result, many solutions that are implemented Belle 2014; Bhatti, Zall Kusek, and Verheijen 2015; Isagah and have suboptimal impact, or are abandoned after a short time. Wimmer 2017, 2019; Dutra and Suares 2019) have illustrated This paper strives to deliver a holistic strategic approach, promising initiatives and benefits, as well as challenges a systematic framework, and hands-on guidance towards of sustainably introducing mGov in developing countries. successful and lasting mobile government. Recently, the World Bank has addressed the potential of mGov for sustainable digital government transformation following the This Note prepared under the GovTech initiative of the example of Austria’s engagement in mGov (Farooq and Kustor World Bank is in response to growing demand from 2021), and established a working group with representatives World Bank client countries for support in leveraging from 16 countries worldwide to leverage activities. these technologies to ensure that the countries are not left behind. GovTech is a whole-of-government approach to Governments over the past two decades have public sector modernization that promotes simple, accessible, successfully launched mGov initiatives. However, holistic and efficient government. It aims to promote the use of approaches for sustainable mGov remain few, especially technology to transform the public sector, improve service in developing countries. Successful initiatives such as delivery to citizens and businesses, and increase efficiency, providing identity and welfare to the poor in Myanmar and transparency, and accountability. Bangladesh, addressing gender-related violence in Argentina, EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 8 2. >>> Opportunities and Challenges Mobile Government offers enormous opportunities to reach virtually all citizens and to enforce public sector modernization. Good practice GovTech solutions are known to consider device- and internet-access limitations, digital literacy, cultural norms, and other factors that might (World Bank 2021)​ inhibit access ​ > > > such access limitations. It also discusses challenges that frustrate reaping the benefits of mobile governments and often persist in developing countries. F I G U R E 2 . 1 - Overview on Opportunities of mGov Reducing costs Improving efficiency Enhancing quality . This chapter unveils how mGov can contribute to overcome Government Improving access to public services Enhancing financial inclusion Citizens Providing identification Source: Authors. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 9 2.1 Opportunities Providing multiple channels for service delivery, in remote areas. While only eleven percent of the world’s particularly for those who do not have adequate population have fixed broadband internet access, even in rural connectivity, devices, or literacy, is one of the main areas of developing countries 88 percent of the population challenges in delivering public online services (World are covered by mobile broadband network (ITU 2022) – see Bank 2021). mGov can extend existing channels, be it via Figure 2.2. Even those who do not own a mobile phone can simple low-tech feature phones or high-tech smartphones, often access mobile phones through facilitators like friends, and increase social and financial inclusion, improve quality families, social workers, or local officials. Mobile solutions and efficiency of public services, and raise satisfaction can thus be the trigger to leapfrog the digital divide in terms of citizens. of fixed line infrastructure limitations. They can give the poorest access to government, health, education, and other 2.1.1 Improving Access to Government public services. and Providing Digital Identity Public service delivery can significantly expand through mGov solutions by reaching more people, especially > > > F I G U R E 2 . 2 - Population Coverage by Type of Mobile Network and Area Developed Rural 4G (93%) Urban 4G (100%) Developing Rural 4G (74%) 3G (14%) Urban 4G (96%) LDCs Rural 4G (34%) 3G (40%) 2G (12%) Urban 4G (89%) 3G (11%) LLDCs Rural 4G (31%) 3G (44%) 2G (16%) Urban 4G (100%) SIDS Rural 4G (42%) 3G (29%) Urban 4G (88%) 3G (12%) Source: ITU. Note: The values for 2G and 3G networks show the incremental percentage of population that is not covered by a more advanced technology network (e.g. 95% population is covered by a 3G network, that is 7% + 88%). EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 10 Mobile government can help to reach people with as registrars (see also Chapter 4.3.2). Similar programs have disabilities as well as population with limited literacy, been launched in Tanzania, taking advantage of the mobile thereby improving social inclusion. About one billion agent network ​ (Gelb 2020)​ . Digital identities facilitated by people or 15 percent of the world’s population lives with some mobile devices can thus support reaching the Sustainable form of disability​(World Health Organization 2011)​ . Despite Development Goals, which include providing legal identity for drawbacks like small screens, mobile applications now help all, including birth registration, by 2030. More sophisticated people with physical disabilities in many areas—for example, implementations can extend identification with secure by speech-to-text-communication for deaf, text-to-speech for authentication (see Chapter 5.2.1), a core requirement to blind, or voice controls for people with limited mobility. Citizens carry out secure and binding transactions. Beyond that, many of all educational and social backgrounds now use mobile countries like Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Iceland, India, applications. Even people who cannot read and write can and Ukraine today already provide identification documents use mobiles via voice services, and people who have never like identity cards (IDs) or driver’s license directly on mobile used a personal computer (PC) can deal with intuitive mobile phones, replacing physical (paper) versions. phone apps. 2.1.2 Enhancing Financial Inclusion Mobile devices and network subscriptions can be used to Mobile money can help to distribute cash among the poor, provide identification to citizens as well as documents in especially those who do not have a bank account. About mobile e-wallets. More than one billion people in the world 1.9 billion of the world’s adult population remain unbanked – do not have basic identity documents​(World Bank 2019)​ . see Figure 2.3. But two-thirds of them do have a mobile phone Many jurisdictions now construct a proxy for ID from mobile and in developing economies, the share of adults making or data. Mobile phones can thus empower citizens to bring their receiving digital payments is now 57 percent ​ (World Bank existence to the government by registering themselves and 2021)​ . Having an ID and a mobile phone boosts the chances their children, fulfilling a crucial basis for a variety of purposes of financial inclusion by nearly five times over the baseline such as delivering food stamps and welfare payments. For case ​(Gelb 2020). example, Pakistan has enabled digital birth registration for some 700,000 children by using franchised network points > > > F I G U R E 2 . 3 - Overview on Quota of Adults with a Bank Account Source: World Bank, 2021. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 11 To protect the poor from the inflation caused by fuel and 11,000 agents across the country to send and receive money food prices, governments can use mobile phones to pay transfers. Since its launch one in four Kenyan adults has subsidies to targeted poor populations. Governments signed up. have increased the prices of fuel and food to reduce their overall subsidies on these items in order to meet their fiscal Mobile money infrastructure is now being used by deficit targets for macro fiscal sustainability. However, higher dozens of countries for social welfare transfers through costs of these items are immensely unpopular, with potential government-to-person (G2P) programs. Ethiopia, for unrest and political instability, as seen in Sri Lanka in 2022. example, uses mobile money as one mechanism to disburse Mobile money or voucher transfers can be an effective and payments. The two leading mobile money providers partner efficient option to pay subsidies to the poorest people and with a range of humanitarian organizations and government quickly bring help to citizens in desperate need. For the 648 agencies to facilitate cash payments across the country ​(GSMA million people worldwide living in extreme poverty, immediate 2021)​. Many countries including Bangladesh, Cambodia, cash support can be lifesaving. Mobile money agents that Colombia, India, Paraguay, and Togo have set up mobile register new users and teach them how to initiate transactions money payments for COVID-19 response measures, thus on their phones are estimated to have seven times more enabling G2P payments to quadruple at the beginning of 2020 outreach than automated teller machines (ATMs) and twenty (Figure 2.4). Not only payments by the government can be times more than bank branches ( ​Econofact 2020)​. In Kenya, made through mobile, but also payments to the government, the largest mobile phone network has established more than for example, income tax. > > > F I G U R E 2 . 4 - Number of Unique Customer Accounts Receiving G2P Payments by Region 2.9m 4x 1.0m 0.7m 0.7m 2019 September 2019 December 2020 March 2020 June East Asia and Pacific Latin America and the Caribbean South Asia Sub-Saharan Africa Source: World Bank, 2021. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 12 2.1.3 Reducing Costs and Improving directly increases the return of investment. For example, with a budget of one million dollars for a developing country of fifty Government Efficiency million inhabitants, a digital solution would cost 29 cents per Exploiting the mass usage of mobile devices can multiply potential user for the average seven percent fixed line users the return of investment for digital solutions. Digital as opposed to 2,7 cents per user for the 74 percent potential transformation is reducing the operational costs of businesses mobile broadband users (Figure 2.5). and governments around the world. Increasing user penetration > > > F I G U R E 2 . 5 - Potential for Digital Spending and Government Operations eGov: mGov: reaching potential reaching potential Increased Return 7% citizens 74% citizens on Investment Increased Data Quality Efficient Public Service Delivery Increased Process Quality and Reduced Costs Increased Automation Potential Source: Authors. Savings also directly apply to citizens and include contact – for example, birth, education, marriage, parenthood, benefits to the national economy. Travel to public agencies employment, death – creates inefficiencies and reduces can be costly especially for the poorest people in rural areas, data quality. Enabling citizens to provide digital information, which often leads to people not registering their children and combined with efficient data management, can expand the not applying for welfare. Moreover, instead of travelling to and potential of a once-only-principle and help governments gain waiting in queues in public agency offices, citizens can be efficiencies. Citizens only need to provide their data once in the going about their daily work. Saving just one hour of absence system to access different services across government. Most from work per person for eight million people equates to a of the data can be fetched from existing sources connected gain of one million working days, raising the country’s gross to a digital identification; only minimum additional data is domestic product (GDP). required to be used to progressively build a citizen profile for future reuse. Using data that has once been collected Mobile government can boost digital transformation and following interactions is a prerequisite for process optimization efficiency of government operations. Through economies and automation, ideally resulting in no-stop shops, where no of scale, digital government transformation can come to full in-person interaction is needed. effectiveness. Redundant data gathering at each citizen EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 13 2.1.4 Realizing Climate Co-Benefits as natural or manmade disasters. Through mGov solutions, governments can provide intuitive, convenient, flexible, and Avoiding unnecessary transport of people reduces carbon integrated services in the way that citizens and government dioxide (CO2) emissions and contributes to combat employees are used to in their daily lives. climate change. Getting rid of the necessity of long journeys from rural areas to visit central agencies reduces pressure on Mobile data and citizen engagement can also improve the the environment and is climate-friendly. Preventing 100,000 quality of public service delivery. Mobile data can be used people from taking a 10 km car trip to a public office saves to improve public services and processes to fit the citizen’s about 300 tons of CO2. needs. Citizen participation and feedback can also improve public service delivery and policy making by identifying Reducing the production and distribution of paper leads problems and collecting proposals for solutions. Only 28 of to great environmental benefits. Distributing forms for the 75 existing national citizen engagement government registration or census requires paper and logistics. Eliminating portals are universally accessible or provide support for the use of one million pages of paper reduces waste and saves users with disabilities ​(World Bank 2021)​ . Mobile can, with more than 100 trees, 10 million liters of water, and 4.5 tons of little effort, provide participation options reaching virtually CO2. Operating information and communications technology all citizens. Modern and high-quality public service delivery (ICT) systems includes negative environmental impact will significantly increase citizen satisfaction and the image itself, but by reaching more people with mGov solutions, of governments. the environmental effects can be leveraged more efficiently resulting in a positive net effect. 2.1.5 Enhancing Quality, User Experience 2.2 Challenges and Digital Portfolio Exploiting rising mobile phone capabilities can extend While facing an impressive range of opportunities, the quality, usability, and the portfolio of digital solutions. main challenge for developing countries to establish The functionality of digital government solutions can be mobile government lies in digital foundations. In many enhanced through using information on the location, cameras, developing countries, promising singular mobile solutions and sensors of mobile devices (see also Chapters 3 and have been developed, but whole-of-government approaches, 5.1). Modern phones can support secure authentication of a coordination, and legal frameworks to exploit the full potential person’s identity as a basis to personalize and contextualize are mostly still missing. Figure 2.6 captures challenges often services. Also, in contrast to physical visits to agency offices, faced in establishing mGov. mGov solutions can easily scale potentially to a higher number of use cases – for example, in exceptional circumstances such EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 14 > > > F I G U R E 2 . 6 - Challenges in Establishing Sustainable mGov Trust & Information User-Friendly Security Design Price and Affordability • Profound Shared Digital Services Digital Foundations • High-Quality Network Infrastructure • Level of Digital Skills • Whole-of-Government Strategy & Coordination Fragmentation • Cross-Agency Legal Framework of Administration • Coheasive Approach Source: Authors. 2.2.1 Fragmentation of Administration and local governments, can frustrate overarching initiatives. Without subordinate regulation on digital ID, digital payments, Governments often lack a whole-of-government strategy digital signature, digital documents, cybersecurity, and privacy, and cohesive approach for all agencies. Different variations among others, mGov cannot be established in an efficient and of fragmentation are noted, horizontal as well as vertical. sustainable manner. Agencies within the same national level or at subnational levels often implement mGov through isolated initiatives using Central coordination, resources, and a digital agency separate technologies, frameworks, and approaches. While that has strong official authority are necessary to singular initiatives can have a great subject-specific impact enforce the rollout of overarching principles. Dedicated and show the potential of mobile solutions, an overarching central government GovTech units have been established vision and cross-agency strategy can lead to efficient and in 80 countries, but limited government financial and human sustainable mGov. Lacking such a strategy and leadership, resources remain a main challenge ​ (World Bank 2021). mGov solutions will mostly reach a small set of people or have To establish consensus on digital matters and a strategy, only local impact. coordination mechanisms for cross-ministerial consultations such as a digital board or council with representatives of all An overarching legal basis is needed for efficient core major federal organizations are necessary. A central agency government systems and digital interaction between the responsible for digital affairs is needed to effectively coordinate state and the citizen. To implement a whole-of-government the implementation of a strategy and roadmap to issue strategy and effective digital government transformation, policies, standards, and guidelines; to support agencies in the a general digital policy and a legal framework for all public consistent implementation of policies and digital services; and organizations is essential. Conflictive interests, be they to monitor compliance to the policy framework. horizontally between ministries or vertically between federal EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 15 2.2.2 Lack of Digital Foundations solutions. To design and implement mGov solutions in a way that they are taken up by as many users of all relevant target The level of digital literacy and capabilities among citizens groups as possible, a skilled team is needed in all phases. as well as government employees is highly diverse. Many It is not only in developing countries that these skills are people now use mobile phones in various situations of their often missing and have to be established with professional daily lives, but not all have the same physical, intellectual, or guidance. Facing a high demand for skilled personnel in digital digital skills. Penetration of mGov solutions can only reach matters, many governments find it hard to establish a pool of its full potential if they are designed in a way that users are experts – at market-based salaries – who have the capabilities familiar with, be it via web, app, text, or voice. to design and implement an efficient digital environment. Figure 2.7 above illustrates the issue. Governments struggle to engage skilled experts for coordination, design, and implementation of digital > > > F I G U R E 2 . 7 - Percentage of People with Basic ICT Skills DISTRIBUTION OF ECONOMIES ACCORDING TO THE PROPORTION OF THEIR POPULATION HAVING BASIC SKILLS 0-20% 20-40% 40-60% 60-80% 80-100% 13 17 30 13 4 economies Source: ITU 2018. Note: For each economy, the value for basic skills is the average value of the available recent data for following four computer-based activities: copying or moving a file or folder, using copy and paste tools to duplicate or move information within a document, sending e-mails with attached files, and transferring files between a computer and other devices. Consistent and integrated backend applications, service bus, high-quality central data management, or platforms, and digital infrastructure building blocks are identification. prerequisites for sustainable mGov that are often lacking. Singular mGov solutions can usually be successfully developed Secure identification as an essential foundation to without relying on sophisticated backend systems. But to provide binding public services is complex to implement. operate a greater set of efficient and effective mGov solutions, That and authentication solutions are costly and need high- a cross-agency digital architecture, shared platforms, and end mobile devices as a prerequisite. Only few countries a set of shared digital services are necessary. Developing like Austria, Belgium, Estonia, and recently Moldova have countries particularly are often short of manpower and budget established such solutions. Simple means of identification to establish such basic functional layers as a government based on network subscriptions can also be of high benefit but remain widely uncommon. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 16 Mobile financial services are not yet comprehensively appropriate devices or are unable to connect to a network. established. Despite its potential, mobile money adoption is In Africa, 18 percent of the rural population has no mobile still low in certain regions and countries. While there are over network coverage at all, and another 11 percent has only 1 billion registered mobile money users worldwide, there is 2G coverage, unable to access the internet. In the Americas, significant variation in adoption within and across countries. 22 percent of the rural population is not covered (ITU 2022). In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, adoption in East Africa Many poor communities living in rural areas have substandard is high, whereas the number of active users in West Africa equipment and minor network quality or even a lack of ranges from 1 percent in Niger to 20 percent in Ivory Coast​ electricity supply. Often these people would benefit most from (Econofact 2020)​ . mGov solutions and, at least, the possibility to connect with the government. Only by reaching them can the full potential Keeping pace with technological dynamics and dealing of mGov be exploited to good effect. with dependencies is challenging. The mobile phone and app market is developing fast and opportunities as well as 2.2.3 Price and Affordability requirements are constantly changing. Therefore, mGov It is still costly for the poor to connect to a broadband solutions must be kept up to date regarding security measures network. The cost of active mobile broadband subscription and functionality, and often need to support a broad range of varies drastically depending on the specific region. While operating system versions. The current market dominance expenses for European citizens are less than one percent, of two mobile phone platforms includes advantages but also African citizens face costs of almost 12 percent of their creates a high dependency on the providers. Dependencies gross national income (Figure 2.8). A mobile data and voice from platforms also include time plans. When defining a low-consumption package costs more than 30 percent of an rollout-plan, the timeframe for publication of native apps in app average income in African countries like Niger and Central stores needs to be considered. African Republic (ITU 2022). Mobile broadband subscriptions can therefore not be assumed as standard when implementing High-quality infrastructure and access to mobile networks mGov solutions in developing countries. and devices are still not established in many rural areas. The best mGov solutions are of no use if people do not have > > > F I G U R E 2 . 8 - Average Costs of Data Services 8 64 of 1 gigabyte of mobile data 6 51 Average cost (US$) 48 4 25 2 0 High-income Upper-middle- Lower-middle- Lower-income income income Source: World Bank 2021. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 17 Affordable devices with extended features are rare. For (GSMA 2021)​ . High-end smartphones can thus not be taken those living below $2 per day, a $100 handset accounts for for granted even in technologically advanced countries. In 14 percent or more of annual income. More affordable phones developing countries, dedicated device ownership cannot would be more suitable. While in high-income-countries 73 be assumed at all, since only community phones might be percent of devices are 4G or 5G smartphones, in Sub-Saharan available. Furthermore, only simple channels like voice and Africa these make up only 12 percent as shown in Figure 2.9​ text messages might be available. > > > F I G U R E 2 . 9 - Mobile Connections by Device Type for High-Income Countries and LMICs (by Region), 2020 High-income countries East Asis & Pacific Latin America & Caribbean Europe & Central Asia 18% 12% 16% 28% 73% 65% 53% 41% 11% 18% 10% 20% 11% 5% 8% 10% Middle East & North Africa South Asia Sub-Saharan Africa 32% 36% 30% 26% 33% 53% 45% 10% 5% 12% 7% 11% 4G/5G smartphones 3G smartphones Basic or feature phones Data-only devices Source: GSMA 2021. 2.2.4 Trust and Information Security that the government will use it for unintended purposes ​ (Eibl, Lampoltshammer and Temple 2022)​ . Others are willing to The variety of user needs makes it difficult to find the share data if they get high quality, easy-to-use public services right balance between a good level of trust and high in return, and would be irritated by heavy security features. usability. Often, people do not trust digital solutions and However, since security incidents regarding personal data prefer to physically visit office buildings. Moreover, mobile can seriously harm trust in digital public services and the devices are very personal items and many people do not want government, information security is of key importance. to provide their data through mobile phones due to the fear EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 18 A robust level of information security is complex to the user needs in any aspect, including language establish and maintain. Weaknesses in the cybersecurity requirements. While traditional eGovernment websites of digital government systems can lead to data breaches are usually text-intensive, information and forms might not or abusive use. Shared information security services like be suitable for the limited size of mobile phones, especially certificates or encryption are often missing. Also, older mobile button-based phones. Form factor aspects thus need to be network infrastructures and mobile devices often carry security considered (see Chapter 5.1.3). While local dialects of citizens weaknesses and can severely harm trust in mGov services. in various regions of a country may be highly diverse, apps A lack of understanding of secure technologies and skills to often cover one official language only. Implementing apps that solve challenges in architecture and implementation can harm contain two or more languages can be both a technical and a trust in digital services. resource challenge (see Chapter 5.1.4). 