Foreword
This OECD Digital Government Review assesses the institutional, legal and policy arrangements for digital government in Argentina. It highlights the main achievements and challenges to govern the design, management, monitoring and evaluation of ICT projects, build digital talent in the public sector, and improve public service delivery. The review also discusses overall data governance, including the enabling frameworks that support enhanced data access and sharing across the public sector.
Since 2015, Argentina’s government made digitalisation a priority, and the development of the Digital Agenda brought greater clarity to the policy agenda. As part of the Digital Agenda, the central administration designed critical initiatives to build a paperless government, improve public service delivery, reinforce public sector competences, and produce and open up quality government data.
The progress achieved has been impressive, but some challenges remain. Argentina needs now to focus on long-term sustainability of the results achieved so far. The review recommends moving towards a more structured policy framework to foster a more mature digital state. It stresses how a digital government strategy, and a complementary national data strategy, would improve policy accountability, ownership and sustainability. It also highlights opportunities to draw on talent from outside the public sector, while reinforcing public sector digital skills. The review advises scaling up initiatives to design and delivering digital services that focus on citizens’ needs, and sustaining efforts to build a public sector that governs, manages and shares data in pursuing good governance, business digital innovation and social impact.
This review was undertaken at the request of the Government Secretariat of Modernisation within the Chief Cabinet Office, as part of OECD work with Argentina to support its national public sector reform agenda.
The review should also help advance the international debate on this topic, as Argentina is an active player in international discussions and fora on digital and open governments. In 2018, Argentina held the Presidency of the G20, and led the development of the G20 Digital Government Principles. In the same year, it took over the role of co-chair of the Open Government Partnership Steering Committee and hosted the International Open Data Conference. The country is an active participant in relevant OECD bodies, including the OECD Working Parties of Senior Digital Government Officials (E-Leaders) and on Open Government, and the OECD Expert Group on Open Government Data.
The review also contributes to the OECD Going Digital Project, an initiative of the OECD to address digitalisation challenges and opportunities across different policy areas, including digital government.