GENEVA, Switzerland, February 7 (IPS) – New software from UNCTAD does with digital government what IKEA has done with furniture, allowing Bhutan’s government employees to create online services their own user-friendly route for citizens.
The tedious government procedures are not only difficult for users, but also frustrating for the civil servants who manage them. Sitting behind the counter and stamping stamps isn’t exactly a dream job. This is where technology can help. In 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bhutanese government launched G2B Digital Government Portal. It’s a breakthrough software that has earned the country recognition as the fastest place in the world to start a new business. Entrepreneurs just need to fill out the form on their mobile and get all the registration documents for free in less than a minute. In 2022, 5,500 Bhutanese, almost 1% of the population, used the service to register a business – 52% of them women. It is also a turning point for Bhutan’s public administration and the world of digital government in general. The fastest business registration service on Earth was not designed by consultants in India or California but by the same public servants who previously managed the time-consuming and paperwork-intensive process of citizenship inquiries have to go from queue to queue of government offices. How did this happen?
Keep it simple
All because of UNCTAD’s low code simplicity digital government platform, which after some basic training, Bhutanese civil servants were able to customize themselves to create online services. The coverage of these services is now extensive and includes bus permits, drone licenses and industrial rentals.
Over the next two years, the government plans to bring all the permits, authorizations and procedures related to the country’s economy onto the platform. Over time, it can stretch across all government agencies.
“The goal of our technology is to reduce conflict,” said Frank Grozel, head of UNCTAD’s digital government platform program. “Everybody benefits from having efficient, uncomplicated technology at their fingertips. But this is especially important for civil servants, as it allows them to focus on why they do their job, not necessarily how they do it.”
Provide better service
Each service is built from the bottom up. Government teams, including procedural officials, developers, and trainers, have come together to simplify existing steps, creating shortcuts to help speed up the service delivery process. Employees are guided to understand the process from the user’s point of view, creating empathy and understanding where bottlenecks and frustration can occur.
“The whole team started to look into how the system could be changed and why elements of the original process were changed,” said Bita Mortazavi, UNCTAD project manager for the Bhutan initiative. can make it so difficult for the end user.” The impact on employees has been transformed. “We can now focus on service development and choose simple, high-impact services to change the whole system,” said Sonam Lhamo, project leader at Bhutan’s Ministry of Economy. Tshering Dorji, a developer, said it changed his perspective on software development. “My imagination has improved a lot. I learned how to simplify without coding,” he said.
Another developer, Pema Gyalpo, was pleasantly surprised.
“We can further simplify even simple things,” he said. “This experience of building an easier system isn’t about the job, it’s about how we’re going to work. I would have the honor to submit ideas that will serve other countries.”
Innovate first, adjust later
Most of Bhutan’s businesses are small. About 95% of them are handicraft enterprises. This fact has caused the government of this country to find ways to help the micro enterprises of this mountainous country succeed in the fastest and simplest way. “Our approach is to innovate first, adjust later, to reduce barriers to entry for new businesses, embrace innovation and allow creativity to flourish,” said Bhutan’s Economy Minister. , Tengye Lyonpo said. This ethos has resulted in a country whose unique approach is working for it and its citizens in novel ways. While Bhutan is pioneering a flat package approach to digital government, making services more modular and easier to create, thanks to funding from the Netherlands, other countries will follow. Colombia, Estonia, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Togo and Tunisia will join the club this year. Countries that have benefited from the platform include Argentina, Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraq, Lesotho and Mali.
Amy Shelver is an expert in digitization and the creative economy and Ian Richards is an economist at UNCTAD specializing in the digital business environment.
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© Inter Press Service (2023) — All rights reservedOrigin: Inter Press Service