2.2.5 User-Friendly Design Efficiency of backend processes in core government operations is often not sufficient to provide responsive A holistic service design approach is necessary to solutions. The best mobile government apps and interfaces provide user-centered mGov applications with a high are of no use, if transactions are not carried out in a timely and usability and accessibility. Traditional digital design and high-quality manner. The number of requests may multiply implementation frameworks are still widely used in developed as a result of reaching a higher number of people with mGov as well as developing countries but do not fulfill the needs services. If the backend processes of governments are not of modern digital service delivery. Highly accepted mobile streamlined, simplified, and digitized, governments may not solutions can hardly be achieved without the capabilities to be able to cope with the number of inquiries and the potential follow a human-centered service design approach, end-to-end of mobile service delivery would remain suboptimal. process view, and up-to-date user experience principles. To reach as many people as possible, mobile solutions need to consider small and simple screens and cover EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 19 3. >>> Potential Use Cases The opportunities outlined in the last chapter can be realized in a vast variety of use cases. This chapter presents potential use cases and examples in three focus areas of GovTech: core government operations, public service delivery, and citizen engagement, as shown in Figure 3.1. > > > F I G U R E 3 . 1 - Overview and Categories of Potential mGov Solutions mCore mobile Core Government Operations Operation Information Process mobile Access mobile Information Public Citizen Transaction Feedback Service Engagement mServices Delivery Payment mCE Services Participation Source: Authors. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 20 3.1 Core Government Operations Mobile government solutions can provide support in organizational efficiency and accountability, maximize limited many areas of government operations, be it between resources, and enhance the quality of service to citizens with entities (G2G), their employees (G2E), or by providing (OECD & ITU 2011)​ special benefits for field staff ​ . In addition, the foundation like digital identity for efficient public digital mobile identity can be a key element of efficient core service delivery to people (G2P). The solutions can assist government systems as described in chapters 2.1.1 and 5.2.1 public officials in their daily operations and also improve as well as Use Case Briefs 1, 2, and 6. Use Case Brief 1. Mobile identity using hybrid keys in Moldova Strategic Context Moldova has recently had advancements in digital identity and digital signature uptake, but it is still low. and Challenge Current issues include costs that need to be paid by citizens, not being adequate for occasional use, and the need to carry a specialized physical device or replace the mobile SIM, which in some cases requires two office visits to obtain the qualified signature. Solution The mobile app, MobiSign, implemented by the E-Governance Agency of Moldova provides citizens with an easy and secure means to identify, authenticate, and sign documents in any system in public or private institutions. It is leveraging common advanced security features of modern mobile phones and operating systems, such as built-in application isolation, a strong random number generation, and biometry features (face or fingerprint identification) to implement a hybrid secure scheme for authentication and signature. The solution requires the use of two private keys for each transaction, one being generated and partially stored on user’s mobile phone and another managed in a Hardware Secure Module (HSM) operated by the service provider. By keeping a part of the private key encrypted and under exclusive control of the user, the service provider is not able to impersonate the user while there is no way to clone the key or to guess the user’s PIN offline. Results Offering users a qualified mobile identity without requiring a special device on their side simplifies and Benefits logistics and reduces the registration process to one agency visit. The efficiency of the implemented solution enables the government to offer it for free. QR code usage during a transaction replaces user inputs during authentication and simplified signature by entering a PIN code only. Learnings Digital identity solutions that are easy and free to use for citizens can act as enablers for mGov. Experiencing such a solution and its usefulness increases user acceptance and provides inspiration for further advancement. Relevance Most relevant for countries with an advanced or very advanced digital development. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 21 Mobile solutions can support the daily operative work mobile support, saving 14,000 hours for the police officers of public officials in the field. Mobile devices can be used involved ​ (UK Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency 2021)​ while on inspection of schools, building sites, or businesses . Official as well as private entities can verify the legality of to prevent redundant information collection, minimizing official digital documents as in Switzerland’s JuraVerifier bureaucratic effort. Officials can use automated translation (Figure 3.2), which checks documents tamper-proof via a apps to communicate with people that speak a local dialect. trusted app and a QR code. Mobile data can also be used to Police officers can generate crime scene reports on-site and better coordinate police forces, rescue workers, or firefighting enrich textual documentation with image and video. They units in emergency management. Finally, as implemented in can also scan and process vehicle and driver’s licenses in Austria, augmented reality apps can support field operations traffic checks. A case study in the United Kingdom showed like customs control by showing potential hiding places in cars that roadside checks were carried out 66 percent quicker with or lorries. > > > F I G U R E 3 . 2 - Mobile Document Verification in Switzerland Source: Authors. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 22 Quick intuitive interactions via mobile can make back- and informing on road conditions, or predicting potential and office tasks more efficient. By providing mobile channels, manage present disasters such as panic in mass gatherings. public officials can quickly access knowledge bases Beside feedback by citizens (see Chapter 3.3), mobile- anywhere, anytime in any operational area, be it in public based feedback by officials in the field can be collected and financial management, human resource management, tax considered, for example, about road damages, construction administration, public procurement, or public investment work deficits or about public services in schools or hospitals. management. Mobile apps can also provide access to Information can be used for dashboards and included in digital filing systems to quickly execute tasks or approve decision making processes. Analyzing context-specific acts. Secure messaging systems between public officials information on mobile phones like location, date and time of can provide an easy way to interact and provide a means pictures can improve the presence and spatial coverage of for asynchronous decision making, for example, for urgent health inspectors, agriculture extension workers or vaccinators​ decisions of the council of ministers. Simplifying government . (Z. Bhatti 2020)​ internal support processes can increase efficiency as well as employee satisfaction. Mobile phones can be used to quickly register and approve time records or to request and confirm 3.2 Public Service Delivery business trips or leaves in human resource processes. Asset management can be supported by using mobile devices for the registration of furniture, hardware, or utilities. By bringing public service directly to every person’s hands, governments can provide easy access for citizens Mobile data can support well-informed decisions (G2P) or businesses (G2B). Mobile can provide information, to facilitate efficient and accountable government transactions and simple payment solutions in comprehensive operations. Data from mobile devices can also be harvested, one-stop shops or e-wallets for all digital public services as anonymized, and used for historic, real-time, and predictive seen in Use Case Brief 2 or in simpler apps for dedicated topics. analytics. Examples include managing traffic flow, tracking Use Case Brief 2. Providing personalized government one-stop services anywhere, anytime, in Austria Strategic Context Austria has for decades been a leader in digital government. To establish the next generation of digital and Challenge services, a mobile app to access all services was developed. The project aimed to close the digital divide, improve participation opportunities for people in more remote areas of Austria and reduce traffic. Solution With its ”Digitales Amt” (Digital Office) mobile app, the Austrian Federal Government promotes user-oriented access to public services and decision- making processes. The platform offers a range of features, including a time-saving residence registration process, a secure application process for voting cards and a digital ‘Baby Point’ to receive birth certificates via mobile, postal vote applications, a reminder service for passport renewal, pdf signature, theft reports, and many more. It includes secure identification via ID Austria according to up-to-date EU frameworks and delivers integration, with all digital public services, be it for justice, taxes, social insurance, or businesses. The associated eAusweise (electronic ID) app acts as a quick and easy way to show a driver’s license using a smartphone. Citizens can use it if they are stopped by the police, or in any other situation where they might need it. The system allows them to share your driving license data at the touch of a button using contactless technology. In the future, they will be able to use the same app to present other types of paperwork electronically. Results The 3.4 million active mobile eIDs in Austria act as a large user base for digital government. The app and Benefits was downloaded 1.1 million times. The project ensures non-discriminatory access to public services and is in line with the underlying concept of “leaving no one behind.” EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 23 Use Case Brief 2. Providing personalized government one-stop services anywhere, anytime, in Austria Learnings The best way to reach citizens is to offer personalized, pro-active, multiagency digital and mobile services, in which users can handle their administrative businesses in an intuitive and formless way and with little interaction (one-stop and no-stop shop). Relevance Most relevant for countries with advanced or very advanced digital development. Quick wins can be achieved through providing information Age Governance (UMANG), Figure 3.3, is an example of an and answering simple requests on mobile phones, often all-in-one secure multichannel, multiplatform, multilingual, by using existing elements of digital government. Most multiservice, freeware mobile app for accessing more than governments today operate web-based portals that at least 2,000 central and state government services ( ​World Bank contain basic information on public services. By providing this 2021)​ . Taking a mobile-first approach, Bangladesh has information in a way that is easily readable on mobile devices, developed a mobile app version of its national e-Government citizens can, for example, organize an efficient physical visit portal called MyGov. In addition, to address the feature to an agency, being informed of opening hours or documents phone segment – citizens with low literacy and familiarity with and forms to bring. More advanced systems can allow the technology – an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) based voice user to order copies of official documents like birth certificates, platform ‘333’ for service delivery is present where citizens residence registration or a certificate of citizenship, or to can call for instant assistance. To date, 230 million calls have track the status of certain applications or legal matters. The been served with information service and grievances – see Dubai government’s DubaiNow App offers more than 55 also Use Case Brief 3. smart services. India’s Unified Mobile Application for New- > > > F I G U R E 3 . 3 - India’s Unified Mobile Application for New-Age Governance Source: https://www.fonearena.com/blog/235796/pm-modi-launches-umang-one-app-to-avail-all-government-services.html EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 24 Use Case Brief 3. Accessing the land records and carrying out mobile payments in Bangladesh Strategic Context Land Records, “Porcha” or Record of Right (RoR) is a legal document for identifying land relating to and Challenge land tenure and ownership that is determined by the possession survey and land development tax assessment. Landowners regularly faced hassle and bureaucratic complexities to find physical papers of Porcha that often exacerbated disputes in landownership and required several visits to the local land offices. Solution As part of the Digital Bangladesh and SMART Bangladesh initiatives, the government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh simplified, digitized, and thus transformed a number of services. The most notable is “e-Porcha” - an online land record service where Bangladeshi citizens can conveniently find land ownership records and collect any land-related information anytime from anywhere in the world. e-Porcha also provides certified copies of documents via postal and courier services for a nominal fee. Not only does this expedite the process and enhance transparency, but it also reduces the time, cost, and number of visits required of citizens to travel to offices to follow-up, complete, and collect paperwork. Now it is all electronic and hassle-free. The Bangladesh mobile network has an impressive 98 percent geo-coverage of which 48 percent mobile phone users are using smartphones. Smartphone users can avail e-Porcha service through the website (eporcha.gov.bd), the mobile app (MyGov) and through third party applications such as the apps of all national mobile network operators (MNOs). Notably, the remaining 52 percent of the mobile phone users using feature phones are not left behind. They too can access the service by dialing a special short code number, or with the assistance of 9,000 Digital Centers – one-stop shops located at the village level within walking distance and run by youth entrepreneurs – across Bangladesh. In order to register with e-Porcha services, an applicant only needs to have a mobile phone number and national identification number. Users can complete payments through digital banking systems or even mobile money. More recently, the government added mobile direct/carrier billing to this service to increase accessibility so that marginal populations can also pay for the services using a mobile airtime wallet. Results To date, over 3.5 million users have visited the portal, of whom 69 percent availed land-related services and Benefits from e-Porcha. It is visited daily by nearly 26,000 users. Learnings Multimodal and assisted approach makes e-services more inclusive. A flexible payment system along with a flexible authentication process in the mGov core engine are the critical success factors. Relevance Most relevant for countries with a basic or advanced digital development Mobile government holds immense potential for financial of how the government could orchestrate a partnership among inclusion for poor populations without a bank account. The Central Bank, Telecom providers, and other stakeholders to phenomenal success of M-PESA in Kenya offers an example deliver remarkable results as illustrated in Use Case Brief 4. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 25 Use Case Brief 4. M-PESA: Convenient and easy digital payments through the mobile phones in Africa Strategic Context Fifty-seven percent of the population in Africa, around 95 million people, do not have a traditional bank and Challenge account (​Harrison 2021)​. However, 83 percent people in Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding high income earners) have mobile cellular subscriptions (data.worldbank.org). Poor populations without a bank account but a mobile payment account can enhance financial inclusion and facilitate social welfare payments to improve their opportunities in life. Solution M-PESA is an SMS-based system that enables users to deposit, send and withdraw funds using their mobile phone. Customers do not need to have a bank account, and can transact at any of the country’s 40,000 agent outlets. Customers register for the service at authorised agents – often small mobile phone stores or other retailers such as barbers, butchers, bakers– and then deposit cash in exchange for electronic money. Customers can then send money to their family or friends throughout the country. Once they have registered, all transactions are completed securely by entering a PIN number and both parties receive an SMS confirming the amount that has been transferred. The recipient receives the electronic money in real-time and then redeems it for cash by visiting another agent. Alternatively, they can spend it at an M-PESA merchant. Registration and deposits are free and pricing for most other transactions is based on a tiered structure to allow even the lowest-income users to use the system. Transaction values are typically small, ranging from US$5 to US$30. M-PESA grew at a blistering pace following its inception in 2007. In less than two years from its launch, M-PESA had become the leading money transfer method in the country. M-PESA is a mobile money service that was officially launched in March 2007 by Safaricom, the leading mobile phone operator in Kenya. Safaricom formed strategic partnerships with organisations such as the Central Bank of Kenya, the Commercial Bank of Africa – for local banking services – and the ATM provider, Pesapoint, to establish ATMs throughout Kenya. The local microfinance company, Faulu, helped the company to launch the pilot. Additionally, Safaricom received funds from DFID in the UK through its Financial Deepening Challenge Fund, which was established to finance PPP projects that would improve access to financial services. The Kenyan government owns 35 percent of Safaricom and assisted Safaricom and Vodafone in establishing a strong relationship with the Central Bank, which was integral in getting the M-PESA deposits insured, as well as the regulatory approval. The Central Bank insures M-PESA deposits in the banking system under its Deposit Protection Fund. The government was actively committed to M-PESA and the Central Bank’s post-audit endorsement of M-PESA was also a measure of political support. ​ Vodafone 2022)​ Sources: ( ;​ . (Center for Public Impact 2016)​ Results 51 million Africans are making over $314 billion in transactions per year through M-PESA, using more and Benefits than 604,000 active agents operating across the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Tanzania. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 26 Use Case Brief 4. M-PESA: Convenient and easy digital payments through the mobile phones in Africa Learnings Government political commitment is key to success. Public-private partnership holds the potential to substantially impact the digital and financial inclusion agenda. The role of the telecom providers and the Central Bank, orchestrated by the Government, could make a big difference on mGov. Relevance Most relevant for countries with a basic or advanced digital development. Beyond simple requests, binding transactions can Australia’s “ATO App” and the Austrian “FinanzOnline [+]” eliminate the necessity for citizens to physically visit provide a similar approach. An area especially relevant for agency offices and be the basis for payments. Citizens developing counties is to provide welfare payments through can carry out two-way-interactions like registering a newborn mobile accounts – see Chapter 2.1.2 and Use Case Brief child, changing their address, or registering unemployment 5. Even if transactions are not carried out directly on mobile with their mobile phones. They can apply for social benefits phones, they can be used to confirm receipt of payments and like basic income grants or food coupons and carry out prevent corruption. A pilot among 1.3 million farmers in India simple tax declarations or confirmations. For example, in showed 7.8 percent reduction in the number of beneficiaries South Africa, citizens can use the “SARS MobiApp” to review who did not receive their benefits and an increase of 1 million their automated tax assessment and carry out payments. USD delivered to farmers ​ . (Muralidharan, et al. 2021)​ > > > F I G U R E 3 . 4 - Examples for Tax Filing Apps in Australia, South Africa, and Austria Source: Google Play, Authors. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 27 Use Case Brief 5. Providing maternal and child cash transfers via mobile phones in Myanmar Strategic Context People throughout Myanmar suffer from difficulties in accessing basic services and infrastructure. The and Challenge objective of the project is to improve nutritional outcomes for mothers and children during the first critical 1,000 days of life. Solution The solution was implemented on open-source basis, minimizing costs. An agile approach and iterative process was used to continuously incorporate feedback directly from the users. The digital tools provided an end-to-end solution for mother and child nutrition field data collection, analysis, and registration for the program. The use of smartphones has improved efficiency and introduced the prospect of collecting new forms of data that would not be possible through the traditional paper-based collection or use of digital spreadsheets. This includes the ability to collect geo-referenced inputs and photos at virtually no extra cost. For example, monitoring of payment conditions (like hospital visits) and key project-related outcomes (like children’s weight) can now be directly monitored, confirmed, and linked to the beneficiary’s profile supported by the new digital workflow. Results Each of the over 250,000 beneficiaries were eligible to receive 15,000 Kyat per month (around $10 at and Benefits the time of the intervention). The proportion of children receiving a minimum acceptable diet increased by over 30 percentage points when the combined package of cash and intensive Social Behavioral Change Communication was provided, increasing from 9.9 percent of children to 41.7 percent. Learnings A combination of low-tech smartphones, open source tools like ODK, and web dashboards can jumpstart digital workflows and create value for government processes. Including stakeholders was essential for user-centric design (Bhatti et al. 2021). Relevance Most relevant for countries with a basic or advanced digital development. Integrating related services of the public or private sector using a private-public-partnership model ​ (World Bank 2022). can provide synergy and mutually push penetration. All-inclusive life event solutions can bring a multiple value Cooperation with local businesses or social organizations proposition to citizens and significantly increase the individual can enrich public services and provide holistic solutions benefit and general penetration. For example, when registering around life events. Italy’s “IO App” described in Use Case a new resident, nearby institutions or related services like car Brief 6 combines public services with payment, discounts, registration or insurance could be offered. Citizens could also refunds, and the promotion of certain activities like sports and use their official information to interact with private entities, for cultural events. The Republic of Korea increased access to example, by sharing documents or specific relevant data to public services through diversifying service delivery channels verify the minimum age. