MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UK/Brazil sign agreement to accelerate digital transformation in public services

Under the memorandum of understanding signed by British Ambassador to Brazil Liz Davidson and Brazilian digital secretary Luis Felipe Monteiro, the countries will be working together until March 2023

An agreement has been signed between Brazil and the UK to accelerate digital transformation and innovation in public services delivery in the Latin American country.

Under the memorandum of understanding signed on December 29 by Acting British Ambassador to Brazil Liz Davidson and Brazilian digital secretary Luis Felipe Monteiro, the countries will be working together until March 2023.

The UK approach to digital citizen services delivery, which ranks high on the United Nations' digital government readiness assessments, has served as inspiration for the Brazilian model. Under the formalized partnership, aspects such as data governance and accessibility will be emphasized, as well as planning and implementation of digitization projects and knowledge sharing.

“Both the UK and Brazil have integrated hundreds of government websites into a single portal, reducing the mazes that their citizens had to traverse to access public services and improving the user experience, offering a more accessible, agile and secure environment”, Monteiro said.

The cooperation is part of the UK's Prosperity Fund, a £1.2 billion portfolio of projects focused on middle-income countries which concentrate most of the world's poor population and where 60% of the economic growth will come from, by 2030, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The Fund seeks to promote inclusive economic growth and reducing poverty, and creating opportunities for international business. In Brazil, the Fund's portfolio includes programs in areas such as digital access, which aims to promote digital access for undeserved and excluded populations.