Digital Capacity Building for Governments
Digital transformation can give governments the best chance of making sustainable, effective, innovative policies that fulfill the UN's SDGs. With the right digital competencies, policymakers and regulators are empowered to digitally transform their institutions with policies that take advantage of the opportunities offered by new technologies, while navigating the many risks and challenges they can bring.
In 2021, UNESCO has identified strong demand for initiatives to strengthen capacities of government officials to leverage digital technologies. These findings were published in Artificial Intelligence Needs Assessment survey in Africa.
In response, UNESCO, as the co-lead of the Broadband Commission Working Group on AI Capacity Building, developed this competency framework to support national digital capacity building efforts by policymakers, regulators and digital leaders
Are civil servants ready for digital transformation?
Listen to Dr. Tawfik Jelassi, Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information at UNESCO, presenting the report on AI Capacity Building for Civil Servants at the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development in New York, USA (17 September 2022).
The report is available here.
What competencies do public sector officials need for digital transformation?
Governments may currently be held back by many barriers, such as rigid hierarchical structures, lack of IT infrastructure and lack of digital skills. These challenges of digital governance require a new set of skills and competencies from policymakers to ensure that national digital transformation is done with a sustainable and equitable approach that is aligned with human Rights, Openness, inclusive Access and Multistakeholder participation (ROAM-X) principles.
This framework offers three competency domains with many nested competencies and nine recommendations to support countries in overcoming the barriers and seizing the opportunities of digital transformation.
Digital Planning and Design enables civil servants to understand the complexity of today’s problems, recognise strategic opportunities to use digital solutions, and envision and design inclusive digital transformation projects.
Competencies: systems thinking, problem identification and solutions, strategic foresight, agile strategy.
Data Use and Governance equips civil servants to understand and use data – its fundamental role, value, and opportunities, inherent risks. Supports civil servants to address governance challenges and use data effectively, ethically, and responsibly.
Competencies: digital literacy, data-driven decision making, open data and open government, privacy and security, legal, regulatory, and ethical frameworks, AI fundamentals.
Digital Management and Execution empowers civil servants to understand new and innovative project-management and collaboration practices to enhance the success of digital transformation initiatives.
Competencies: people-centricity, iteration, agile execution, digital leadership.
These competencies and recommendations support digital capacity building in all civil services across the ICT ministries and digital units in governments. With the competency framework as a reference, policymakers can adapt this open resource according to their needs and fulfil their roles as duty bearers.
In Numbers
Challenges of Digital Transformation
Cultural and organisational barriers: A work culture averse to experimentation and innovation, along with low level of leadership support to pursue innovative ideas, poses challenges to digital transformation initiatives in governments.
Data and infrastructure barriers: These challenges include lack of IT infrastructure investment, lack of available, accessible datasets and lack of mature data organisation, data management and data governance practices – they obstruct national digital transformation efforts
Human Resource Capacity: AI and digital transformation – related competency gaps are magnified with low investment into digital, data analysis, IT and AI skills and the lack of adaptation of procured digital technology and digital systems to fit the organisation’s unique context.
A Multistakeholder Process Towards Digital Capacity Building for Governments
October 2021
- 27 October - Launch of Working Group of AI Capacity Building, in collaboration with Nokia
April 2022
- 25 April - Workshop at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
- 25-29 April - Roundtable at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) eCommerce Week
May 2022
- 24 May - Africa and Southeast Asia groups consultations
June 2022
- 17-20 June - Latin America and the Caribbean group consultation
September 2022
- 18 September - Launch of the report at the Annual Fall Meeting of the Broadband Commission
October 2022
- 7 October – Global consultation on the Digital Capacity Building Navigator Tool at the International Conference on the Theory and Practice of Electronic Government and Digital Capacity Building 2022 (ICEGOV)
February 2023
This report presents a competency framework for civil servants on AI and digital transformation, and recommends ways to implement it to support related capacities in government. The research for this report was guided by the following question: What competencies need to be developed for public-sector officials to effectively design and implement digital and AI transformation initiatives in government, and to create an enabling environment for digital transformation in society?
In brief: The development and use of digital technologies is impacting how governments operate and function. Digital transformation, including artificial intelligence (AI) adoption, has become one of the highest priorities for public organisations. Governments are increasingly offering digital services because of growing public expectations.