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 28 Use Case Brief 6. Digitizing the Italian public sector through a unique, citizen-centered mobile application Strategic Context In the highly fragmented scenario of 23,000+ entities in the Italian administration, and diverse and Challenge communication channels, procedures, and touchpoints for citizen services, the main goal was to develop a centralized ecosystem of interoperating, user-centered digital platforms aimed at simplifying the relationship between the State, citizens, and businesses. Solution PagoPA, a state-owned enterprise founded in 2019 with the mission to spread a new generation of digital public services with payments and a mobile first strategy as cornerstones of the digital turnaround in the public sector, launched “IO,” the app for Italian public services (io.italia.it) in April 2020. This serves as a single channel through which all local and national authorities (municipalities, regions, central agencies) can offer their services to citizens in a simple and personalized way, based on the user’s needs and preferences, directly on their smartphones or tablets. The IO app is designed to interoperate with all the digital infrastructures realized by PagoPA. It integrates the enabling platforms for the PA’s digital transition – the national digital identity system, the central platform for electronic payments pagoPA, the single national registry – and therefore represents the official mobile access point to all digital public services. For example, public bodies can send reminders to taxpayers about due amounts related to a specific service and citizens can directly pay the amount via the app. Results IO has been downloaded over 30 million times, with 6 million active users each month. Over 7,100 and Benefits public entities like schools, transport institutions, and registry offices are offering 88,000 services and receive 10,000 payments for public administrations daily. It allows administrations to redesign their processes to digitally cover every moment of the “public service lifecycle” and eliminate duplication and complexity according to the once-only principle. Learnings In the public sector, initiatives that work are those that manage to involve everyone. A mobile-first, user-centered approach is helping to spread new digital habits, including payments, among citizens, regardless to their age, skills, or social status, thanks mainly to a simple user experience (UX) and interface. Relevance Most relevant for countries with an advanced or very advanced digital development. Solutions that were implemented to support the administrative tasks like reimbursement applications. Since management of the COVID pandemic could be extended health-related data is highly sensitive, information security to other health-related fields. During the COVID pandemic, aspects need to be closely considered. The immense many countries implemented apps to verify tests and penetration of these apps also raises the potential of using vaccination status, or to track if citizens had been in contact it for other public services and matters. This option, however, with infected people. These apps could be extended, for needs to be viewed with caution, since linking sensitive health example, to general electronic vaccination registers, to data to other governmental service data would in all probability create awareness for health-issues, to virtual consultations be seen as a breach of trust – see also Chapter 2.2.4. for diagnosis, treatment, and communication, or to support EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 29 7. Identification and authentication of farmers and optimization of agricultural resource usage Use Case Brief in Bangladesh Strategic Context Agriculture contributes 12 percent of Bangladesh overall GDP. The government of Bangladesh is and Challenge committed to continuing agricultural development in order to meet the growing population’s food needs, provide income and employment for rural residents, and protect the environment. Solution The mission of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) is to provide efficient and effective needs-based extension services to all categories of farmers in order to optimize resource use and promote sustainable agricultural and socioeconomic development. In order to achieve this, DAE, with the help of the a2i Programme of the Government of Bangladesh developed an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system for farmer’s assistance that can be availed by dialing 3331. Bangladesh has 8.6 million registered farmers, authenticated by the use of mobile phone numbers. By simply dialing 3331, farmers receive direct assistance from one of the 15,000 Sub Assistant Field Officers. The database of the system is mapped to directly connect farmers to a field officer of the respective. Unanswered calls are automatically re-routed to next level supervisors. The system also generates regular reporting on the field activities. In addition to this, Bangladesh aims to establish 15,000 village level service points to assist nationwide farmers. Here they will get cold storage support, financial inclusion support, supply chain support, produce transportation support, and connect directly with consumers through an assisted e-commerce platform. A Big Data platform is underway to take off originating data from 3331. Results The platform, which is powered by mobile number authentication, links farmers directly to field agriculture and Benefits officers and significantly reduces time, cost, and visits required to receive a service. Learnings Better outcomes can be obtained when using an assisted model supported by data analytics and digital m-web based support modules. Relevance Most relevant for countries with a basic or advanced digital development There are many more relevant areas for mobile solutions energy, as shown in many publications (for example, UNDP in government-related areas. Relevant areas directly or 2012) and Use Case Brief 7 above, which presents a detailed indirectly related to government are health, agriculture, example including identification in agriculture. education, crisis prevention and recovery, environment, and EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 30 Sector-Specific Use Cases in a Development Context Health Fight against Fighting dengue by providing sanitary workers with smartphones and monitoring Dengue geo-tagged activities of spraying swamps in Pakistan. Supply of Proactively identifying defective water hand pumps and monitoring the repair status Clean Water via SMS in India and Uganda. Targeted Health Addressing health challenges via SMS including awareness about clean drinking Care Information water, birth control, maternal health, stunted growth, food supply, emergencies, and other primary health care services. Pregnancy Care Training female community health workers and families with videos on childbirth, Video Training care of newborns, and breastfeeding in Somalia (www.globalhealthmedia.org). Continuing Closing gaps in clinical knowledge among primary care physicians geographically Professional dispersed across the country with a mobile ready learning management system in Development the Kyrgyz Republic. Pregnancy Health Making sure that pregnant women get regular treatment, recognizing warning signs, Tracking and helping them to reach health centers in critical situations in Rwanda (RapidPro). Agriculture Market Pricing Empowering farmers to make more informed market pricing decisions and ultimately Support Dengue more successful farming in India, China, Malaysia, Uganda, and Rwanda (eSoko - www.esoko.gov.rw). Farmer Training farmers in sustainable agriculture and nutrition practices in India and Video Training Ethiopia (www.digitalgreen.org). Harvest Raising sugar production by coordinating farmers with sugar mills via SMS in Coordination Bangladesh (ePurjee). Targeted Broadcasting early alerts on drought, food shortages, pests, and weather-related Danger Alerts calamities in Ethiopia and Uganda. Animal Health Helping shepherds and farmers to monitor the health of their animals and optimize Monitoring production systems using regenerative practices via SMS in Kenya (icow.co.ke). Education Digital Learning in Providing eLearning courses to rural areas without broadband network and power Disconnected Areas supply in Rwanda, Togo, and Benin (atingi in a box, www.atingi.org). Distribution of Making books available to people without access to libraries and reading stories to Reading Material children from mobile phones in Nigeria, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Pakistan (www. worldreader.org). Multi-Language Participating in education anywhere by accessing class notes, resources, exercises, Learning on and quizzes in local languages in South Africa (M-Thuto). Simple Phones Education Collecting data to mobilize the education community, track distribution of educational Community material, and monitor attendance in Peru, or to monitor curriculums and student Management assessment, and receipt of salary in Afghanistan (EduTrac). EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 31 3.3 Citizen Engagement Citizen Engagement services can in all forms be disasters, emergency and terrorism alerts, accidents, supported by mobile and are typically oriented to citizens emergency locations. By simply calling the number 1294, (G2P). In selected cases, they may also include businesses people in Cambodia can sign up to get early warnings in (G2B) or government employees (G2E). There are many advance of natural hazards like flooding by a system based kinds of existing use cases, including informational, feedback, on open-source framework RapidPro. Citizens can also and participatory services. receive case-specific information on agency locations, hours, and contact numbers, or reminders on passport renewal and Information services can provide governmental news and tax declaration. A case study in Madagascar showed that data of individual relevance for citizens. Information can the payments from late-income-tax filers increased from 7.2 be distributed as push- or pull-oriented via Short Message percent to 9.8 percent by simply sending them a reminder Service (SMS) or similar messaging channels and social via SMS. For every dollar spent sending text messages, the media platforms. Messages usually contain static information tax authority collected an additional 329 dollars in revenues specifically targeted to the recipient and enable real-time (Peixoto et al. 2019). communication to citizens, for example, warnings on potential EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 32 Feedback services enable citizens to get in contact with Mobile phones can be used to report problems, for the government and initiate interactions. Citizens can example, related to public infrastructure (road damages, use various channels like messaging, voice, social media, pollution) and illicit trade of products. In South Africa, dedicated apps, and forms to inform responsible agencies citizen feedback is proactively collected to fix issues in local on relevant questions, problems, comments. They can government like inadequate water pressure. The MobiSAM enrich textual information by using a great range of mobile App (Figure 3.5) is an example of a social accountability device functionality like GPS, photos, and videos; they can and monitoring platform. In Nigeria, citizens can identify also result in a dialogue between citizens and government nearby public infrastructure projects, upload photos, and add officials. A low-threshold messaging help desk can provide comments. In Ghana, the government proactively reaches assistance for accessing public services. Citizens can also out for feedback by text messages and automated calls to report incidents like crime, accidents, or suspicious activity improve public service delivery. Solutions can also check if and public officials can get back to them for further inquiry. products are imported legally and tax-conform as done by the By facilitating the means to get in touch with people at risk, Dominican Republic, where the REVISAME app empowers solutions can initiate help for individuals, for example, around citizens to verify the compliance of products and report gender-related violence as implemented in Argentina or the anomalies to the tax authority as described in Use Case Brief “I am Nirbhaya” initiative in India. Citizen reports can also be 8. Even without smartphones, simple messaging systems like useful in the case of disasters. The global not-for-profit and SMS can be used to collect respective information. open-source platform, Ushaidi, was used to provide 40,000 reports – including 117 reports of trapped people and 2,730 reports of water shortage – after the 2010 Haiti earthquake. > > > F I G U R E 3 . 5 - South African Social Accountability and Monitoring Platform MobiSAM Source: Google Play. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 33 Use Case Brief 8. Verifying compliance of products in in the Dominican Republic Strategic Context A high number of illegally produced or imported products – for example, cigarettes and alcohol – harmful and Challenge to citizen’s health, and for which no taxes were paid, circulate in the markets. Solution A comprehensive authentication tool that allows citizens to verify the legal origin of alcoholic beverages and cigarettes marketed in the Dominican Republic was implemented. It allows tracing the path from origin (production/import) to its destination (consumption). The tax authority (DGII) implemented a traceability system named TRAFICO on excisable products with a digital tax stamp and extended with an App, “Revísame” (“check me”). Citizens can scan the security features of the stamp – special ink, data matrix code, and unique alphanumeric code. In case of non-conformity, citizens are warned that the product may be illegitimate and unsafe to use. Citizens can report any anomaly to the tax authority, with GPS, photos, and text. Results The app currently counts 250,000 downloads and around 1.3 million product scans since 2019. The and Benefits solution increased the compliance of excisable products circulating in the economy and of trust in the tax authority, protecting citizen’s health, and reducing unfair competition. Learnings A high usage of the app is directly related to the support of information and awareness campaigns. Citizen engagement highly contributes to reduction in circulation of illicit products. Relevance Relevant for countries with basic, advanced, and very advanced digital development. Also, mGov solutions can address complaints regarding estimated 15,000 passports a day (Farooq and Kustor 2021). officials like violent behavior or bribery. In Georgia, Between 2012 and 2018 in Pakistan over 25 million citizens India, the Philippines, Uganda, and many other countries, have been contacted in a Citizen Feedback Programme. More governments are promoting the use of SMS to promote than 40,000 corrective actions had been taken by the district social accountability. A study involving 46 African countries officials​ (Associated Press of Pakistan 2018)​ . Evaluation in has found that higher mobile phone penetration significantly 2014 has shown that more than 55 percent of citizens saw correlates with lower levels of perceived corruption. The improvement in service delivery, 71 percent in staff attitude, government of Pakistan, for example, is proactively collecting ​ Masud 2014)​ and 63 percent in timeliness of service delivery ( . feedback on potential incidents, after issuing each of the EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 34 Citizen participation can also capture citizens’ views reporters in 52 countries. Data collected is analyzed in real- and improve public service design, policy making, and time. Ideas gleaned are then applied to inform development decisions. Participation can play a major part in improving work and amplified to advocate and inform positive change democratic processes and policies as well as public projects though decision making ( ​UNICEF 2022)​ . Interactive voice as seen in Use Case Brief 9. Through mobile, barriers to response (IVR) can include less literate populations by contribute can be knocked to a minimum. Surveys can providing a recorded voice menu of options for callers to provide a multiple perspectives on existing or new initiatives access information and provide survey feedback. Experience or policies. For example, UNICEF’s open-source mobile with IVR in humanitarian contexts was found in Afghanistan, messaging program U-Report (Figure 3.6), based on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Niger, Rwanda, and RapidPro-toolset gives young people and their communities a Somalia ​(Bolton 2018)​. voice on issues that matter to them and reaches over 6 million > > > F I G U R E 3 . 6 - UNICEF’s Participation App U-Report Source: Google Play. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 35 Beyond collecting opinions, mobile devices have the location of their polling station via SMS. Governments can use potential to support official democratic voting processes. mobile to gather information from polling stations and track Citizens or election observers can report irregularities as the election process as done in India (Bhatti, Zall Kusek, and implemented in Nigeria ​ (UNDP 2012)​ . Citizens can register Verheijen 2015). or check their registration status in electoral registers and Use Case Brief 9. Monitoring public spending with an AI supported mobile solution in Nigeria Strategic Context The most important official channels are made available digitally and for mobile devices. The project and Challenge aims to close the digital divide and improve participation opportunities for people in more remote areas. Solution The mobile app, DataCrowd, by Data Science Nigeria (DSN), is designed to collect quick and instant survey data, pictures and videos with geographical coordinates to monitor public spending and project progress in sample locations. A pilot based on the app covered 77 locations in the state and collected citizens’ feedback. It does not only help to collect feedback, but to automatically extract most relevant information with AI-based mechanisms. DataCrowd can summarize text and sentences, such as citizens’ feedback through mobile phones, and instantly shows the keywords and their relevance. Artificial intelligence (AI) mechanisms also serve to reject submissions made outside of a geofenced location, classify and match images, and analyze sentiments and opinions. Results After initial positive results, the project is planned to scale up to cover three more states and about and Benefits 350 locations. Learnings Other digital technologies like AI can help to enrich mobile government solutions and shift its functionality to another level. Relevance Relevant for countries with basic, advanced, and very advanced digital development. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 36 4. >>> Holistic User-Centered Approach A systematic, user-oriented, holistic approach enables efficient and sustainable mobile Government. This chapter outlines such a framework to establish an mGov ecosystem as well as practical guidance to establish particular solutions. Figure 4.1 below gives an overview of the most relevant aspects. The foundation for sustainable mGov is a whole-of government coordination and digital transformation strategy – see Chapter 4.1. With this mandate, a dedicated agency responsible for digital transformation can issue a general digital policy framework with general requirements and standards. Subject-specific policies need to consider these and aim to facilitate user-centered end-to-end solutions (Chapter 4.2). Based on the most relevant social, citizen-oriented or administrative challenges, common concepts of human-centered design foster the design and implementation of sustainable mobile government. A design team can identify ideas to solve challenges with relevant stakeholders, develop concepts, prototypes and pilots, test them with users and finally roll out the solutions (Chapter 4.3). EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 37 > > > F I G U R E 4 . 1 - Overview on Key Elements and A Systematic Approach to Introduce Efficient and Sustainable mGov Policy, Legal Aspects & Trust Digital Policy Framework: general principles and standards for digital services & legal framework Coordination & Strategy Subject-Specific Policies: user-centered E2E-processes, organizational & technical conditions, Whole-of-Government and regulation Service Design and Implementation Challenge Idea Prototype Solution Design Team: Design Thinking Facilitators, UX Expert, Software Architect, Development Team Architecture: Interoperability, compatibility, scalability, integration, usability, privacy, security Stakeholder Engagement: Inclusion of all relevant stakeholder and user groups Source: Authors. 4.1 Whole-of-Government Coordination and Strategy Beside the opportunity to implement low-effort singular Digital Austria – “Plattform Digitales Österreich” (PDÖ) – solutions with great impact, overarching coordination established in 2005 to ensure cooperation between the federal and strategy-setting efforts are the basis for sustainable government, states, cities, municipalities, and the economy. It mGov. An effective whole-of-government strategy embraces represents Federal Government’s coordination and strategy establishing digital foundations such as high-quality shared committee for digitalization and eGovernment in Austria, with platforms, a decent mobile network infrastructure, affordable representatives of all relevant institutions (Ministry of Finance, mobile phone subscriptions and devices, and basic digital Austria 2022). The governmental digitalization efforts of skills. Efforts to establish and implement whole-of-government Austria are coordinated by a “Chief Digital Officer Taskforce” strategies might be a long-term initiative, but singular solutions for strategic alignment between ministries at a federal level. can yet act as a starting point. To ensure cooperation between the federal government and state municipalities, a “Koop-BLSG committee” has also been 4,1.1 Cross-Agency Coordination established. Operative activities are horizontally and vertically aligned between chief information officers (CIOs) on federal, Overarching coordination boards or councils and a provincial and municipality level. The position of Chief Digital central digital agency enable cross-agency coordination Officer was created in each agency to coordinate the agency- for sustainable digital and mobile government.  By wide digitalization efforts. A central unit under the Ministry of reducing the fragmentation of administrative institutions and Finance coordinates such alignments, prepares and issues their activities, efficiency can be drastically increased in all a whole-of-government legal framework, and manages the dimensions of digital government, be they strategic, procedural, implementation of cross-agency processes, architectures, organizational, architectural, or technical. In Austria, for and solutions. example, the umbrella brand for this cooperation is Platform EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 38 A central competence center for digitalization, the Federal might be overwhelming in large federal countries, but even Computing Center (Bundesrechenzentrum, BRZ), drives minimum standards can raise efficiency, lower costs, and the force of digital transformation in public administration. improve interoperability. Citizens will be the ones who will Formerly part of the Ministry of Finance, it is outsourced as a have the most to gain with a more cohesive final product. limited company fully owned by the government and is today one of Austria’s major IT companies and the market-leading 4.1.2 Strategy Development technology partner in the public sector. It delivers services to Developing and implementing a comprehensive strategy all federal ministries, supports the design of digital solutions for digital government transformation will promote and develops, implements, and operates IT applications and effective mGov. The United Nations Department of Economic eGovernment solutions. In the UK, it is the Government Digital and Social Affairs (UNDESA) provides a thorough ecosystem Service (GDS) under the Cabinet Office, and in Armenia, the approach for digital government transformation and advises e-Governance Infrastructure implementation unit EKENG to (1) carry out a context and situation analysis; (2) create a works under the Prime Minister’s Office. South Korea’s future vision; (3) develop a digital government transformation Presidential Committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution strategy and roadmap; and (4) implement, monitor, and (PCFIR) provides another example of a convening platform evaluate services (UNDESA 2020). for coordinating important policy matters on science and technology. In Armenia, a similar board has been established The local context, situation, and challenges of a country under the office of the Deputy Prime Minister, who is designated and its population need to be considered. The immediate as the CIO of the government. situation and context of each country is of essential relevance when selecting challenges that are to be addressed by mGov A whole-of-government digital strategy that enables mGov initiatives. Social, organizational, legislative and technological sets leading principles and standards across all agencies. conditions are to be considered in all phases of planning Digital government transformation action plans should feature and implementation. For a context and situation analysis, the overarching alignment of institutions, organizations, the World Bank has developed a comprehensive framework people, technology, data, and resources (UNDESA 2020). that contains Nine Pillars of Digital Government Readiness Although this may be challenging, coordinating across Assessment ​ (World Bank 2020)​– Figure 4.2. agencies is critical as it will reduce duplicative efforts. This EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 39 > > > F I G U R E 4 . 2 - Nine Pillars of Digital Government Readiness Assessment Leadership Leadership & Governance Digital User-Centered Ecosystem Design Public & Human Resources Digital Legislation Legislation & Administration Digital Services & Isolation Regulation & Change Digital Government Management Cybersecurity, Capabilities, Privacy, Culture, & Resilience & Skills Data Infrastructure, Technology Strategies, & Infrastructure Governance Digital Infrastructure & Government Business Continuity Source: World Bank, 2020. The GovTech Global Partnership of the World Bank has requirements. Stage 3 is Digitization, focusing on the technical developed an approach to design and deliver a citizen- aspects of service delivery, including automation, integration, centric services reform program. Stage 1 of the four-stage and interoperability. Stage 4 is Delivery, which focuses on model is Rationalization, which includes planning the service inclusivity and quality, and includes the delivery mechanisms, reform. Stage 2 is Reengineering, which promotes efficiency user interface, quality and delivery standards, and continuous through streamlining processes, re-engineering business improvement​(World Bank 2022)​ . processes, and eliminating unnecessary documents and data EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 40 Many countries now set a mobile first strategy to the implementation strategies are more evolutionary than core of their digital transformation vision. A broad process revolutionary. Successful approaches are aligned with existing to define an overall vision for digital governments includes practices and often include embedding the mobile element into representatives of all relevant stakeholders like public an ongoing development effort rather than creating the mobile agencies, citizens, and social organizations. Most people are service as the development effort itself ​(OECD & ITU 2011)​ now carrying out activities around all aspects in their lives with . Building a mobile interface for existing digital solutions can mobile phones. Thus, mGov will with high probability play a be done quite easily, for example, by providing a responsive key part in a digital government transformation vision, mission, web design of existing pages or information services to users and strategy. Prioritizing front-end mobile channels for service via messaging channels like SMS. Providing such quick- application has many advantages. It protects users from win solutions can attract interest and resources for more direct interaction with the bureaucracy. It would also make comprehensive mGov initiatives. the turnaround time between service request and service provision digital and thus easier to measure and monitor. 4.1.3 Digital Foundations for mGov This will enhance transparency and improve accountability Establishing shared digital services is one essential for nonadherence with service standards which would, in strategic basis for efficient mGov. While simple mGov turn exert pressure to accelerate backend automation. Many solutions may not need a sophisticated central backend governments around the world, like in Bangladesh, Peru, systems, most digital government initiatives can benefit from and the United Arab Emirates, drive a mobile first strategy. central high-quality GovTech platforms that facilitate elements European Union member countries embraced the paradigm like identification, strategic data management, portals, form shift from eGovernment to mGov based on the Berlin services, workflow systems, knowledge and file management Declaration 2020, initiated during the Austrian Presidency of systems, enterprise buses, information security services, the EU Council, aiming to encourage inclusion and provide or digital signature solutions. Central databases with digital seamless, transparent, accessible, and user-friendly digital identifiers like people, places, and entities are the foundation government services ​ (European Union 2020)​ . Guidelines for data-related solutions and the once-only principle. Budget to enforce mGov have, for example, been issued by Dubai (funding), skilled manpower for user-centered service design, and India, including guiding principles on usability, content, efficient ICT architectures, and mobile service development security, choice of channels, interoperability, and approaches are needed to assemble such platforms. for designing mobile apps (Isagah and Wimmer 2017). A high-quality mobile network infrastructure is a mGov-related development and rollout strategies can be prerequisite for successful mGov. To reach as many people shaped either bottom-up or top-down. Large countries with as possible, investments in secure and high-speed mobile high populations and heterogenous local structures often find it broadband infrastructure are needed. Recommendations to easier and more successful to drive a grassroot strategy, letting improve network infrastructure include the development of local mGov solutions emerge and rolling them out in a wider universal service funds, incentivizing broadband investments range when successful. Even smaller nations like Switzerland and public-private partnerships, lower taxation, providing open are following this path due to their federal structure. Bottom- access approaches, and free flow of data (ITU & UNESCO up strategies can benefit from taking specific local challenges 2021). But having an appropriate network is only halfway to into focus as described in chapter 4.3.1, cooperating with effectively reaching citizens. Of the 3.8 billion people not using local initiatives (Chapter 4.3.2), and from building on resulting the internet in 2018, 3.1 billion lived within range of a wireless success stories to establish more profound mGov. Countries broadband signal (ITU 2018). Affordability and digital literacy in other contexts favor a top-down approach, providing central are among issues of high relevance for people to adopt data mGov solutions and rolling them out to the whole population. services (Figure 4.3). To solve this challenge, the Lifeline Central government one-stop shops and e-wallets have Program in the United States ​ (Federal Communications been established as a single digital point of access in many Commission (US) 2022)​and the Malaysian government have countries – Chapter 3.2 provides examples. launched subsidies to support the poorest communities in this regard. mGov solutions can add benefit to existing initiatives and digital solutions. Most successful mobile for development EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 41 > > > F I G U R E 4 . 