Brazil is one of the leaders in the digitalization of public service

Brazil was recognized as the second most advanced country in the world in digital government. The evaluation is from the World Bank, which measured the current stage of digital transformation of the public service in 198 countries. The country rose five positions in relation to the 2021 ranking.

The offer of digital public services on the gov.br platform, according to the evaluation, 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. A planning, using international best practices, to provide increasingly easier and citizen-centric public services," explains the Secretary of Digital Government of the Ministry of Economy, Fernando Coelho. All services with a strong economic-social impact are now easily accessed through the gov.br platform.

Indicators

To make the evaluation and prepare the ranking, the World Bank listed 48 indicators, which led to the formation of four indexes. Brazil obtained a "very high" concept in all of them.

"Questions were asked in four major areas: one of structuring systems, with an approach focused on the management of the state machine; another area of service provision, with a more outward-looking vision, more for the citizen (how this provision 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 concerns governance, strategy, if the vision is well implemented," says Secretary Fernando Coelho.

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.

Economy

The Secretary argues that the digitalization of services has a positive impact on society as a whole - a total saving of around R$4.6 billion is estimated. The citizen no longer spends, for example, with 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.

Another benefit is security and data protection. The gov.br platform is hosted in the same environments and with the same criteria that store data that require, for example, fiscal secrecy. And the management of privacy is in the hands of the citizen: "He 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," explains Fernando Coelho.