How to Identify Affordable High-Impact Digital Solutions for Public Services?
Year: 2023
Content-Type: Executive Summary
Description: Digital projects in education, healthcare, and administrative services displayed net present values and low implementation costs, but wide variation was found in net benefits across policy options A fully digital solution is not always the best option for balancing costs and benefits. Adequate integration of digital and human inputs is often necessary. Since digital applications feature low or negligible marginal cost, scale is critical in producing large social net benefits. In Latin America and the Caribbean, during the last decade, consumer access to and use of digital technology, particularly through smartphones, has increased markedly. Nonetheless, governments in the region have limited resources for projects that can harness the new digital channels to provide public services. As many digital public services can both expand access to services and be implemented at a lower cost, governments have a range of opportunities to improve public service delivery through digitalization. The availability of digital solutions with high benefits and low costs (low-hanging fruit) provides a strong motivation for governments to improve the efficiency and quality of public services.
Pages: 4 pages
Author: Cristia, Julian P.; Vlaicu, Razvan
Categories: Digitalization, Health, Policy / Governance, Public Sector, Publications, Technologies & Innovations
Tags: Digitalization, Health, Policies, Public sector, Technologies