3 - Reasons Most Frequently Cited by People for Not Taking up Data Services 100 90 80 Share of respondents (%) 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 iL r lu l a ng dia Pa esh Le an Se ho l at ru m la ra a Ni y Gh a Ec na Ke a ge a M ga a am da Ta ique Rw nia Af a a l Co epa ga ta Sr do a k bi Pa odi ri Ar ny in ut and ric Ca ma Gu Pe t an gu st a oz n ge To m ne Ba In nt a ua so d b N b nz ki la e U h So Digital literacy Affordability Relevance Other Source: World Bank 2021. Only affordable network subscriptions and mobile Increasing digital literacy among citizens and officials can devices can enable the poor to connect. Public-private boost the usage of mGov. Nearly 70 percent of people who partnerships, special offers and subsidies for certain target do not use the internet in low- and middle-income-countries groups, or free governmental Wi-Fi access points can help in are held back by deficiencies in digital literacy ​ (World Bank establishing affordable access to broadband networks. Beside 2021)​. Even if mobile solutions implemented are intuitive and subscriptions, suitable mobile devices are needed to connect. easy-to-use, investing in digital skills of citizens can improve Currently, the options of owning a mobile phone are often the usage of mobile solutions. Digital skills among officials in basic phones or smartphones. Recent initiatives add another the public sector are also a major GovTech enabler and cross- option by promoting smart feature phones. These extend cutting driver for digital transformation ​ (World Bank 2021). basic feature phones with functionality like Wi-Fi, 4G, GPS, ITU’s Digital Skills Toolkit provides practical guidance and and apps that are usually only available on smartphones. For examples on how to develop and implement a digital skills example, KaiOS-based feature phones tend to be available strategy (ITU 2018). for a figure of around $20, which lies well within the range of affordability for those with low incomes in developing countries​ (GSMA 2019)​. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 42 4.2 Policy, Legal Aspects, and Trust A whole-of-government digital strategy needs to be The right to digitally interact with public institutions can operationalized under a general digital policy framework drive public entities to implement mGov. Several countries supported by subject specific regulation. Only if the defined have extended electronic acts providing citizens the right principles and standards are considered at all government to digital interaction with public bodies. Austria’s act states levels, can the fruits of mGov be harvested to the full extent. that “everyone has the right of electronic communications Trust is a key success factor for solutions to be accepted by with courts and administrative bodies in matters of federal the targeted users. legislation.” Many Indian state governments have also passed “Right to Public Services” legislation since 2011. It is 4.2.1 Digital Policy Framework of sensitive importance for the matter of social inclusion and trust that this right is designed not as an obligation to use Derived from the principles and standards of a strategy, a digital solutions, but as one of the traditional ways to access cross-organizational legal framework is crucial for secure, public services. successful, and sustainable mGov. A legal framework should cover all relevant areas for digital government transformation. A once-only principle supports establishing efficient Key elements are requirements for public registers and data government processes and mGov solutions. Users do handling as a basis for the once-only principle; data protection not need to fill up forms to provide their identify information and privacy; accessibility standards; electronic identification; every time they access a service. Based on identification trust services such as electronic signatures; electronic systems (see Chapter 5.2.1), minimum additional information communication including proof of delivery; and cybersecurity requirements can save the users from cumbersome form standards. Long-established and continuously improved legal download, fill-up, print, scan, and upload. A user profile built frameworks of countries like Austria can act as templates​ in the app can avoid asking additional information required but (Federal Ministry of Digital and Economic Affairs Austria 2017). not available through an ID system. Citizens no longer have Beside such a general framework, there may be the need to to present paper versions of birth or residence certificates. adjust related regulation around administrative procedures, Instead, public bodies can, with the person’s consent or public administration documents, and organizational elements. legal authorization, request data from an electronic register. In its most consequent form, public authorities are obliged Defining the equivalence of electronic communication to draw on available data. They can simplify complex forms and transactions with traditional means is a prerequisite or even eliminate them entirely by automating processes – to provide public information and transactions on see also Chapter 4.2.3. This saves time for businesses, mobile. Based on the United Nations Convention on the citizens, and the administration itself. The “Stakeholder Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts, Community Once-Only Principle for Citizens” (SCOOP4c) many countries have issued Electronic Transaction Acts project provides respective recommendations on several that define digital communication as equivalent to physical levels: political, legal, organizational, semantic, technical, mail communication, online forms to paper forms, and interoperability governance, motivation, citizen-centricity, digital invoices and digital payment as legal. Singapore is trust and transparency, data protection and privacy, and data a successful example of facilitating the use of electronic quality ​(Wimmer 2019)​. transactions in the public sector by an omnibus provision in the Electronic Transactions Act (1998) that created the Defining interoperability requirements can essentially legislative framework for electronic transactions in Singapore, raise efficiency and quality of public services and mGov through which government departments and statutory boards solutions. The European Interoperability Framework (EIF) can accept electronic filings and electronic documents, provides 12 principles and concrete recommendations on without having to amend their respective acts. It also allows how to improve the governance of interoperability activities, public bodies to issue permits and licenses electronically​ establish cross-organizational relationships, streamline (Infocomm Media Development Authority Singapore 2022)​ . processes supporting end-to-end digital services, and ensure Corresponding regulation provides the basis to provide binding that both existing and new legislation do not compromise information and electronic transactions for both the public and interoperability efforts – see Figure 4.4. On a technical level, the private sector. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 43 the framework promotes the sharing and reuse of common processes, and listen to the needs of business and citizens. infrastructures, services, and IT systems. Semantically, it calls And on a legal level, it proposes legislation and policies that upon public administrations to structure their data in commonly are clear, coherent, and make good use of digital technologies​ agreed formats. Organizationally, it encourages public (European Union 2017)​ . administrations to simplify their organization, streamline their > > > F I G U R E 4 . 4 - Interoperability Governance in the European Interoperability Framework Legal Interoperability Public Service Governance Organisational Interoperability Integrated Samantic Interoperability Technical Interoperability Source: European Union, 2017. Regulation that facilitates the full potential of mGov interests, and increase access to technology and services. solutions is technology agnostic and neutral. Rather than The Telecommunications Regulation Handbook published by defining specific technologies, regulation fostering innovation the World Bank and ITU provides guidance in establishing provides basic specifications and define “state-of-the-art” . conductive regulation​(Blackman and Srivastava 2011)​ standards, free from blocking factors. It is useful to define minimum requirements, for example, for digital payments, Regulations defining requirements regarding but to avoid forcing certain payment technologies, which accessibility foster universally accessible mobile would limit technical opportunities and might be outdated in services. Good practice GovTech initiatives aim to provide little time—for example, see the European Union Payment human-centered services that are simple, transparent, and Services Directive ​(European Central Bank 2018)​ . (World Bank 2021)​ universally accessible ​ . Being treated as a stepchild in many software development projects, binding Telecommunication Regulators take an important role minimum standards can promote designing mGov for as to promote competition and defines rules of play for many people as possible. The World Bank’s Guidebook for telecommunication companies. Telecom Companies Accessible GovTech identifies 13 core capabilities in five can be an important provider or partner for mGov (see also areas: Strengthening Institutions, Leadership, and Policy; Chapter 4.3.2). To ensure enabling conditions, strong Telecom Budgeting for Accessible GovTech Projects; Procurement of Regulators need to be established. Their goal is to avoid Accessible GovTech Solutions; Implementing a User-Centric market failure, foster effective competition, protect consumer Development Cycle; and Maintaining the Engagement and EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 44 Building Capacity ​ (World Bank 2022)​ . The Web Content electronic transactions like electronic signatures, electronic Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide a standard and seals, electronic time stamps, delivery of electronic registered include requirements and recommendations for mobile web letters, website authentication and validation, and storage (W3C 2022)​ solutions as well as native apps ​ . services ​(European Union 2014)​ . Furthermore, it contains comprehensive regulation on secure digital identification, a 4.2.2 Trust Aspects basic requirement for transactional mGov solutions. Not all countries have the digital foundations to quickly introduce such Considering regulatory requirements to foster trust systems. Therefore, at the start, simpler means of identification is of specific importance for the success of mobile could be used – for example, mobile phone, social security, government. Mobile phones are highly personal devices that or tax identification numbers. The World Bank’s Identification contain sensitive information on location, behavior, and health, for Development (ID4D) initiative provides practical guidelines shared in social media platforms, private messages, or apps. to implement identification in developing countries – see This data can be abused in criminal activities and for collective Chapter 5.2.1. or individual monitoring. Therefore, many people are sensitive about using their mobile phones for interactions with the Besides identification, a holistic security architecture government. Studies show that more than a third of fourteen is an important prerequisite for trust. Cybersecurity critical factors influencing the adoption of digital government legislation that is translated into pragmatic guidelines enables solutions are trust-oriented: Perceived Trust, Perceived practitioners to benefit from operational experience that has Awareness, Perceived Security, Perceived Privacy, and been shown to work – see Chapter 5.1.4. Perceived Uncertainty ​ . The principles of (Shareef, et al. 2011)​ data minimization and privacy by design are important to build trustful mGov (also see Chapter 5.2.2). Another important 4.2.3 Subject-Specific Policies factor to foster trust is transparency, for instance by providing Policies and processes designed hand in hand with mGov current and reliable informing about actions and decisions solutions ensure intuitive and efficient interactions. taken by the government ​ (Eibl, Lampoltshammer and Temple mGov aims to enable citizens and public officials to carry 2022)​ . An increased level of trust does not only lead to higher out formal procedures with as little effort as possible. Thus, user acceptance; it also contributes to the overall loyalty of the goal of its initiatives should not primarily be to develop citizens towards public services. mobile applications but to create efficient and user-friendly public services. Digitizing a physical form and providing it via It must be noted that trust is of varying relevance from a mobile app can improve access for citizens with little effort. country to country and relative to the social background of Beyond that, mGov initiatives can be a root to fundamentally people. Many European citizens, for example, tend to have a re-think interactions and processes. Questioning the necesity high attention to data protection, as portrayed by the restrictive of specific data or whether data is better received from existing level of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It sources (once-only principle) can simplify citizen interaction includes principles regarding rights of the data subject, duties and enhance public service delivery. Solutions may, and today of data controllers or processors, liability, and penalties, most likely will, include mobile phone interaction, but may also among others. Similar standards have been adopted in many result in no interaction at all. countries, including Brazil, Chile, and Nigeria. However, citizens in these countries or other regions of the world tend Integrating the input of policy makers in the design to give data protection less attention and see security-related of mGov solutions will raise the potential for sucess tradeoffs to usability as a burden. Designers of solutions need of mGov initiatives. Designing end-to-end-processes to consider these different user perspectives. To foster trust in and solutions together with stakeholders, especially those the government and its services, it is strongly advised to follow responsible for policy, fosters efficient public services with a a high level of data protection standards. minimum of touchpoints. Policy development should therefore be an integral part in the design of solutions. By seeing mGov A well-adjusted level of standards for identification as more than just digital initiatives and analyzing existing and authentication will foster trust and acceptance. processes and policies, it can act as a driver for public process As inspiration for a comprehensive digital trust framework, and policy reform. Moreover, reviewing all legislation regarding the eIDAS (electronic Identification, Authentication and its digital readiness and removing obstacles that prevent Trust Services) regulation lays out aspects that are of digital solutions can essentially raise the potential of mGov. major relevance. It sets standards for trust services around EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 45 4.3 Service Design and Implementation A systematic user-centered approach allows development suitable ideas for a solution can be selected along relevant of well-accepted and lasting mGov solutions. Principles criteria. The selected ideas can then be described and, if can be applied to larger as well as smaller whole-of- suitable, already at this stage visualized – for example, by government mGov initiatives. An evolutionary development sketching a paper prototype for mobile phone screens and in several cycles can help developing countries particularly the interaction with the user. to take first steps. In a first initiative to promote identification solutions, for example, scanned uploads of ID and documents 3. Having selected one or several ideas for an mGov could accelerate deployment, while the next iteration could service, a concept and early prototype can then be include integration with ID systems, and enhance additional designed. As mentioned in previous chapters, service features for seamless user experience. design should not merely focus on digital solutions, but rather have the public service as a whole in mind. Based 4.3.1 Approach for User-Centered on a concept, low-effort screen visualizations, mock-ups, Service Design or click-dummies can rapidly demonstrate touchpoints with users and get direct feedback on the suitability to Established frameworks for digital government solve the challenge. The idea and concept can then either transformation, innovation, and human-centered design be discarded without having invested too much effort support the valuable design of any kind of solution. The or refined in iterative cycles until the solution fits user following steps, captured in Figure 4.5 below, outline relevant needs as well as stakeholder requirements. Solutions can elements of standard approaches crucial for mGov initiatives. evolve to functional prototypes and even minimum viable products while undergoing these iterations to provide a 1. Having a tangible challenge as focus is a good starting basis for implementation. point for service design. Challenges can be of any relevant type—social, economic, or administrative. They 4. Having incorporated user feedback and established can often be derived directly from a digital transformation additional elements like a business case, project plan, strategy or should at least be linked to such a strategy, and a project team, the operative implementation can if one already exists. Having selected a prioritized start. Agile development principles usually fit best to mGov challenge, a first step to design an mGov solution is to service development, keeping an iterative approach, and closely analyze, understand, and define the underlying constantly testing the solution with end users. Before problem, to research on good practices in other countries rolling out the solution to the general public, a pilot phase or industries, and to identify relevant stakeholders and with a closed user group is advisable. Standard digital users as well as their needs. service implementation and rollout standards apply. A sound communication strategy is key to achieve a good 2. Having understood the challenge at its heart, ideas awareness and penetration of the solution. Providing for potential solutions can be identified. To identify as training and end-user support is often another key success many diverse ideas as possible, a set of creative methods factor. Technological and architectural aspects specifically can be used. At this stage, ideas do not necessarily have relevant for mGov are described in Chapter 5. to be mobile-related, but nowadays often are. The most EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 46 > > > F I G U R E 4 . 5 - Approach to Develop mGov Solutions and Examples Subject-Specific Policies: user-centered E2E-processes, organizational & technical conditions, and regulation Coordination & Strategy Whole-of-Government Definition Ideation Conception Implementation Research Identification Design Development Analysis Prioritization Development Piloting Specification Description Testing Rollout Challenge Idea Prototype Solution Difficulties in Reporting system Mock-up for a Implemented app infrastructure like for citizens using mobile interface with additional option roads, traffic signs GPS and photos tested with citizens to report via SMS Examples Ask citizens if Prototype SMS Bribery in issuing Implemented system they experience system tested passports for citizen feedback corruption with citizens Source: Authors. 4.3.2 Stakeholder Engagement fits; and the design of user journeys, storyboards, or value proposition canvases. Design Thinking methods can help in Stakeholder and user engagement are of key importance targeting people with disabilities by including them into the for developing successful mobile government solutions. design process and user tests. Literally being at the fingertip of the user, usability must be given essential attention in all mobile service design projects. Agile innovation labs can act as a space to connect User-centered design concepts have been described in interdisciplinary teams and quickly develop and test many publications, be it by global design firm IDEO in its ideas and prototypes. Agile labs can bring together teams Field Guide to Human-Centered Design ​ (IDEO 2015)​or in from multiple agencies across subnational jurisdictions with a holistic framework for co-creation specifically for the public other stakeholders like citizens and businesses to work administration by the EU-funded research project Co-Val, together on a related user journey. The German government, illustrating a variety of use cases for user engagement in for example, has set up 30 labs for priority service journeys. action​(Røhnebæk, et al. 2021)​ . The government has grouped 5,900 transactions into 575 distinct services from a user perspective, which, in turn, Design Thinking as a systematic human-centered ​ Daub 2020)​ contribute to 55 user journeys ( . In many countries approach can help in solving complex problems within all like Australia, Austria, France, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Spain, aspects of life. Design Thinking has become a core mindset Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and state governments in and framework in service design. Its methods can be applied in USA similar labs have been set up. all steps from challenge definition, to ideation, prototyping, and implementation. They may include sketching territory maps to Relevant stakeholders include a variety of potential understand a challenge more closely; describing typical users groups. To design mGov solutions for as many people as (personas); surveys, role plays, and user interviews to get to possible, it is of core importance to include users with various know their needs and pains; workshops with focus groups; backgrounds – see Chapter 4.3.3. Besides citizens and creative visioning and brainstorming to find problem-solution EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 47 government-internal users, relevant stakeholders may include In addition to governments, the telecommunications policy makers, social workers, local businesses, teachers, industry can be important providers or partners in the doctors, and police personnel. Especially in rural areas, provision of government-related services. Telecom partnering with social entrepreneurs and civil society actors companies often are pioneers in providing digital solutions already on the ground is essential. Without this interaction, the for citizens, be it from own motivation or as contractors of potential for mobile technologies for development will remain the public administration. The international telecom provider just that: potential (UNDP 2012). Telenor, for example, together with UNICEF implemented a child registration and mobile payment app for Pakistan and Partnerships with local organizations and businesses Myanmar (see also Chapter 2.1.1). Similar solutions can be can be of great benefit. Fostering local initiatives can found by MTN in Rwanda and by Orange in Burkina Faso. To support the development of innovative ideas and solutions. ensure interoperability of such solutions, establish a minimum By cooperating with startups or companies that are solidly standard for data protection and cybersecurity, and avoid established in a certain area and region, functionality of competitive advantages, Telecom regulators should define various kinds can be identified and integrated. Furthermore, respective playing rules – see Chapter 4.2.1. by integrating related contents and services, synergies may be exploited and the reach out for all involved parties may be Many countries today successfully apply user-centered multiplied. The involvement of the local start-up ecosystem or design principles and include stakeholders in service social organizations in the design of solutions can additionally design. Brazil has established a design system that defines provide inspiration for new ideas and momentum to further minimum principles and guidelines for the development of develop innovative mGov solutions – see Chapter 3.2 for digital solutions and has included citizens in the development of examples. When cooperating with private partners, the many mobile offerings. The United Arab Emirates likewise has rules of collaboration should be clearly defined in a contract extensively applied human-centered design principles. The or memorandum of understanding. Aspects like intellectual following example describes how stakeholder engagement property, compliance to procurement rules, source code and and design thinking methods were applied when establishing data ownership need to be defined. Austria’s “Digitales Amt” – see also use case in Chapter 3.2. Example: User-Centered Design Approach in Designing the Mobile App “Digitales Amt” in Austria Challenge Facing several new technology trends and altered user behavior in digital space, to develop a vision for future digital services the following design question was articulated: “How should interactions between civil society and public administration look like in times of digital transformation?” To address this question, citizens of various ages and social background – students, entrepreneurs, parents, retirees, etc. – were included in an initial workshop. Experience in interactions with the government, from birth to death, were gathered and illustrated in a “territory map.” The main needs and desires regarding such interactions were collated. Ideation Taking into account citizen’s feedback, a vision was defined: a personalized, proactive, cross-agency digital and mobile service, in which citizens can complete their agency-related matters most intuitively, formless, and with as few interactions as possible. A user journey for two specific use cases – birth of a child and change of residence – was defined. Based on this, ideas for optimization were gathered in stakeholder workshops. A first paper prototype was then created and tested with citizens. Prototyping Building on the user journey and paper prototype, a first simple click-dummy for the selected use cases was created. In several iterative cycles, a functional prototype was implemented, gathering user feedback in “citizen conferences” at various stages. Implementation The solution was implemented in several iterations, again constantly including user feedback. The mobile app, “Digitales Amt,” and the web-based “oesterreich.gv.at” went live in 2019 as the new government one-stop shop for citizens. