11:30 am ¨C 13:00 pm, Thursday, May 19, 2022 (EDT)
Service Upgrade: Modernizing Services for Efficiency and Accessibility
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OVERVIEW
Citizen-centric service delivery is core to the World Bank approach to GovTech, and many governments are undertaking efforts to modernize publicly provided services to citizens and businesses. These include using technology to better target, track, and deliver services. Putting the citizen at the center of service design and delivery implies focusing design of services around the needs and preferences of the user. Migrating to digital service delivery provides governments with opportunities to redesign services with the user in mind, identify redundancies, and automate decision-making for more inclusive services. These services can, in turn, raise citizen satisfaction with service delivery, a key indicator under Sustainable Development Goal 16.6.
The rapid pace of digitalization brought important opportunities to expand access to and improve the quality of administrative services. As of 2020, over 140 countries had deployed government-provided e-services and unified service portals. The COVID-19 pandemic made digital service delivery even more relevant in times of remote government, lockdowns and social distancing. However, these solutions and services may be limited in their user-centricity, quality and efficiency. Further, the benefits of e-services do not accrue equally to everyone in society, and the disabled may lose the opportunity to gain from new technological approaches unless their concerns are carefully integrated into service design and delivery.
provides practical guidance on service modernization to governments, practitioners, and task teams, and how citizen centricity can be incorporated into each stage of the process. The guide provides information on how to incorporate citizen centricity in the four stages: rationalization, re-engineering, digitization, and delivery to increase quality of services to meet citizen needs and preferences. Service modernization is an iterative process that is contingent on country context, and the note identifies potential challenges, both technical and non-technical, that countries may face in each stage and provides tips to encourage citizen engagement into each stage of the reform, including inclusive accessible service delivery.
aims to provide development practitioners and governments with steps and actions to mainstream accessibility concerns in the development of GovTech projects and adopt accessibility as a systematic feature of digital solutions in the provision of public services. Persons with visual, hearing, cognitive, learning, dexterity, and mobility disabilities can use voice recognition and text-to-speech, short message service (SMS), instant messaging, video messaging, and hands-free navigation to participate in their communities and independently interact with government agencies and services. Designing GovTech solutions to be accessible to people with disabilities (PWDs) could result in opening independent access to government services for the first time to a significant proportion of citizens.
WHAT WE WILL LEARN
- Learn the stages and activities that comprise a service modernization reform and how to incorporate citizen centricity based on country experiences.
- Understand opportunities and challenges surrounding each stage of the modernization process, including rationalization of services, re-engineering services, digitization and delivery.
- Understand how to incorporate accessibility into service design and delivery.
PROGRAM / SPEAKERS
Moderator | Tracey Lane, Practice Manager, Governance Global Practice, ľ¹ÏÓ°Ôº |
Opening Remarks | Ed Olowo-Okere, Global Director, Governance Global Practice, ľ¹ÏÓ°Ôº
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Presentation |
Overview of the Service Upgrade Report and Universally Accessible GovTech Note Presenter| Kimberly Johns, GovTech Global Lead |
Moderated Panel Discussion |
Discussants | - Vlad Manoil, former Deputy Director of E-Government Agency (Moldova)
- Jude Hanan, International Principal Digital Advisor, Government Digital Service International (GDSI - UK)
- James Thurston, Vice President for Global Strategy and Development, G3ict
- Charlotte McClain-Nhlapo, Global Disability Advisor, World Bank
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