At the end of February, I travelled to Lima to attend a workshop hosted by the OECD and the Secretary of Public Management (SPM) of Perú. The SPM team presented several of their projects to representatives from the OECD, IDB and me, from Public Digital, and we gave feedback. The overall aim was to discuss how to improve the delivery of government services. Over 2 days I learnt about Perú’s effort to improve citizens’ experience with government by transforming its services so they are simpler, clearer and faster.

We know that the process of service transformation is not simple – but I’ve found this to be especially true in Latin American countries. Typically, the structure of governments is rigid and difficult to change – they have a perpetual status quo. In fact, I often feel that governments work hard to avoid change, and digital teams like Peru’s exist to break that status quo. Perú is working hard to change things for the better by creating service standards to encourage consistent high quality across services, and measuring user satisfaction.

This was not Public Digital’s first time in Perú. In 2017 we helped the Peruvian Government launch its single domain website Gob.pe in only a few weeks. We spent a lot of time working with them, learning about their efforts. Now, 3 years later, we can see the progress of that effort: Gob.pe keeps growing, a new digital mandate was published when I was there. That’s an amazing demonstration of political support for Perú’s digital team. Just this week Gob.pe launched a new service built in just 36 hours to provide transit permits due to the COVID-19 emergency. This is a great example of how digital organizations are responding to this pandemic: moving fast, and providing digital solutions in moments of crisis.Things are moving fast in Lima, can’t wait to see more. Onwards!