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 48 4.3.3 User Experience private sector, government services usually need to consider the whole population, be it young or old, illiterate or uneducated, A good usability and user experience (UX) is a prerequisite at full health or disabled. “Design for All” stands for the general for successful mGov solutions. A system’s success depends attitude when designing and developing (digital) solutions to greatly on the user’s perspective of the benefits and ease of make them highly intuitive and accessible without individual use. This naturally extends to the adoption of mGov services. customization or assistance. Among the most important success factors for mGov solutions are perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and effort UX design needs to consider accessibility for people with expectancy ​ (Eibl, Lampoltshammer and Temple 2022)​ . Before disabilities. While for some people with physical disabilities choosing mobile as a means of implementation, the suitability a small screen might be a barrier, the use of mobile devices for mobile phones, for example, regarding data amount and provides great opportunities for others. Features like voice screen size needs to be validated. Besides the focus on the communications and IVR can include the visually impaired, user, established UX design principles and guidelines usually and conversational interfaces can address needs of hearing include the consistency of design across the whole service, impaired people. Principles to design accessible mobile a hierarchical approach to contents in a tree-like structure, solutions are provided by the Web Content Accessibility considering context, and accessibility. Guidelines ​(W3C 2022)​. “Design for All” principles help to include as many users as possible, regardless of their background. Unlike the 4.3.4 Core Team Typical Roles and Responsibilities in a Core Team Product Owner Acting as an interface to the topic-owning agency, aligning policy requirements, defining solution requirements, overseeing development, and prioritizing the implementation plan Design Thinking Defining and coordinating the design process, leading stakeholder engagement and workshops, Facilitator curating the methods used. Software Architect Designing architecture, taking into respect the digital policy framework, standards, shared digital services, etc. Development Lead Coordinating the development team, acting as an interface to the product owner (scrum master in agile development). Development Team Driving product design, user experience design, programming, and testing. Cybersecurity Expert Providing specific expertise on security aspects for solutions with critical information or transactions. A team with a sound level of skills is needed to implement Building a team with a high level of skills can be quite mGov solutions. The core team members involved in challenging, especially in developing countries. To quickly a project depend on its focus and dimension. Also, the start mGov initiatives, cooperation with international or local respective team members will vary for each phase of design private organizations might be necessary. But for sustaining and implementation. Teams are most usefully structured along the value of mGov initiatives, it is essential to build local skills principles for agile teams. in government institutions. ITU’s Digital Skills Toolkit covers EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 49 common challenges, successful approaches, channels and 4.4 Examples and Lessons Learned examples as well as a tool to identify and assess providers and programs that deliver advanced digital skills training. from Failed Projects Successful approaches introduce sustainability models that lower upfront costs, build multi-sector teams and taskforces, incentivize participation from the private sector, ensure Given the great challenges that mGov solutions are pathways from training and education programs to the supposed to address, it is not surprising that some workforce, and specifically align accreditation requirements initiatives fail. Apps developed to support the fight against for training providers. Intensive training programs like coding the COVID pandemic were very useful and widely used. Many bootcamps can teach people with no coding experience to be of them were however developed under great time pressure ready for implementation projects in a few months (ITU 2018). and are useful to illustrate challenges in the implementations. The following box shows examples of such COVID-related and failures of other areas as well as reasons. Examples and Reasons for Failing Implementations High Ambitions and UK’s contact tracing app was originally announced as a world-beating app in the fight against Tight Timelines COVID by the government. To gain more data insights, National Health Service started to implement a model where data is managed centrally. Concerns were ignored and soon, social media posts claimed that the approach was a corporate bid to grab data. The project was classified as a fiasco in the public and the government had to divert to a backup plan and implement a decentralized (Ball 2020)​ solution similar to other countries ​ . Rushed In the United States, a mobile app for caucus chairs to submit results caused a delay of several Implementation, days in reporting Iowa’s caucus results. According to experts, the app suffered from technical and Lacking Tests and design flaws and appeared to have been rushed into use. Flaws included critical coding errors, the User Experience (Popken 2020)​ proper communication of results and difficulty of use for the caucus chairs ​ . Missing Trust in The Australian contact tracing app COVIDSafe was abandoned in 2022 and citizens were asked to Privacy Measures delete the app from their devices. The Australian Health Minister announced that only two positive and the Government COVID-cases and 17 close contacts were identified through the app, which were not found by manual contact tracers at a cost of 21 million AUD (13 million USD). Surveys showed that the main reasons for not downloading the app were lack of trust in the safety of the app (24%), lack of trust to the government with data (25%), and fear of being tracked (15%) - ​ . (Statista 2022)​ Lacking Provider The introduction of Malaysian contact tracing app MySejahtera was accompanied by a procurement Contract and debacle. A formal contract between the government and the private implementation partner was Agreement on lacking as well as a non-disclosure agreement on the data collected via the app. The procurement Data Ownership process was classified as not well-handled and resulted in an investigation by the Public Accounts Committee ( ​ Focus Malaysia 2022)​. Weak Information The Indonesian app, eHAC, was mandatory for all travelers entering the country in order to track Security Measures their COVID-status. It was subject to a major data breach caused by an unsecured database and the lack of using secure protocols. The data breach potentially affected records of around 1.3 million users, including records from hospitals and Indonesian officials using the app ​ (Rahadiana 2021)​ . Lacking Load Tests A South Australian app to warn people about emergencies was axed after major failures experienced and Robustness during catastrophic bushfire. The system of a private implementation partner several times fell over and failed to provide updates on bushfire information. A new mobile solution was implemented under the control of emergency services​(itnews.com.au 2018)​ . EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 50 5. >>> Technology, Architecture, and Security Requirements Most general architectural principles and implementation guidelines for digital government also apply to mobile government solutions. This chapter discusses aspects of specific importance. 5.1 Technology and Architecture Mobile services are a dynamic field with quickly emerging technologies. Features sustain and remain backward compatible for a limited period of time. This creates opportunities for governments that cannot immediately follow each technology cycle. 5.1.1 Multichannel Communication Mobile communication showed an immense progress in the last decade, providing a wide range of communication channels. Original channels of mobile phones were voice, text or data services like SMS or Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD). Some attempts for multimedia and interactive data services like Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) got overrun by a shift to full-fledged internet capabilities, complemented by features suitable for highly personal devices like push notifications. Moreover, the basic communication protocols have undergone evolutions – from GSM/2G to UMTS/3G, 4G, and 5G, with increasing performance in aspects such as bandwidth or latency (Figure 5.1). New technologies like 5G, for example, have the potential to facilitate high-end graphical and real-time, virtual, augmented and mixed reality applications. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 51 > > > F I G U R E 5 . 1 - Evolution of Wireless Communications 2020s 5G Enhanced mobile broadband. Wireless for Industry. 2010s 4G Fast mobile broadband. Users internet protocol. 2000s 3G Mobile broadband. Introduction of smartphones. Digital voice calls. 1990s 2G Text messaging. Basic data services. 1980s 1G Analogue voice calls. Mobile connectivity. Source: IEEE, 2019. While such heterogeneity of communication means may gradually augments these by services relying on current be seen as a challenge, mobile networks and devices technologies such as web and broadband (4G/5G). Countries remain backward compatible on their core features. A with an advanced infrastructure might take such technologies high-end smartphone is still capable of voice communication as given and start there. and SMS, irrespective of the network it is currently connected to. Services that are developed based on the technology 5.1.2 Smartphone Features generation predominant in a country (such as SMS) can Provided there is availability in the population, thus be assumed to be sustainable and reusable with next smartphones or comparable devices like tablets are the generation devices for a while. current tool of choice for mGov. This is due to their broad range of communication capabilities, allowing the user to enter Mobile government can provide its most sustainable data in various formats, ranging from text to multimedia, and benefit if it considers a multichannel strategy, in any case sensors that can facilitate processes. Even if the penetration covering the channels currently most established in a in many areas is still low, smartphone or smart feature phone certain target group. Projects may start with voice or SMS/ availability may likely increase over time – see Chapter 4.1.1. WAP services in areas with a low smartphone penetration or It is advisable to consider a strategy encompassing services limited network coverage, bandwidth, or connection stability. that exploit smartphone capabilities, even if not deployed Such services can be assumed to prevail for a while, even immediately for inclusion or cost considerations. if user device technologies improve over time and a country EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 52 Smartphones are powerful computing devices and can be can change, as the landscape was quite different a decade used to store or process data. Benefits include using the ago with other platforms like Blackberry or Windows mobile. phone’s storage to retrieve and carry documents, providing Also, the existing platforms show high dynamics with major offline functionality, using existing data in auto-filling forms, releases roughly every year. mGov solutions thus need to be or using the camera to scan and process information through prepared to undergo continuous updates. Major platforms Optical Character Recognition (OCR) or Quick Response force common standards such as OpenID Connect (OIDC) (QR) codes codes). This provides convenience, and also for authentication or Near Field Communication (NFC) increases service quality, as data quality improves when for contactless data exchange. They also tend to fence in avoiding manual inputs. platform-specific choices like push notification infrastructure to notify users. This comes with the benefit of single or limited The processing and security capabilities of smartphones technology choices within the platforms, but also limited ways can be used for mobile government. Mobile apps can to choose for alternatives. orchestrate a device’s communication capabilities to interact with government services. Sensors can augment 5.1.3 Dumb Phones services by the location known to the device or include Dumb phones are basic handphones with buttons as the biometric factors and secure elements to enhance security. primary mode of user inputs and very little functionality But these capabilities cannot be assumed to be ubiquitous, as compared to smart phones. These phones are cheap and they might not be available or users disallow permission. Still, can be used primarily for calls and SMS messages. Due to using these capabilities with privacy and user preferences in their affordability – typically within $10 and lower monthly bills mind can significantly facilitate the outreach process. due to low data activity – they are more commonly used by the poor and relatively uneducated. In Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria Technology dynamics and platform characteristics need and Kenya, just about one-third of adults own smartphones. to be considered in mGov strategies and architecture. Smartphone ownership is lowest in Tanzania (13%). For Currently, the landscape is dominated by two mobile operating comparison, 77 percent of Americans reported owning a system platforms (iOS and Android), plus depending on the smartphone in January 2018. Worldwide, sub-Saharan region further variants and vendor systems like HarmonyOS Africa has the lowest rate of smartphone ownership of any or KaiOS. The low number of dominant platforms is an geographic region​(Silver 2018)​ . advantage as it keeps developments manageable. Still, this EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 53 Despite their limited functionality, dumb phones are an 5.1.5 Architectural Considerations important tool to for service delivery. They can be used Holistic mGov architecture considers relevant aspects to deliver SMS based information on drought, weather alerts, derived from a whole-of-government strategy. Potential educational lessons and health information as has been the areas of relevance are interoperability, compatibility, scalability, case in many countries. According to a UNESCO’s study integration, usability, privacy, and security. Interoperability of mobile reading conducted in seven developing countries supports collaboration and resource sharing across systems - Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda and and use cases. Integration is important, since mGov Zimbabwe - drawing on the analysis of over 4,000 surveys and applications usually consist of several components and need corresponding qualitative interviews, the study found some to work with backend systems. Compatibility ensures that the interesting facts: large numbers of people (one third of study application works with different devices and operating systems. participants) read stories to children from mobile phones; Scalability makes sure that the solution can be expanded females read far more on mobile devices than males (almost to cover large populations. Effective usability is essential six times as much according to the study); both men and as mGov applications directly target the end user holding a women read more cumulatively when they start reading on a mobile device. Privacy is another major success factor for user mobile device; many neo- and semi-literate people use their acceptance; it can best be achieved by following a Privacy by mobile phones to search for text that is appropriate to their Design principle. Security is partly supported by the mobile (UNESCO 2022)​ reading ability ​ . Practitioners should carry out operating system, but app architects and developers need to a careful analysis of the targeted populations in terms of their take care of security from the beginning. mobile phone ownership to deploy solutions with maximum impact. In most settings, the digital public service delivery will be provided through multitude of agency-specific web sites 5.1.4 Form Factor Aspects and apps, requiring a long time for consolidation into a Mobile interfaces to existing digital government solutions central portal. Quick wins for user-centric design could be allow quick wins but need to consider peculiarities achieved by issuing user experience guidelines to be followed like small screen size and different input types. Mobile by all agencies. These guidelines and associated resources devices can access the web just like conventional PCs. Using could help the agencies provide a common user experience responsive design, the web service can automatically tailor across these platforms. These guidelines could include itself to the form factor like screen size. Free Android-based requirements for common styles, components and patterns. applications such as Open Data Kit or Kobo can help create Styles could provide common layout, typography, colors and and transmit customized forms ​ (Z. Bhatti, ICTs, Service images; components could provide common forms, navigation, Delivery, Citizen Engagement, and Governance 2020)​ . This panels and tables, and patterns could users complete common can lead to low-effort quick-wins. However, an eGovernment tasks like filling in forms and creating accounts (GOV.UK). The service should not simply be offered to mobile devices as central digital agency could also promote online communities is. Government applications often need a significant amount to exchange experience across ministries for common user- of data and evidence. Entering large forms on a PC may centric design. already be cumbersome; on a mobile device it can quickly get annoying and frustrating as screens are smaller and entering Most architectural aspects are similar to those of private text is harder. sector mobile initiatives. Trans-sectoral technical guidelines for mobile applications can thus be followed, be they binding Migrating from eGovernment to mGov suggests rethinking guidelines of relevant platforms, or recommendations and digital solutions. An mGov solution can use types of input frameworks like Androids Jetpack ​ (Android Open Source other than typing text, like using the camera to scan documents Project 2022)​ , Apples SwiftUI ​ (Apple 2022)​or the Ionic or – even better – avoiding text and data input at all. By using Framework for hybrid apps ​ (Ionic 2022)​. Open Source mobile electronic identities that ensure the legitimate person is software elements can be a great basis to achieve optimized accessing a service, users can exercise control over their data transparency and cost-effectiveness, and to prevent vendor by consenting that the service owner retrieves data on their lock-ins. Low-code or no-code application development can behalf. This can facilitate making use of government registers increase agility flexibility and efficiency. and thereby the once-only principle – see also Chapter 4.2.1. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 54 In countries with various dialects, multilingual interfaces to some fragmentation and diverse adaption speeds if new can help to reach significantly more people. App contents app generations get introduced. A balanced approach should and data can be either translated manually or automatically. be adopted – proliferation of digital touch points should be The latter does save resources by using translation engines. minimized for better and more consistent user experience. Automatic translation might however not be available for certain However, it requires sustained coordination effort across languages. Also, liability questions must be considered when agencies which is not easy in many settings. A broad spectrum providing official and legal information. Manual translation of approaches is noted across the world – Brazil has 265 can be cost-intensive. In both cases, technical guidelines for apps, but Italy has only one app supporting services provided backend databases and interfaces have to be considered. by 7100 public entities. A lower number of touch points is more Major app platforms provide guidelines as mentioned in the user friendly. previous paragraph. Depending on the specific use case and context, offline To ensure interoperability and integration, efficient mGov scenarios can be of benefit. What distinguishes mGov from implementations look out for existing building blocks and PC-oriented solutions is that the users carry the mobile device support harmonization in an architectural layer. Architects with them. In rural areas of developing countries especially, a should avoid reinventing the wheel for each service. This connection to a network may not be possible. Providing offline includes using a consistent approach to ensure interoperability functionality can overcome this shortage and additionally and integration of existing basic building blocks like core increase privacy and trust, not needing to share mobile data at registries, electronic identity, e-payment, and a multitude of all times. Users can carry out transactions offline and transmit backend registries and core systems of individual agencies. data once they are connecting to a network. Disadvantages Many countries face the grassroot development of many of offline solutions however include the lack of fresh data and singular applications – for example, 265 government-related thereby missing out chances to reuse data and apply the apps in Brazil. When consolidating these solutions, cross- once-only principle. functional services may be created and integrated. Strategies to transfer data to a new phone need to be Architectural decisions need to follow strategic considered. A further specificity of mobile devices is that considerations and be closely evaluated. Decisions they get replaced relatively often or can get lost or stolen. include the choice between web applications or mobile apps A strategy for portability is suggested for user data that is (see below), between a monolithic app or a modular system important to the user. Portability should support resilience so of building blocks or open interfaces, and between a closed that state and functionality can easily get restored if the device source or an open-source approach. While all choices have gets replaced, lost, or stolen. pros and cons, modular and open systems promise flexibility and can create an ecosystem where stakeholders beyond the government like academia or private sector can contribute. 5.2 Information Security Thus, the government can take a role in cross-fertilizing innovation through open interfaces or allowing developers to reuse components. A modular system of building blocks Trustful mGov relies on a high level of information security. also assists in keeping pace with technological progress and The importance of trust has been closely highlighted in Chapters dynamics. Modularity and open interfaces allow replacement 2.2.4 and 4.2.2. All major principles around information of elements that get outdated. security in digital government apply to mGov solutions as well. Specific aspects for mGov include personalization, One major decision is the choice between the authentication, and proof of possession. Weaknesses in implementation of web applications and native apps. older networks and devices have to be carefully evaluated. The former may reuse digital web services already deployed by a country, thus promising a swifter migration path. The 5.2.1 Identification and Authentication latter, however, allows better tailoring of services to mobile device capabilities, enabling richer service. A complementary Mobile phones are usually personal devices that can be discussion is whether to introduce a single mGov app, used for identification and authentication. Unless used by sectorial apps, or application specific apps. The former a whole family or community, a mobile phone can be assumed may grow to higher complexity but promises a consistent as tied to its user. Whether a low-end dump phone or a high- look and feel across different services. The latter may lead end smartphone, this allows for means of proof of possession, for example, as a basis for multi-factor authentication. The EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 55 level of security varies for the device and mobile network network operator service based on registered information and/ generation. SMS or signaling protocols do have some (World Bank 2019)​ or transactions ​ . vulnerabilities, but they can still increase security compared to conventional password-based authentication. Banks started Modern smartphones provide a set of useful security to introduce SMS to authorize transactions in the late 1990s; features for advanced implementations. A modern these have been replaced by apps with advanced security smartphone or tablet computer has security capabilities like app functions. Initiatives in countries that are lacking high-end sandboxing, hardware secure elements or biometric sensors, means can start with technologies like SMS and gradually that are often superior to what is available in conventional evolve to advanced methods and employing hardware secure PCs. This allows the use of smartphones as personal security elements of modern smartphones. devices (Figure 5.2). Successful mGov initiatives introduce such advanced security capabilities as seen in many European The World Bank’s Identification for Development (ID4D) Countries like Belgium and Greece. Moldova has recently Initiative provides a guide to implement inclusive and advanced its system for mobile identification, authentication, trusted identification systems in developing countries. It and signature by leveraging advanced security capabilities defines ten principles based on the three pillars of inclusion, with cryptography advancements on servers – see Use Case design, and governance to implement digital identification for Brief in Chapter 3.1. In a partnership with the World Bank’s sustainable development. It provides a structured planning ID4D initiative, Brazil has implemented secure and legally roadmap with tools to evaluate the existing ID ecosystem valid digital identification, today counting 138 million single as well as legal, regulatory and policy frameworks, and accounts, 250 million authentications and 2 million electronic models to evaluate costs and cost savings. It also gives signatures per month, and providing access to more than 3,600 guidance on potential Mobile ID implementations with five digital services. The eIDAS framework provides guidelines main options: (1) smartphone apps with a virtual version of to establish a high level of secure authentication and sets existing identity credentials—for example, ID cards; (2) Public standards to implement a digital identity that can be used in Key Infrastructure (PKI) enabled SIM cards that allow owners both public and private sectors. The framework defines nine to authenticate themselves on the mobile device; (3) server- principles for digital identification: user awareness, user choice, side PKI with authentication via remote hardware security privacy, interoperability and security, trust, convenience, user module; (4) Fast Identity Online-enabled (FIDO) devices for consent and control, proportionality, counterpart knowledge, multifactor authentication; and (5) authentication via a mobile and global scalability ​ (European Union 2014) EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 56 > > > F I G U R E 5 . 