MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil a leading power in digitalization of public services, World Bank says

Procedures are speedier and more environment friendly, Coelho said

A World Bank study released Sunday in Brasilia showed the largest South American country was second globally among 198 economies in the digitalization of public service structures.

Brazil was recognized as the second most advanced country in the world in the field of digital government, as the World Bank measured the current stage of digital transformation of public services in 198 countries. The country moved up five notches from the 2021 ranking.

The study points out that the offer of digital public services on the gov.br platform already has 140 million users, about 80% of the adult population. A single password is all it takes for citizens to access thousands of digital services and obtain the information they seek.

”This rise is due to the natural execution of a plan that began in 2019 (...) using international best practices, to provide increasingly easier and citizen-centric public services,“ Secretary of Digital Government Fernando Coelho explained.

The agency reporting to the Economy Ministry also pointed out that all services with a strong economic and social impact were easily accessed through the gov.br platform.

In its research, the World Bank listed 48 indexes, in all of which Brazil was rated ”very high.“

”We asked questions in four major areas: one of the structuring systems, with an approach focused on the management of the state machine; another area is the supply of services, with a more outward-looking vision, more for the citizen (how this supply is made and if it is organized); the third area is engagement and transparency, to bring the population to the design of these services, to contribute to public policies; and the fourth area is related to governance strategy if the vision is well implemented,” Coelho underlined.

The gov.br platform materializes the digital government strategy in Brazil by gathering in a single portal the offer of services to the population, in a standardized way, and with a single taxpayer ID.

The digitalization of services has a positive impact on society as a whole - total savings of around R$ 4.6 billion (US$ 0.86 billion) are estimated. The citizen no longer spends, for example, on transportation, printing, and sending documents. The state also reduces spending on the resources that would be necessary to meet these requests. But the impact is not only financial, since there are also savings in time and process speed, thanks to automation, it was reported.

Another benefit of digital transformation is the security and protection of data, a strategic issue for the taxpayer and also for the state. The gov.br platform is hosted in the same environments and with the same criteria that store data that require tax secrecy, such as income tax and other taxation services. And privacy is up to the taxpayer, who “can ask for information about the use, he can revoke the use at any time. The citizen is the holder, he has the power to use this data,” Coelho went on.

(Source: Agencia Brasil)