The United States ranks first worldwide in embracing digitalization to improve the growth and well-being of society, according to The KPI Institute’s Government Services Index 2022.

With a pillar score of 0.9059, the US emerged as the top performer in four out of five indicators:  government procurement of advanced technology products, availability of latest technologies, cost of redundancy dismissal, online e-participation, and e-government development.

Norway topped the list in terms of fixed broadband subscriptions and came second overall in the digitalization dimension. The other three frontrunners in digitalization are the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.

“The pandemic has prompted a quantum leap into online and digital environments that governments worldwide need to adapt to. A ‘digital access for all landscape’ has become the new normal in the post-pandemic world. As part of this landscape digitally empowered governments need to secure broader access to digital connectivity, apply human centric design approaches in both digital and physical environments, develop robust digital data infrastructures to ensure smoother operations,” the report states.

The Government Services Index 2022, a pragmatic review of public service performance in the post-pandemic era, covers seven world regions, 66 countries, five dimensions, and 32 indicators. Apart from digitalization, the four other dimensions in which countries are assessed are adaptability, talent, governance, and impact.

Adaptability refers to “the ability to adapt to changes to develop a flexible public service apparatus” while governance “reflects on the public services as an enabler of the government to implement its policies and provide key services for the population.” Talent examines “how learning and knowledge are built inside the public services environment, as well as to the quality of talent available on the national labor market.” Governance examines “the public services as an enabler of the government to implement its policies and provide key services for the population.”

“With the advent of smart devices, sensors and drones the number of ‘machines,’ or otherwise ‘computers’ has exploded. It thus becomes a mission of the highly digitized government to increasingly look into encouraging human interactions with such physical technology so as to reduce redundancy and foster new labor opportunities. The latter would have to be tied into growing IT talent, moving towards having human resources managing code environments and systems, technological robots and devices, setting standards, providing security and supporting implementation.”

Download The Government Services Index 2022 for free here. For inquiries regarding the Index, contact Marcela Presecan, Head of Research:  [email protected], or +61 (390) 282 223.