2 - Secure Identification in Brazil and Belgium Source: Google Play, Authors. 5.2.2 Dealing with Risks and Diversity in Attackers benefit from the fact that vendors no longer provide updates for devices relatively soon after product phase-out. A Security Features comprehensive information security risk assessment therefore All these opportunities do not come without risk and can needs to be part of all mGov service design initiatives. be a threat to digital sovereignty. Mobile networks and mobile devices emerged with security not being a priority. Principles like data minimization and Privacy by Design While originally risks mainly concerned call billing fraud, can help in establishing an appreciable level of security. today aspects like monitoring, data leaks, and cybercrime The data minimization principle, according to Article 5 of the are of immense relevance. Mobile services can also create EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), means that dependencies that are worth considering regarding digital personal data that is collected shall be adequate, relevant, sovereignty. Technical possibilities to intercept communication and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes or suppress services rise and critical dependencies can occur for which they are processed. It is of specific relevance for with the mobile network operator, the platform providers, or mobile government, since usage of mobile phones creates a their cloud services. bulk of privacy-relevant data that can be misused. The Privacy by Design principle (Figure 5.3) includes that information Since using the information of mobile devices may be security efforts are proactive and preventative to anticipate perceived as privacy invasive, security measures are of privacy invasive events. Privacy is seen as default, ensuring key importance. Even if not developed with an intent to be that personal data are automatically protected without the invasive, using location or biometric sensors may be perceived need for an individual to actively contribute. Measures should as such. Architects and developers thus need to follow be integrated into the design and architecture of systems and information security standards appropriate to the sensitivity practices. Privacy by Design seeks to create a win-win situation of the solution. Solutions that include critical information or for all of an organization’s legitimate objectives. It ensures transactions need to be developed and operated in alignment strong security measures throughout the entire lifecycle of the with mobile security experts knowing about risks of platforms data involved. It also seeks visibility and transparency for all and technologies. The growing usage of mobile devices in stakeholders, and the interest of the user is at the center of sensitive and value-creating services makes it more attractive initiatives following Privacy by Design ​(A. Cavoukian 2011) for attacks such as malware, SMS fraud, or smishing. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 57 > > > F I G U R E 5 . 3 - Seven Principles of Privacy by Design Proactive Privacy not Reactive; Embedded Preventive into Design not remdial Respect for Privacy as User-Privacy - the Default 7 Principles Keep it Setting Privacy by Design User-Centric End-to-End Security - Visibility and Full Lifecycle Transparency Full Protection Functionality - Positive-Sum, not Zero-Sum Source: Cavoukian, 2010. Mobile device security only evolved over time and a 5G with stronger security focus. Systematic weaknesses may strong security focus and priority on security capabilities persist and lead to downgrade effects for a while, as older are rather recent. For example, hardware secure elements mobile phones need to continue working in the network. for a strong protection of core assets like cryptographic key on the mobile device was introduced less than a decade ago. When designing solutions, governments therefore need Advanced techniques like device or key attestation (allowing to take into consideration devices with low security. There an assertion to proof capabilities of the mobile device to usually is and will be a pyramid having very few high-end remote services) are very recent. Considering the high level of devices with state-of-the-art security at the top, a middle part risks in older devices and network infrastructure, developing that provides a decent level of security, and a broad base of countries particularly need to consider these risks. older mobile generations that have significant vulnerabilities. Potential functionality for citizens needs to be weighed against Weaknesses in the mobile network infrastructure tend the risk exposure that increases with the sensitivity of data to prevail with limited means to mitigate. Weak ciphers and the gain for a fraudulent opponent. Thus, it is advisable allow interception of over the air traffic, and weaknesses in the to begin with implementing simple and low risk solutions that signaling protocols allow rerouting of traffic. Such weaknesses benefit as many users as possible. Policy guidelines should often only get eliminated with new versions of the overall contain at least minimal security requirements, customized to infrastructure—for example, by new network generations like the associated risk, even if some potential users are ruled out. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 58 6. >>> Recommendations for Specific Levels of Development As illustrated in the preceding chapters, mobile Government is a multifaceted field and initiatives need to be designed specifically to each individual situation. Whether in a developing or a developed context, circumstances may vary highly from country to country, region to region or even from project to project in one region. A thorough analysis of the specific situation along various dimensions and aspects is therefore necessary when engaging in mGov, be it in the form of a comprehensive strategic process or in a particular project. This chapter highlights recommendations presented in previous chapters and places them in relation to typical situations related to development levels. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 59 The most relevant factors for successful mGov can and their potential shape along three different development usually be influenced by the government, but some levels. The classification is for modeling purposes and specific might be immutable at least in the short- to medium term. situations will differ. Figure 6.1 below shows a rough overview of relevant aspects > > > F I G U R E 6 . 1 - Overview of Typical Circumstances for Various Development Levels Very Advanced Level Advanced Level Wide coverage of 4G Basic Level Broad availability of 3G or or above and elevated above, also in rural areas; spread of high-end-phones; Poor network quality Connectivity high number of citizens expert skilled teams for in most regions; low Penetration owning a mobile phone; user-centered design, affordability of devices and Skills good digital literacy and technical architecture and low (digital) literacy among sound technical skills mobile implementation many groups in government in government Elementary Digital strategy, roadmap, Whole-of-government Strategy eGovernment and and policy framework strategy and policy Policy mostly regional singular developed with main framework established, Approach mGovernment initiatives; government institutions; covering a one stop shop, typically traditional first steps taken to a one mobile first and once- service design and stop approach and end-to- only strategy; widely development approaches end service design applied user-centered policy making and service design processes Only few basic digital Essential shared digital Highly advanced and Technology services with no or services established interoperable central Architecture only project specific for advanced digital services used throughout Security digital identification and identification and central all digital public services, central data repositories; data management; up-to- providing secure multi- basic information date information security factor identification, security measures standards deployed data integration, and security features Source: Authors. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 60 Figure 6.2 below presents an overview of the specific recommendations that are described in detail in the chapters that follow. > > > F I G U R E 6 . 2 - Overview of Recommendations for Various Development Levels Very Advanced Level Advanced Level • Further roll out cross- Basic Level • Enforce whole-of- agency strategies government coordination and policies to all • Establish central and strategy publlic entities coordination & define a 1. Strategy • Emphasize • Increase efficiency of strategy with relevant & Policy implementation of backend processes and stakeholders shared digital services, interoperability • Set up a cross-agency mobile one stop shops, • Emphasize efforts to policy framework once-only, and mobile integrate further public • Increase device & first principles services in a mobile one network affordability, • Expand network quality stop shop or eWallet network quality, and digital skills & digital skills • Devote resources to build • Design subject-specific architectural layer and policies hand in hand shared digital services with mGov solutions • Form skilled teams, • Establish a “Design • Cooperate with the corporate with local for All” approach to private and social sector 2. Approach experts and initiatives maximize potential users to establish real life- • Identify essential social & and social inclusion situation-oriented one administrative challenges • Extend user-centered stop shop across sectors and quick-wins design principles to all • Extend design skills • Ideate, design, relevant initatives to and adoption of a user- prototype, implement & ensure high usability centered appraoch rollout mobile solutions in and penetration iterative cycles • Set up user-centered design standards • Closely evaluate • Exploit advanced device • Further consolidate architectural options features but closely and expand relevant (web/native, monolithic/ consider low-tech shared digital services modular, etc.) conditions and architectures 3. Technology • Consider low-tech • Establish high-security • Ensure staying up to Architecture conditions of networks, identification and date in technological Security devices, and digital skills authentication solutions basics and information • Build an architectural • Consolidate existing security aspects layer with shared digital solutions and services (e.g. mobile ID, architectures to payment) increase efficiency • Establish an information • Establish Privacy by security framework Design Principles for all initiatives Source: Authors. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 61 6.1 Basic Development Level Although developing countries often face immense Countries with a basic level of digital development can challenges establishing digital foundations, mGov can take actions in all areas presented in this note regarding provide fast as well as comprehensive opportunities in strategy, policy, approach, technology, architecture, or many ways. Developing countries can with relatively little information security. Initiatives may have a short-, mid-, or effort achieve a great impact with simple, low-tech mGov long-term focus and require minimum or large effort. Table 1 solutions. To raise benefits, strategies can include initiatives to summarizes the most relevant recommendations specific to build high-quality mobile networks and skills among citizens as countries with a basic level of development and indicates a well as government employees. While it can take years before time frame for implementation. Since situations usually differ such activities show impact, instant mGov solutions based on essentially between countries, measures need to be closely existing initiatives and dealing with major or urgent challenges adjusted to the respective situation. can show great short-term benefit and act as sparks for whole- of-government initiatives going beyond. > > > T A B L E 6 . 1 - General Recommendations for mGov Initiatives in Countries with Basic Conditions ... 1-6 months, ... 6-12 months, , 12+ months, 1. Strategy and Policy Time 1.1 Central Coordination: Establish central coordination and competence centers for digital affairs to bundle expertise and cohesively drive digital transformation and mobile government initiatives. 1.2 Strategy: Develop a digital transformation vision, strategy, and roadmap together with the most relevant stakeholders of major public institutions, taking into respect the country’s context and measures to facilitate mGov initiatives. 1.3 Cross-Agency Policy Framework: Design, implement and roll out a policy framework for all public institutions based on the defined strategy for trustful, efficient, and sustainable mGov initiatives. 1.4 Affordability: Increase affordability of network subscriptions and mobile phones to reach as many people as possible and increase social inclusion with mGov solutions. 1.5 Network and Digital Skills: Invest in country-wide mobile broadband initiatives and foster initiatives to increase digital skills among citizens and government employees to increase penetration of mGov. 1.6 Shared Digital Services: Devote dedicated resources to establish digital foundations such as central data repositories to raise efficiency of all digital solutions and harvest the full potential of mGov. 1.7 Identification: Evaluate the potential of approaches for digital identification, define a short, medium, and long-term strategy to provide citizens with appropriate identification and implement measures. 1.8 Mobile Payment: Assess and deploy mobile payment solutions to provide fast and efficient welfare to people that are in need the most. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 62 Table 6.1 continued 2. Approach Time 2.1 Skilled Teams: Build teams with profound skills in user-centered design, user experience, architecture, and agile implementation of mobile solutions to design and develop efficient and attractive mGov. 2.2 Cooperation: Collaborate with local experts or initiatives to use synergies, be it startups or social workers, digital or personal and use outstanding skills. 2.3 Quick-wins: Identify existing digital solutions and ongoing initiatives and extend them with a mobile-oriented interface to yield quick-wins. Start small and local and expand to further regions or areas. 2.4 Challenges: Identify and define essential social or administrative challenges and select the ones with the greatest potential impact for mGov initiatives (for potential areas of action see below) 2.5 Service Design: Ideate, design, prototype and implement solutions in iterative cycles to solve the identified challenges together with users, closely considering specific context and stakeholder needs. 2.6 Rollout and Communication: Test the solution in a pilot with a closed user group before rollout and make sure to create awareness for implemented solutions by communicating via various channels. 2.7 Design Standards: Establish cross-organizational standards for user-centered design to develop ideas and prototypes with stakeholders and users. 3. Technology, Architecture, and Security 3.1 Technical Design: Closely evaluate mobile architectural options like web or native apps, monolithic apps vs. the advantages of a modular systems, and open or closed source strategy. 3.2 Low-Tech Conditions: Consider bad network quality, low-end phones and low skills when designing mobile government solutions to reach as many people as possible, focusing on the channel that is most used by the most relevant target groups (e.g., SMS or voice). 3.3 Architecture: Design and implement an architectural layer with a focus on digital identity and central data management, shared across all digital solutions and organizations. 3.4 Information Security: Establish an information security framework that sets minimum standards for all digital solutions by the government, taking into respect specific local needs and conditions as well potential weak security features in network infrastructures and devices. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 63 The most relevant use cases for countries with a basic policies using simple mobile phone channels as well as development level might be among the following – for extended capabilities, for example, via photos. details see Chapter 3. • Support field staff with mobile phone capabilities like • Develop mobile interfaces to existing digital government voice, photo, and video recordings for simple and efficient services to quickly increase reach out. documentation purposes. • Provide proxy identification through mobile phone subscriptions to facilitate services like registration and 6.2 Advanced Development Level welfare payments. • Provide money to people entitled to welfare or food Countries that have developed an advanced level can stamps via their mobile phone accounts. focus on further establishing and rolling out a whole- of-government strategy and policy, containing a mobile • Provide information to citizens via simple mobile phone first and once-only strategy. They can usually rely on fair channels – for example, proactively as reminders on due connectivity and (digital) literacy, a basic cross-agency strategy taxes, in the case of emergencies or around potential and policy framework as well as shared digital services for social benefits. identity and data management that can be used for mGov. They can invest in further advancing their digital identification • Enable simple interactions or transactions with solutions and consolidate singular existing digital government citizens via channels like SMS, voice calls, USSD, or solutions to a user-centered one-stop mobile government e-mail to supersede travel and physical contact with platform or e-wallet solution. Most recommendations that are public agencies. valid for developing countries are also applicable for advanced countries. Additional recommendations are summarized in • Collect information and feedback by citizens and field Table 2 below. staff on public infrastructure, institutions, services, or > > > T A B L E 6 . 2 - Additional Recommendations for Countries with Advanced Conditions ... 1-6 months, ... 6-12 months, , 12+ months, 1. Strategy and Policy Time 1.1 Coordination: Enforce a whole-of-government coordination, digital strategy, roadmap, and policy framework on all horizontal and vertical administrational levels to expand the efficiency of digital services. 1.2 Strategy: Emphasize efforts to implement shared digital services and advanced digital identification, one-stop shop or e-wallet initiatives, a once-only principle as well as a mobile first strategy to follow the shift from eGovernment to mGov. 1.3 Network and Digital Skills: Expand high-quality broadband access and constantly advance digital skills to keep up pace with current technological developments and reach people beyond digital aficionados. 1.4 Subject-Specific Policies: Include stakeholders in the design of policies, hand in hand with mobile government solutions, considering an end-to-end-process view to provide user friendly public services. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 64 Table 6.2 continued 2. Approach Time 2.1 Universal Design: Establish a “Design for All” approach in all projects to target all relevant user groups, enlarging the coverage of mobile government solutions to people with limited (digital) literacy or physical capabilities. 2.2 User-Centered Design: Extend user-centered design principles to all relevant initiatives, ensuring high usability and penetration. 3. Technology, Architecture, and Security 3.1 Advanced Features: Exploit potential smartphone or smart feature phone capabilities like providing location, camera, biometrics, and security features without assuming these to be ubiquitous. 3.2 Low-tech Conditions: Continue considering low-end phones to reach the high number of people with older devices or operating systems. 3.3 Digital Identification: Look out for up-to-date standards regarding digital identification and establish high-security solutions with full authentication for individuals. 3.4 Architecture: Consolidate existing digital government and mGov solutions, whether by providing a unified technical layer with shared digital services, or by implementing a central government one-stop shop or e-wallet solution as a single access point for citizens, businesses, and government employees. 3.5 Information Security: Closely consider information security standards, carry out comprehensive information security risk assessments for all mGov initiatives and apply principles like data minimization and Privacy by Design at the right balance between security and usability. In addition to potential solutions in countries with a basic • Extend the use of citizen feedback regarding public development level, the most relevant use cases might be infrastructure and use crowd-sourcing methods to get the following (for details see Chapter 3): information on potential fraud or incidents as well as opinions in policy making processes. • Provide binding transactional services for citizens based on identification and authentication like registrations, • Provide mobile apps for public staff to access applications, or tax declaration. knowledge bases and simplify government- internal processes. • Provide individual information to citizens around their specific situation like reminders for tax declaration or passport renewal. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 65 6.3 Very Advanced Development Level Countries in a very advanced situation have established certain situation. This can lead to impactful win-win-situations most preconditions described in earlier chapters and for governments, citizens, and related organizations alike. are able to reap the full potential of mobile government. In a dynamic area like mobile, it is important to keep being Potential use cases are the following (for details see up to date in all facets presented in this note. In complex Chapter 3): systems like public administrations, even highly developed countries face potential for further consolidation, whether by • Provide official documents in mobile e-wallets and further rolling out whole-of-government strategies and policy include identity cards or driver’s license direct on mobile frameworks throughout all institutions, by expanding skills in phones, replacing physical ID cards. user-centric approaches, optimizing user experience in all digital services or by increasing interoperability and efficiency • Use anonymized mobile data to optimize public sector of cross-agency digital services, among others. processes, for field staff or in policy design, using historic, real-time, and predictive analytics. A great potential for governments with such sound foundations can be to enrich digital solutions with • Use virtual reality features on mobile phones to related services around life situations. By cooperating with seamlessly support field staff in their daily work. the private sector and social organizations, a real one-stop shop experience can be created that does not only cover • Use secure messaging systems between public officials governmental affairs, but all matters relevant to a person in a for asynchronous communication and decision making. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 66 6.4 Sample Approach Local context and technical conditions are essential for a country with a basic development level. It serves as a rough any approach to designing and implementing mobile guide that illustrates how the recommendations of this How-to Government solutions. The following fictional example Note can be put into practice. illustrates such a potential approach in a fictional situation of S I T U AT I O N Be it caused by wars, disasters, or other exceptional circumstances like a pandemic, governments often face the need to quickly support impecunious people with financial relief to deal with these situations. A developing country with 50 million citizens wants to prepare for such potential future crisis. Its government expects to face a phase of enormous inflation. Prices for energy and food could rise fast, putting many people of low but also medium income situations, where they can not afford the least. Particularly women with children could rapidly find themselves in a miserable situation, not being able to afford enough to eat. The government aims to take measures to get prepared for such or similar situations. The first essential, often underexposed step in such a situation (and any other), is to get a close understanding the problem and to define the respective challenge, as shown in Figure 6.3 below. > > > F I G U R E 6 . 3 - Sample Approach of Define a Challenge 1. Collect information on the frame conditions regarding infrastructure, information on existing Research systems and international good practices 2. Identify stakeholders and assess them regarding their relevance and position Information Good Practice 3. Interview the main stakeholders and users with various backgrounds to understand their situation Analysis 4. Analyze all information gathered and iterate research with further stakeholders or fields of relevance if necessary 5. Describe the situation and problem in an overview Interviews Personas showing all relevant elements (“territory map”) as well as typical users and their situation (“personas”) Definition 6. Define the problem as a design challenge, taking care not to scope it too narrow or wide 7. Align the challenge definition with all main stakeholders Territory Map Definition Challenge Source: Authors. