22% of Brazil’s large cities have a digital transformation strategy

Brazilian municipalities are pursuing digital transformation, with 22 percent of large cities with a strategy in place and 61 percent with a plan in preparation.

The biggest concerns noted are the low integration of information and systems and data protection. These figures are from the Digital Government Map 2022, presented by the Ministry of Economy (ME).

The study measures the maturity level of the digital transformation of the country’s main cities and was conducted by the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) and the Special Secretariat for Debureaucratization, Management and Digital Government of the ME, with the support of MacroPlan.

The survey was conducted among managers of 52 cities out of a universe of 155 municipalities with a population of over 200 thousand inhabitants.

Despite representing only 2.8 percent of the country’s cities, the 155 municipalities concentrate 46.8 percent of the population and produce 59 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.

RESULTS

The Digital Government Map shows that municipalities have improved their information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, but old problems persist, such as the low integration of information and systems and the lack of data transparency-about 18 percent of respondents rated it as bad or very bad.

Other problems include data protection protocol and compliance with the General Law on Personal Data Protection, noted by 32 percent as bad or very bad, and cyber risk management practices, rated by 30 percent as bad or very bad.

The good news is that the survey indicates a trend toward institutionalizing the digital transformation effort-22 percent have a plan or strategy, and 61 percent say it is under development.

Funding tends to come from in-house resources – 77% of the municipalities surveyed say they do not rely on external sources to carry out their projects.

Mayors’ offices are prepared for the changes, with 67 percent stating that they have a team dedicated to driving the digital transformation agenda in their municipality.

Another interesting initiative is that 80 percent of the municipalities promote recurrent training for public servants to develop digital competencies.

The pandemic accelerated the digitization of citizen services and put pressure on municipalities to integrate services and processes.

The main reasons for municipalities to pursue digitization are to expand the supply of digital services to citizens; to increase public efficiency and reduce spending, and digitize the municipality’s documents and internal processes.

CHALLENGES

Finally, the study showed a list of 10 strategic challenges to overcome to enable the digital transformation of municipalities:

• Expand digitization of public services;
• Citizen inclusion and digital literacy;
• Recruitment of innovative solutions;
• Leadership sponsorship, with awareness of senior managers;
• Data security;
• Conversion of legacy systems;
• Process redesign;
• Promotion of digital skills;
• Retention of ICT teams;
• Guarantee of financial resources for the constant updating and maintenance of the process.

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