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 67 Having collected data, in the described situation one might the field and talking to people who are most relevant for the find out that main agglomerations are covered well with respective challenge. Interviews with representatives or social basic network quality, but reliable broadband is rare. Many organizations might be a good means to get enough relevant people may own a simple phone, but the poorest do lack information. This can be the basis to identify and describe such opportunities. Those owning a phone generally have fair typical users (“personas”) that will be at the center of service knowledge about simple channels like SMS and voice. One design in all further steps to achieve user-centered solutions. might also find out that many people, especially children, are Naturally, the number of interviews can be restricted for time not registered with the government. A basic digital government and budget reasons. portal, where the government provides forms and information, is well established. However, digital identity to carry out Depending on the insights collected in this phase, the design transactions does not yet exist. challenge can vary and should be well defined and aligned. It is often formulated as a “How might we …” question, which The team involved in this phase is often still small, with a public should not be too broad or too narrow. Depending on the time official as challenge owner and a group of design thinking available, it can be developed in several iterations. The targeted experts at its core. The stakeholders may be several federal impact should always be kept in mind and the definition should ministries, municipalities, social organizations, and citizens. be tested by thinking of some potential solutions. This phase It is essential to interview a good cross-section of citizens should not be undervalued since it provides core information with a variation of backgrounds. This means not only working critical for all further phases and is the foundation for the next with people with high digital affinity in cities, but also going to step: Ideation, presented below in Figure 6.4. > > > F I G U R E 6 . 4 - Sample Approach to Identify, Select, and Describe Ideas Identification 1. Identify as many ideas to solve the challenge as possible in one or several workshops and iterations, including users and experts with various backgrounds (social, technical, political, etc.) in Clustered ideas developed order to get a high variety of ideas in stakeholder workshops 2. Cluster and prioritize the ideas along criteria Prioritization defined together with core stakeholders 3. Define a vision together with the main stakeholders and identify potantial obstacles on the way Joint vision 4. Define a first rough “to be” user journey with all user touchpoints and ideas for solutionns 5. Visualize a potential solution in a first minimum- Description effort mock-up, showing all user interactions 6. Gather stakeholders and users and evaluate if User journey, mock-up, you are on the right way, otherwise iterate and user-feedback Idea Source: Authors. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 68 Based on the defined design challenge, a brainstorming for number, do not own a phone, or only have access to a simple ideas can be carried out. Usually, a good way to find as many phone. Ideation cycles to overcome these obstacles may be diverse ideas as possible is to organize workshops with a developed as necessary, considering technologies like mobile heterogenous crowd of people, applying a well-selected set and other means to reach people who are not connected at all. of creative brainstorming methods. Ideas for the described This may include integrating simple channels like voice and situation could include to establish a register of identities based SMS or by including local representatives. on simple factors like tax, social security, or phone numbers; to predefine criteria to enable the government to achieve a In the next step, a first version of a user journey can illustrate good hit rate to people really in need; or to establish a platform the main touchpoints with a solutions as well as framing to quickly provide cash or vouchers to those who are. After the conditions, problems, and ideas for solutions. A first mock-up first brainstorming, related ideas can be clustered in groups can show the most important interactions with users without and prioritized along criteria ideally defined together with investing too much effort. Feedback can be gathered by main stakeholders. showing first rough mobile screen designs to users. In this manner, weaknesses in concept, potential dead-end streets Having the ideas in mind, a vision could then be defined to or solutions that do not fit the user needs can be identified get a common understanding of the long-term goal. Obstacles at a very early stage without losing too much time, and that might occur when trying to reach this goal could be new or adjusted ideas and proposals can be developed in identified. This may be, for example, that the people in need further iterations. do not even have simple identification like a social security > > > F I G U R E 6 . 5 - Sample Approach to Design, Develop, and Test a Concept and Prototype 1. Refine the user journey to comprehensively illustrate the roles, actions, user touchpoints, Design backend processes and systems in the “to be solution” 2. Identify necessary adjustments in all relevant User journey, framing conditions, be it in existing processes, processess, policy, organization, technology, policies or regulation organization, Development 3. Draft a rough architecture for the IT system architecture closely considering existing digital solutions and modules and including a first information security risk assessment 4. Iteratively elaborate functional prototypes starting with mere visualization and wireframes, Wireframes, prototype, PoC ending with a technical Proof of Concept Testing 5. Continually test these various stages prototypes with users and stakeholders 6. Iteratively refine concepts and prototypes based on the user and stakeholder feedbacks Tests & feedback Prototype Source: Authors. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 69 Once a good proposal that is widely accepted by stakeholders core team at this stage also needs to be expanded with and fits user needs is finalized, it is time to receive further each step, to include software architects, developers, and budget and resources to prepare the next steps. In addition to security experts. the illustrative user journey and mock-ups, a business model canvas might be of good use, encompassing all relevant Activities necessary to establish a solution do not only facts like resources, channels, costs, and potential revenues. encompass activities of the user journey; the major effort might Having approval for next steps and based on the existing be to set up underlying policies, processes, and technical rough elements of the ideation phase, a more detailed concept platforms. Besides the procedural and regulatory measures, and a functional prototype can then be developed – see at least a rough IT architecture has to be drafted that conforms Figure 6.5 above. to existing policy frameworks and core government systems. In iterative cycles, and depending on the specific situation, A user journey can give a comprehensive big picture and wireframes, a prototype, and a proof-of-concept or a minimum end-to-end process-oriented overview on all aspects relevant viable product for implementation can be developed. Solutions to a solution. The user journey of the given example might may not only include the mobile phone implementations encompass phases such as identification, application, directed to users but backend systems, which may in many verification, and transaction. On a more detailed level, the cases require the major effort. Often such extensive activities activities, roles, backend processes, relevant regulation, are carried out after transition to the implementation phase, IT systems, and other requirements can be mapped. When but this limits the prototyping phase to a wireframe or simple designing a user journey, it is essential to include all relevant prototype only. Once a concept or prototype shows that a stakeholders, especially policy makers and responsible solution will significantly contribute to reaching the goal of managers, to ensure that framing conditions like government effectively addressing the challenge, an implementation processes, organization and roles, regulations, and the project can be prepared. Figure 6.6 below shows an approach technical solution are designed accordingly. The original for implementation. > > > F I G U R E 6 . 6 - Sample Approach to Implement an mGov Solution 1. Refine the concept,including a budget and resource plan, software architecture, information security, and Implementation accompanying measures regarding organization, processes, and regulation 2. Set up the project e.g., based on the SCRUM framework and build an implementation team Software architecture, 3. Iteratively develop the solution following agile processes, regulation Testing methods and constantly testing with users for early identification of potential problems 4. Carry out a pilot phase and continuously test the solution regarding functionality as well as information security Agile development 5. Prepare operation and take into respect user and testing, rollout numbers, case frequencies and potential to scale up Rollout 6. Develop a rollout and communication plan to make sure the solution is adopted by as many users as possible Solution Source: Authors. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 70 >>> References Android Open Source Project. 2022. https://developer.android.com/jetpack. Apple. 2022. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/. ​ A ​ ssociated Press of Pakistan. 2018. “Over 25m People Contacted Under Citizen Feedback Programme.” Pakistanpoint.com. October 15. Accessed November 9, 2022. https://www. pakistanpoint.com/en/story/456474/over-25m-people-contacted-under-citizen-feedback- progra.html. Ball, James. 2020. “The UK’s contact tracing app fiasco is a master class in mismanagement.” https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/19/1004190/uk-covid-contact- tracing-app-fiasco/. ​hatti, Zubair K. 2020. “ICTs, Service Delivery, Citizen Engagement, and Governance.” B (unpublished; shared in correspondence with authors). B ​ hatti, Zubair K., Jody Zall Kusek, and Tony Verheijen. 2015. Logged On: Smart Government Solutions from South Asia. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/ handle/10986/20487. ​ hatti, Zubair, Idrim Valley, Nadeem Umar, Umair Nadeem, Saad Omer, and Soe Nandar Linn. B 2021. World Bank GovTech Case Studies: Solutions that Work - Myanmar: Mobile Phones for Maternal and Child Cash Transfers. https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/4a7b8c57321247388 5d9c81b3a87eb72-0350062022/original/GovTech-Case-Studies-Myanmar-Mobile-Phones-for- Maternal-and-Child-Cash-Transfers.pdf. ​ lackman, Colin, and Lara Srivastava. 2011. Telecommunications Regulation Handbook : Tenth B Anniversary Edition. World Bank and the International Telecommunication Union. Washington, DC: Worldbank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/13278. ​ olton, L. 2018. Interactive Voice Response in humanitarian contexts. K4D Helpdesk Report B 487. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/ media/5c6bd962e5274a72b6ba06de/495_Interactive_Voice_Response_in_Humanitarian_ Contexts__1_.pdf. ​ allen, M., Saad Gulzar, Syed Ali Hasanain, Muhammad Yasir Khan, and Arman B. Rezaee. C 2018. “Data and Policy Decisions: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan.” Working Paper 27678. https://www.nber.org/papers/w27678. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 71 ​Cavoukian, A. 2010. Privacy by Design: The 7 Foundational Principles: Implementation and Mapping of Fair Information Practices. Toronto, ON, Canada: Information & Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. https://www.ipc.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/resources/pbd-implement- 7found-principles.pdf. ​ avoukian, A. 2011. “Privacy by Design - The 7 Foundational Principles.” https://iapp.org/ C resources/article/privacy-by-design-the-7-foundational-principles/. C ​enter for Public Impact. 2016. Mobile currency in Kenya: the M-Pesa. https://www. centreforpublicimpact.org/case-study/m-currency-in-kenya#:~:text=The%20Central%20 Bank%20insures%20M,a%20measure%20of%20political%20support. ​ aub, M., Axel Domeyer, Abdulkader Lamaa, and Frauke Renz. 2020. “Digital public services: D How to achieve fast transformation at scale.” https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and- social-sector/our-insights/digital-public-services-how-to-achieve-fast-transformation-at-scale. ​ener, Cem, Hubert Nii-Aponsah, Love E. Ghunney, and Kimberly D. Johns. 2021. D GovTech Maturity Index: The State of Public Sector Digital Transformation. International Development in Focus. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/ handle/10986/36233. ​ utra, D., and D. Soares. 2019. “Mobile Applications in Central Government of Brazil and D Portugal.” Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV2019). Melbourne, VIC, Australia. https://doi.org/10.1145/3326365.3326377. ​ conofact. 2020. “Using Mobile Money to Help the Poor in Developing Countries.” https:// E econofact.org/using-mobile-money-to-help-the-poor-in-developing-countries. ​ ibl, G., T. Lampoltshammer, and L. Temple. 2022. “Towards Identifying Factors Influencing E Mobile Government Adoption: An Exploratory Literature Review.” JeDEM - EJournal of EDemocracy and Open Government 14 (1): 1-18. https://doi.org/10.29379/jedem.v14i1.693. E ​ uropean Central Bank. 2018. “The revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) and the transition to stronger payments security.” https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/intro/mip-online/2018/ html/1803_revisedpsd.en.html. ​uropean Union. 2014. “Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament E and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC.” http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2014/910/oj. ​ _____. 2020. “Berlin Declaration on Digital Society and Value-Based Digital Government.” _ https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=75984. ​ _____. 2017. “European Union, New European Interoperability Framework.” https://ec.europa. _ eu/isa2/sites/default/files/eif_brochure_final.pdf. ​ arooq, Khuram, and Peter Kustor. 2021. “Five key takeaways from Austria’s mobile government F (mGov) experience.” https://blogs.worldbank.org/governance/five-key-takeaways-austrias- mobile-government-mgov-experience. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 72 ​ _____. 2021. “How can mobile government (mGov) work in developing countries?” https://blogs. _ worldbank.org/governance/how-can-mobile-government-mgov-work-developing-countries. ​ ederal Ministry of Digital and Economic Affairs Austria. 2017. Administration on the Net. The F ABC guide of eGovernment in Austria. https://www.bmdw.gv.at/dam/jcr:8fc815bb-1dc7-4e45- 9610-78d63560944a/E-Government-ABC_2019_EN.pdf. ​ ocus Malaysia. 2022. “MySejahtera debacle: Whatever will be, will be but not at all surprising.” F https://focusmalaysia.my/mysejahtera-debacle-whatever-will-be-will-be-but-least-surprising- at-all/. ​ elb, Alan, Anit Mukherjee, and Kyle Navis. 2020. “Citizens and States: How Can Digital ID G and Payments Improve State Capacity and Effectiveness?” https://www.cgdev.org/publication/ citizens-and-states-how-can-digital-id-and-payments-improve-state-capacity. ​ eorgescu, Mircea. 2010. “Mobile Government: An Emerging Direction.” Scientific Annals of the G Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi: Economic Sciences Series. vol. 2010SE: 379-386. http:// anale.feaa.uaic.ro/anale/resurse/info2mgeorgescu.pdf. G ​ OV.UK. n.d. “Design your service using GOV.UK styles, components and patterns.” https:// design-system.service.gov.uk/. ​SMA . 2019. “The mobile economy: Sub-Saharan Africa.” https://www.gsma.com/ G mobileeconomy/sub-saharan-africa/. ​______. 2021. State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2021. https://www.gsma.com/ mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/GSMA_State-of-the-Industry-Report-on- Mobile-Money-2021_Full-report.pdf. ​______. 2021. The State of Mobile Internet Connectivity. GSM Association. https://www.gsma. com/r/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-State-of-Mobile-Internet-Connectivity-Report-2021.pdf. ​ andley, Lucy. 2019. “Nearly three quarters of the world will use just their smartphones to access H the internet by 2025.” https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/24/smartphones-72percent-of-people-will- use-only-mobile-for-internet-by-2025.html. ​ arrison, Polly Jean. 2021. “Top African Challenger Banks Helping the Unbanked Through Mobile H Services.” https://thefintechtimes.com/top-african-challenger-banks-helping-the-unbanked- through-mobile-services/. ​IDEO. 2015. The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design. IDEO.org. https://www.designkit.org/ resources/1/ ​ MF (International Monetary Fund). 2020. Fiscal Monitor: Policies for the Recovery. Washington, I DC: IMF. https://www.imf.org/-/media/Files/Publications/fiscal-monitor/2020/October/English/ text.ashx. ​nfocomm Media Development Authority Singapore. 2022. “The Electronic Transactions Act I 2010.” https://www.imda.gov.sg/regulations-and-licensing-listing/electronic-transactions-act- and-regulations. ​Ionic. 2022. Ionic Framework. https://ionicframework.com/docs. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 73 ​ sagah, Tupokigwe, and Maria Wimmer. 2017. “Mobile Government Applications: Challenges and I Needs for a Comprehensive Design Approach.” https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3047273.3047305. ​ _____. 2018. “Addressing Requirements of M-Government Services: Empirical Study from _ Designers’Perspectives.” ICEGOV ‘18: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance. April 2018. Pages 599–608. https://doi. org/10.1145/3209415.3209469. ​ _____. 2019. “Recommendations for M-Government Implementation in Developing Countries: _ Lessons Learned from the Practitioners.” In: Nielsen, P., Kimaro, H.C. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies for Development. Strengthening Southern-Driven Cooperation as a Catalyst for ICT4D. ICT4D 2019. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 551: pp. 544–555. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18400-1_45. ​tnews.com.au. 2018. “SA govt to axe ‘Alert SA’ app after fresh failure.” https://www.itnews.com. i au/news/sa-govt-to-axe-alert-sa-app-after-fresh-failure-480644. ​ I TU &UNESCO. 2021. “Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, Full list of Recommendations Presented in the State of Broadband reports.” https://www. broadbandcommission.org/recommendations/. ​ I TU. 2018. “Digital Skills Toolkit.” https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Digital-Inclusion/Documents/ ITU%20Digital%20Skills%20Toolkit.pdf. _ ​ _____. 2018. “ICTs, LDCs, and the SDGs: Achieving Universal and Affordable Internet in the Least Developed Countries.” https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/LDCs/Pages/Publications/LDCs/D- LDC-ICTLDC-2018-PDF-E.pdf. ​______. 2022. World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database. https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/ Statistics/Pages/publications/wtid.aspx. ​ lapper, Leora. 2019. “Mobile phones are key to economic development. Are women missing K out?” https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2019/04/10/mobile-phones-are-key- to-economic-development-are-women-missing-out/. ​ asud, Mohammad Omar. 2014. “Calling the Public to Empower the State: Pakistan’s Citizen M Feedback Program.” https://successfulsocieties.princeton.edu/sites/successfulsocieties/files/ OM_CivilService_Pakistan_SRA_0.pdf. M ​ inistry of Finance, Austria. 2022. “Coordinationboards Digital Administration.” https://www.bmf. gv.at/en/topics/digitalisation/Administration/Coordinationboards-Digital-Administration.html. ​​​​ Muralidharan, Karthik, Paul Niehaus, Sandip Sukhtankar, and Jeffrey Weaver. 2021. “Using Cell Phones to Monitor the Delivery of Government Payments to Farmers in India.” https://www. povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/using-cell-phones-monitor-delivery-government-payments- farmers-india. ​ opken, Ben, and Maura Barrett. 2020. “Iowa caucus app was rushed and flawed from the P beginning, experts say.” https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/iowa-caucus-app-was-rushed- flawed-beginning-experts-say-n1131216. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 74 ​ ECD & ITU. 2011. M-Government: Mobile Technologies for Responsive Governments and O Connected Societies. Paris: OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264118706-en. ​ gunleye, O.S., J.P. Van Belle, and T.A. Fogwill. 2014. “Mobile government implementation O for government service delivery in developing countries: a South Africa context.” EEE’14 - The 2014 International Conference on e-Learning, e-Business, Enterprise Information Systems, and e-Government. Las Vegas, USA. ​ lanrewaju, Oyenike Mary. 2013. “Mobile Government Framework – A Step Towards O Implementation of Mobile Government in Nigeria.” International Journal of Information Science 3 (4): 89-99. doi:10.5923/j.ijis.20130304.02. P ​ eixoto, Fanomezantsoa, Sjoberg , and Mellon . 2019. “How mobile text reminders earned Madagascar a 32,800% ROI in collecting unpaid taxes.” https://blogs.worldbank.org/governance/ how-mobile-text-reminders-earned-madagascar-32800-roi-collecting-unpaid-taxes. ​ orambage, Pawani, Gürkan Gür, Diana Pamela Moya Osorio, Madhusanka Liyanage, and P Mika Ylianttila. 2021. “6G Security Challenges and Potential Solutions.” doi:10.1109/EuCNC/6G Summit51104.2021.9482609. ​ ahadiana, Rieka. 2021. “Indonesia Probes Million Data Breach at Old Covid Tracking App.” R https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-31/indonesia-probes-million-data-breach- at-old-covid-tracking-app. R ​øhnebæk, Maria, Norbert Kiss, Nora Fazekas, and Valérie François. 2021. Co-VAL [770356] Understanding value co-creation in public services for transforming European public administrations D4.3 Toolbox report on service design approaches to co-creation of public value. https://www.co-val.eu/download/2429/. ​ osenbaum, Janine, Robert Gerlit, Manuel Wiesche, Maximilian Schreieck, and Helmut Krcmar. R 2018. “Barriers to Mobile Government Adoption: An Exploratory Case Study of an Information Platform for Refugees in Germany.” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327679608_ Barriers_to_Mobile_Government_Adoption_An_Exploratory_Case_Study_of_an_Information_ Platform_for_Refugees_in_Germany. ​ hareef, M.A., V. Kumar, U. Kumar, and Y. K. Dwivedi. 2011. “e-Government Adoption Model.” S Government Information Quarterly 28 (1): 17–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2010.05.006. S ​ ilver, L., and Courtney Johnson. 2018. “Majorities in Ssub-Saharan Africa own mobile phones, but smartphone adoption is modest.” https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2018/10/09/majorities- in-sub-saharan-africa-own-mobile-phones-but-smartphone-adoption-is-modest/. ​ tatista. 2022. “Main reasons for not downloading the COVIDSafe app in Australia in 2020.” S https://www.statista.com/statistics/1153896/australia-main-reasons-for-not-downloading-the- covidsafe-app/. ​UK Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. 2021. “DVLA brings latest tech to police roadside checks.” https://dvladigital.blog.gov.uk/2021/07/16/dvla-brings-latest-tech-to-police- roadside-checks/. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 75 ​UNDESA. 2020. E-Government Survey 2020 Digital Government in the Decade of Action for Sustainable Development. New York: United Nations. https://publicadministration.un.org/ egovkb/en-us/Reports/UN-E-Government-Survey-2020. ​UNDP. 2012. Mobile Technologies and Empowerment: Enhancing human development through participation and innovation. New York: UNDP. https://www.undp.org/publications/mobile- technologies-and-empowerment-enhancing-human-development-through-participation-and- innovation. ​ NESCO. 2022. “UNESCO study shows effectiveness of mobile phones in promoting reading U and literacy in developing countries.” https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-study-shows- effectiveness-mobile-phones-promoting-reading-and-literacy-developing-0. ​UNICEF. 2022. “U-Report.” https://www.unicef.org/innovation/U-Report. V ​ odafone. 2022. “M-PESA.” https://www.vodafone.com/about-vodafone/what-we-do/consumer- products-and-services/m-pesa. ​W3C. 2022. “Mobile Accessibility at W3C.” https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards- guidelines/mobile/. ​ immer, Maria. 2019. “Policy Recommendations for the Once-Only Principle.” SCOOP4C. W https://scoop4c.eu/sites/default/files/2019-11/NatPolicyMaker.pdf. ​ World Bank. 2019. ID4D Practitioner’s Guide: Version 1.0. https://id4d.worldbank.org/guide. ​______. 2020. Digital Government Readiness Assessment Toolkit: Guidelines for Task Teams. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/33674. ​______. 2020. Poverty and Shared Prosperity. 2020. Washington, DC: World Bank. https:// openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/34496/211602ov.pdf. ​______. 2021. The Global Findex Database. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/ globalfindex/Report. ​______. 2021. World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives.Washington, DC: World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/35218. ​______. 2022. Service Upgrade. The GovTech Approach to Citizen Centered Services. EFI Insight-Governance. https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/ c7837e4efad1f6d6a1d97d20f2e1fb15-0350062022/original/Service-Upgrade-The-GovTech- Approach-to-Citizen-Centered-Services.pdf. ​______. 2022. World Bank Guidebook for Accessible GovTech. EFI Insight-Governance. Washington, DC: World Bank https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/3fcff7a44bd530a0413e232 45ace2f03-0350012021/related/EFI-Insight-Accessible-GovTech-4-1.pdf. ​ orld Health Organization. 2011. World Report on Disability. Geneva: WHO. www.who.int/ W teams/noncommunicable-diseases/sensory-functions-disability-and-rehabilitation/world-report- on-disability. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 76 >>> Annex 1. Working Group Members The following members of a Mobile Government Working • Mozambique - Sérgio Mapsanganhe (Deputy, Director Group initiated by the World Bank GovTech initiative General, INAGE - National Institut on eGovernment); contributed their expertise: Amâncio Ubisse (Technical Specialist INTIC (National Institute of Information and Communication Technology) • Austria - Peter Kustor (Co-Chair, Director of the Department International and Legal Affairs, Ministry of • Panama - José Lee (Deputy Administrator General Finance); Daniel Medimorec (Co-Chair, Department of National Authority for Government Innovation); Alberto International and Legal Affairs, Ministry of Finance) Delgado (Systems and Computer Methods Analyst, National Authority for Government Innovation) • Brazil - Ciro Pitangueira de Avelino (Co-Chair, Advisor, Secretariat of Digital Government, Ministry of Economy, • Peru - Marushka Chocobar Reyes (Secretary, Secretary Felipe Cruz (Co-Chair, General-Coordinator for Content of Government and Digital Transformation); Paola Gálvez Management and Digital Channels, Secretariat of Digital (Strategic Adviser, Tech Policy & Regulation, Secretary of Government, Ministry of Economy) Government and Digital Transformation); Jose Clastornik (Government Consultant, Secretary of Government and • Bangladesh - Anir Chowdhury (Policy Advisor, Aspire to Digital Transformation) Innovate (a2i) Programme, Cabinet Division/ICT Division, UNDP Bangladesh) • Portugal - Paulo Vale (Project Manager, Agency for Administrative Modernization); Cláudia Gonçalves • Belgium - Frank Leyman (Head of International Barroso (Head of Unit, International Relations, Agency Relations, Digital Transformation Office) for Administrative Modernization); Catarina Almeida (International Relations Officer, Agency for Administrative • Estonia - Raimo Reiman (Estonia, Business Architect, Modernization (AMA)) Information System Authority) • Qatar - Yousuf Yacoub Al-Sahlawi (Planning Researcher • Greece - Nikos Vasilakis (Head of Strategy Dept, - Ministry of Transport and Communications); Aljazay GRNET S.A); Yiannis Giannarakis (Greece, Coordinator Saleh AL-Sulaiti (E-Government Portal Acting Director, - GR digiGOV-innoHUB, GRNET S.A) Ministry of Transport and Communications) • Indonesia - Cahyono Tribirowo (Assistant Deputy of • Switzerland - Carlos Orjales (Program manager, SECO); Policy Formulation and Coordination of e-Government Jérôme Duperrut (Officer, SICPA) Implementation, Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform); Joko Parmiyanto (MEDC Senior • Tunisia - Khaled Sellami (Director General of the IT Officer/Coordinator of Statistics Information System e-government Unit, Presidency of the Government of Integration Functio, Indonesia Statistics Agency) Tunisia); Sana Oueslati (Director, Presidency of the Government of Tunisia) • Italy - Lorenzo Fredianelli (Chief Business Development & Strategy Officer, PagoPA); Cristiano Zagari (Head of • UAE - Dr. Tariq al Hawi (Director Digital Adoption and International & EU Affairs, PagoPA) Enablement, Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority); Suleman Bakhsh (Director Digital • Japan - Toshiyuki Zamma (Head of International Policies, Telecommunications and Digital Government Strategy, Digital Agency) Regulatory Authority) • Korea - Sungjoo Son (Director, Ministry of the Interior • Ukraine - Mstyslav Banik (Director of eServices and Safety) Development Directorate, Ministry of Digital Transformation) • Moldova - Sergiu Bedros (Chief Digital Officer, e-Governance Agency); Artur Reaboi (Chief Enterprise • Uruguay - Karime Ruibal (Citizens Services Director, Architect, e-Governance Agency) Electronic Government and Information and Knowledge Society Agency (AGESIC)) • Morocco - Hajar Khyati (Head of the Department of Devel- opment and Operability, Agency for Digital Development) EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 78 >>> Annex 2. Working Group Survey A survey among the members of the mGov Working Group initiated by the World Bank, showed the following results provided by 17 representatives of 13 countries. > > > F I G U R E A 2 . 1 - Types of mGov Solutions with the Greatest Potential for Developing Countries Provide citizen identification 17 mobile 9 Provide Informarion to officials Core Government Oprations Support operational processes 9 mCore Facilitate support processes 9 Provide access to services & benefits 15 mobile Public Enable binding interactions 13 Service mServices Delivery Support payment 9 Provide information to citizens 11 mobile Citizen Obtain feedback from citizens 11 Engagement mCE Services Enable citizen participation 14 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Source: Authors. Further potential solutions of relevance outlined by the • Provide online one-stop service based on interoperability . survey participants: • Enable citizens to verify the legal and tax-paid status of goods circulating in the economy and/or verify the legality • Identity Proof. of official documents. • National Wallet Service, eWallet, linked to commerce. • Health at risk reports (911). • Interactive mobile service for public service and • Health tracking, education (distance learning), citizen empowering government services for citizen. knowledge management. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 80 > > > F I G U R E A 2 . 2 - Most Relevant Benefits for mGov in Developing Countries Increasing return on investment 12 Reducing travel & opportunity costs 9 Economic Increasing processing efficiency 14 Benefits Reducing ICT costs 7 Facilitating environmental benefits 10 Increasing usability 13 Functionality Usability Enhancing functionality 12 Quality Improving quality 12 Reaching people/remote areas 15 Social Reaching people/limited capabilities 13 Inclusion Enhancing financial inclusion 9 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Source: Authors. Other potential benefits outlined by the survey participants: • Informed based information making. • mGov can reduce the size of the informal economy and • Ensuring the transparency of public services and ensure a level-playing field between economic operators, improving the internal functioning of the administration. as mGov can allow for the status of goods to be verified • Inclusion and accessibility for all citizen services using anywhere, with non-compliant products being reported to mobile service. the authorities. • Provide citizen data in a single record in the government’s • Better access to essential services (health, education, digital services system. agriculture, ...). • Reducing digital divide within the country and rising trust in public administration. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 81 Biggest challenges when introducing mobile Government in • Approach: lack of holistic approach or skills to increase developing countries: usability & accessibility • Strategy: lack of a whole-of-government strategy, skills, • Holistic Approach: Iterative nature of process, affordability, connectivity fragmented approach and implementations in different bodies. • Infrastructure: mobile network coverage, connectivity, • Usability & Accessibility: Prefer to use mobile device free Wi-Fi network availability, affordability of devices instead of traditional methods, penetration. with new features. • Ownership by authorities. • Technology: Lack of digital foundations like eID; • Resources: IT infrastructure and budgeting, qualified technological dynamics, information security human resources. • User Literacy. • Digital identity and banking. • Policy: lack of a general digital policy, trust, or backend • Security. process efficiency. • Skills: Software development knowledge, • Regulations. Understanding of secure technologies. • Paradigm shift in government apparatus. • Legal and political system. • Trust: feeling of safety for citizens. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 82 >>> Annex 3. World Bank mGov Working Group Country Overview The following country overviews around mobile Government 40 percent of requests automatically; services for drivers and were recorded in the Working Group meeting on transit credentials are available in a mobile solution where it May 10, 2022. is even possible to transfer a vehicle property digitally; during the fight against the pandemic 60 million Brazilians received financial assistance through a solution that has a digital Austria bank account and related functionalities; a network-based solution that integrates all the municipality and states provides health information and services, such as the vaccination From the Austrian point of view, we do have a comprehensive certificate; and finally is also available the GOV.BR app, which e-government portal which is citizen-centric and based on concentrates all the features of the digital ID and already has life situations, so the information has also integrated search 20 million active users. options to other platforms. We do have chatbot integration for inclusive usage and everything is optimized for mobile devices. So, we can use services primarily on mobile devices, Peru and all of that is also accessible by an app that we provide free of charge, of course. This app does not only integrate that information but also our mobile ID of Austria with remote In terms of the Peruvian approach and experience with mGov, qualified signature, so this is not only for information, but the Secretariat of Government Transformation is the central also for communication or transaction. We can perform the government body that the steers the strategic directions and complete cycle by mobile device and our app. That app also oversees a delivery of Citizen Center data services in Peru. provides security features using the secure elements on the Our country is a strong supporter of citizen-centric design and smartphone, which allows for secure single device usage and the principles as stated in the government regulations ensure single-sign-on to other services and app-to-app connections. that service delivery is accessible, user-friendly, efficient, and effective. Moreover, according to the law, data services must be designed and deployed to be accessed through a mobile Brazil device. The unique digital platform for citizen orientation, gov. pe, has a responsive design with an adaptive set up focus on the usability of the services on different devices. On the other Brazil established the main approach of citizen-centered hand, we actively promote the use of apps for the specific digital government and improved specific actions to unify and aims such as digital identification, online payments, health boost digital channels. We have 81 percent of the population and a statistical information just to make some examples. The with regular access to the internet, and ninety-nine percent use of digital signature and authentication is encouraged. The of the primary access by mobile devices. Brazil has boosted mechanism to use this is a signature in the cloud and it has government digital transformation since 2019 with the current been legally enabled since the beginning of 2021. Currently version of its digital government strategy. Important to highlight there’s 35 that make it possible for you for citizens to use it. the implementation of a quality framework of digital interaction Second, digital technology adoptions, in particular mobile and one specific action to centralize all federal government payment, accelerated during the pandemic. Since 2022, channels, especially mobile applications in the Play Store and financial aid has been distributed to audiences; for example, Apple Store. This action provides us with the statistics of the the government provided economic aid to 1.2 million citizens solutions for decision-making and provides security for the as part of the COVID-19 relief efforts through mobile money users against the shadow apps that are trying to capture data accounts. Seventy-five percent of the population is still using from the citizens. With a portfolio of 265 apps in the stores e-wallets. In that sense Mobile Solutions has improved access from all the agencies of the government, our challenge is to to financial services and serve as a means for the poorest be more rational, integrating the solutions based on the user population sectors to integrate their economies activity. Third, journey. Besides the average rate of the quality of the apps is the health center is also part of the Peruvian approach. The high, no more than five apps have more than 20 million active Ministry of Health in the presidency of the Council of Ministers users. Following this rational approach, we already have developed the contact tracing app, “Peru in your hands,” to achieved advances in public policies: the app for work and alert citizens about the possibility that they may have shared employment, with a multichannel approach reaching over 38 direct contact with someone affected by COVID-19. And Geo- million users; we provide all social security services in a digital Peru, which is the unique platform available to mobile devices, mobile solution with 20 million users and answering more than serves for integration of a special or geo-referenced statistics EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 84 and harmonize with data for public administration, allowing for every ministry. And we are trying to develop capacity within our data analysis and decision-making on territorial level. civil service with the program, Civil Service 2041 – envisioning the next 20 years or so of what the Civil Service would look like, and mobile strategy mobile-first strategy were possible are Bangladesh actually at the centers of the capacity development program. Mobile is obviously taking a lot more central role. Several Belgium development partners are deeply involved in this—World Bank, UNDP, and many other development partners. In Bangladesh, we have about 65 percent penetration of internet, We launched the Belgian eID at national scale 20 years ago. but 93 percent of this is actually through mobile phone, just This was immediately done at the national scale. At that time like many other developing countries. In terms of service also, we decided that we would offer services in a hardware delivery through digital transformation in the last 13 years we agnostic format. Twenty years ago, mobile was still very have converted about 80-85 percent of services, about 2,000 limited, but over the years we saw mobile arriving as a tool. It services to digital service. Many of them are available over the got a huge boost with the launch of the mobile authentication internet, and many are on mobile government platforms. We service called ITSME which was very citizen-centric, easy- have four modalities to deliver services: one is through the to-use, and very safe - and that generated a boost in mobile internet; the second is what we call “Digital Centers,” about a usage. If I go 20 years further, today we are now focusing thousand or so assistance centers across the entire country on putting everything in priority on mobile platforms. We are where citizens can go and access Digital Services, where they building what we call a mobile wallet, which is the one-stop don’t have direct access from homes or offices. These Digital shop of government services on the mobile platform, where Centers serve about 5 to 6 million people every month. The basically we can merge everything which we built so far. Of other two are part of mobile government. The most important course, all authentication services are there; you can sign right now is myGov, which was launched about two years ago documents, you can have access to what we call an e-safe, by the Prime Minister. That’s an aggregation of about 1,600 which is some kind of a Secure Storage for all your certificates, plus services in one platform across many different ministries and you can exchange them. There is a link with our e-box, and departments. And the fourth modality, which is also mobile, which is the way we communicate between the citizens and is a helpline where people call to get access to health care government. We will have an e-counter in there for all your services, emergency food, or access to different types of own life procedures and finally we also make a link to a thing services like a passport and land records and so on and so forth. we call “my data,” which is actually a platform where we give a full open view of what the public sector is keeping as data and So, these are the modalities of delivery service. In the last for which purpose, so we also play the open book philosophy 13-14 years we have actually done the measurement of how there. All this is done together with other European colleagues; much improvement we have done in the lives of citizens. what we try to do is build these wallets in an interoperable way Through a measurement system that we call TCV (time, at EU scale, which makes it even more interesting. cost, and visit). We’ve reduced about 12 billion workdays; about 16 billion dollars and 7.4 billion visits have been eliminated. That’s how we actually measure improvement Estonia in service delivery in digitization, and mobile is becoming a lot more predominant. There are systems that do decision support within the government; that’s also on mobile. During In Estonia, people can do all their procedures and interactions COVID-19, we resolved about 16 million decisions within the with the government online, but we’re still not quite satisfied, government using mobile platforms. So, we have a mobile first because we have quite a bit of legacy components, that do strategy and. Recently, in the last one year, we’re also looking serve us well, but looking forward to artificial intelligence (AI) at many different technologies, such as blockchain, artificial and pro-active services, we have a lot to rebuild. Right now, our intelligence, drones, and Big Data that are embedded in the focus is mostly on automation, using AI and providing services mobile platforms. We have rapid a digitization platform, that is proactively without people even having to apply for something. also on the mobile, and we have developed innovation teams But if we have the data and information, the government will in every ministry and every department, so we have several just make you the offer; we already have a couple of services hundred innovation teams led by Chief Innovation officers in online that work on that principle. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 85 Greece Italy In the past two-and-a-half years of COVID-19, we leapfrogged Our mission is to build and to create infrastructure for digital in many areas in public services, and we introduced some solutions. We are very involved in European governance and special mobile services related to COVID-19, such as the also built a pilot about digital identity as my colleagues from COVID pass. And we’re working intensively in transferring Belgium and Greece said. We are also involved in digital most of the public services under the mobile first concept. We wallet, and other items like license, payments. We would like to provided a mobile app in which users can use about 1,300 leverage and spread digital services through digital payments. digital service. We had first attempted to include a wallet from our mobiles, specifically for COVID-19 as a first MVP. Right now, we’re working on general use and a driver’s license. Since Japan last summer, a mobile app on health has been established. Top priority are services to citizens and trust. Indonesia Moldova In Indonesia there are many islands, so mobile technology can facilitate accessibility. The problem is about the lack of integration, so we need to have an integration process. Right Regarding mobile strategy, until recently the majority of our now, 73.7 percent of our population can access the internet services were web applications with responsive design that and almost 95 percent use mobile phones, so it’s quite a are usable from a mobile, and even some progressive web huge opportunity for us to utilize mobile government to deliver apps. But native mobile apps were not part of our plans until government services. But it’s not only delivering services; we recently. From last year, we started to launch a mobile identity. hope that we can use the kind of data generated by the mobile So, we are about to launch in around two months a hybrid government for statistics. Maybe later, we can access big data mobile identity with qualified signature, where a part of private from this – for example, tourism statistics. key is generated on the mobile phone under complete control EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 86 of the user and the other part is generated on the cloud-based zero-rate pricing, and the other lowered the prices to access HSM solution, which is kind of similar to Smart ID from Estonia. these online platforms. This was very important, because Initially, the registration will be available by visiting an office when the pandemic came, the majority of us weren’t prepared in in the country or in our embassies abroad, or by signing and we had to make sure that students got materials. Another the registration request using another qualified signature. We example of our activities is our e-document-platform for the have around 200,000 users, which is about more than 10 government, and the other one is the e-government portal for percent of the population. We also plan to implement remote citizens, where are a number of government services. Also, registration that would include passport verification via NFC, we establish a government network – secure VPN network. and AI services such as face and text recognitions, which Up to now, 1,000 institutions have connected to the central, you probably saw implemented in some parts of the world, provincial, and district level. The cyber security division but not as qualified signatures. We plan to do it as qualified ensures a high standard of security. A Shared Resources signatures, aligned to EU eIDAS regulation. division manages the government data center. A new service is a network that connects all public and private education and research institutions. Morocco Panama The vision of digital developments in Morocco aims to transform interaction with the government through end-to-end digitalization of prioritized business processes and improve Since 2019, we have been working on the centralization of user satisfaction with the with services provided by the efforts for the end-to-end provision of government agency administration. The satisfaction rate is more than 80 per-cent. services. We created a law in 2020 for formalizing the efforts The digital transformation of the administration is a crucial of all agencies, so we have a common framework to unify challenge for Morocco. The aim is to accelerate the change services and offerings to citizens and companies, and also in public services to make them more secure, transparent, people working for the government. At the moment, we have and efficient. Morocco is taking three main initiatives through a unique portal that is the window for everyone to government this acceleration process. The first initiative concerns the services. Now we are also working on an effort to provide mobile establishment of general interoperability framework for experience for the users. During the COVID-19 pandemic, government administrations. The second initiative is to create we had great success for appointments for vaccinations and a digital factory to develop a structure to accelerate the tracking of vaccination schemes. We have great success of development of digital services. The third initiative is to digitize coverage with mobile technologies. the public services and to raise the satisfaction rate. Switzerland Mozambique Switzerland is not really leading in digital transformation for a In Mozambique, in terms of mobile and related to COVID-19 number of reasons, perhaps here it is also interesting to learn there was a lot of work that we did, mainly to help the Ministry about what did not work really well. We have several apps that of Health to cope with the demands. But also, in the Ministry actually are very useful, used by our citizens. But basically, we of Science and Technology, we had a number of initiatives, are still struggling to build trust among citizens. Switzerland mainly at the higher education sector to continue with the is a very decentralized country – almost each region has activities in terms of the learning process. For example, we its own laws and regulations and institutions, so we cannot are running an initiative where we have a lot of storage space, implement a top-down implementation plan. We have to work and we reserve some of this space for applications of higher with a bottom-up approach. Each canton and municipality education sectors. Some of these we have implemented building its own apps, and then if it’s a success, other cantons ourselves. Also, we had a very interesting proposal to help and municipalities will copy. The second particularity: in students. I’m talking about a zero-rate initiative, where we Switzerland we have a very direct democracy, we have to have negotiated with telecommunication companies about vote almost every month; we have to go and vote for any pricing only for educational purposes. One of them offered a change in the legislation, and recently we suffered a major failure in proposing our citizens adopt our digitalization plans. United Arab Emirates Last year, we had a 70 percent rejection of our digital ID. It’s always interesting to learn about citizen-centric digitalization, but when we ask citizens, 70 percent do not want a digital ID If I want to focus on something that the UAE government is or digital voting. It is quite difficult for us, so we need to work approaching in digital transformation, I will say it is digital on trust of citizens on digitalization, because there is a lot of consumer strategy and policies. Recently we have devoted mistrust about the use of the data that the public sector has. our whole digital transformation teams and their different When dealing with large IT firms, we have the feeling that we, digital agencies towards the digital consumer, to build services government, and institutions lose control on data. So, we work around the consumer, not designing the services ourselves, on explaining chances and risks to citizens. as Government, but co- designing and co-creating them with the consumers. We had several pillars in our approach and we made sure that we enforce these to any new service Tunisia redesign and any existing services that are already there. So, we launched a one-stop shop for the whole government services. We have around 3,000 services and we’re aiming Tunisia is working on the implementation of its digital to reduce that number of services onto one platform which transformation strategy 2025, especially in cooperation provides bundles of services. So recently, we were able to with the Ministry of Technology. Mobile penetration is very launch our most used bundle in the UAE, which is a newborn important in Tunisia and the government is aware of this baby. Usually, when you have a newborn in the UAE you potential. The Tunisian government is working on how to have to visit around seven government entities which totals use this potential and how to improve service delivery. There comes to a 36-hour journey, with commuting and waiting time are many services that were offered via mobile in Tunisia, and application. After a 100-day accelerator, which brought especially during the COVID-19 crisis, and in many fields, together the government the related stakeholders, we were especially education services, social security, and finance. able to launch the service where the hospital will ask you only The main objective of the government is to accomplish for the name of the newborn baby, and that’s it. Everything social and financial digital inclusion and to reach all Tunisian will be initiated from the hospital and every application will be people. So mobile government can help reaching this target, sent to the agencies. We cut down a lot of steps that are not but the main challenges are how to reach this people, how required, a lot of documents that need to be submitted, that to improve connectivity, how to improve the network of are not required. And we never ask to submit a document that mobile government. is already submitted. We have a once-asked-policy, and within a matter of one week you will get the baby’s passport, birth certificate, and family book, all together in a basket as a gift for the newborn baby. EQUITABLE GROWTH, FINANCE & INSTITUTIONS INSIGHT <<< 88