WASHINGTON, DC, November 28, 2023 — The World Bank Board of Executive Directors today approved a US$40 million project that will strengthen the modernization of the Dominican Republic’s (DR) public administration to better serve citizens and businesses by improving the efficiency, accessibility, and responsiveness of the government administrative services.
“Bringing the government increasingly closer to citizens with new ways of thinking, working, and delivering services combined with digital solutions and innovation, is a priority for the Dominican Republic”, said Darío Castillo Lugo, Public Administration Minister. “We welcome the World Bank's support to the country’s reform and modernization agenda aimed at facilitating the lives of citizens in their interaction with the Public Sector”.
The project, entitled Support for the Implementation of the Public Administration Reform and Modernization Plan, will be implemented by the Ministry of Public Administration, in collaboration with other government agencies. It will support the DR’s Public Administration Reform and Modernization Plan, which aims to strengthen institutional capacity for the design and implementation of public policies, increase efficiency and improve the quality of public services, enhancing trust and bridging the gap between citizens and institutions.
The project introduces the Service Delivery Innovation Labs, a mechanism that will provide opportunities for beneficiaries to provide regular feedback to make government services more responsive, and to incentivize collaboration between public officials and citizens. The project will also allow citizens to experience less steps and travel time to request services such as certifications, permits, or licenses while the government will benefit from reduced transactions costs for administrative services and improvements in the quality of information available.
“Transforming development policy at scale demands ambitious reforms to public administration and this project’s innovative approach will further build the capacity to transform and digitalize all services, which will place the Dominican Republic at the forefront of modern human-centric governments”, said Alexandria Valerio, World Bank Representative in the Dominican Republic. “The World Bank will continue to support the country’s efforts to achieve real and sustained development that goes hand in hand with open, effective, and accountable public institutions.”
The project focuses on reducing by at least 30 percent the amount of time to resolve 500 central government administrative services in education, public health, agriculture, environment, and water. Expected results include improving 400 digital services based on the evidence from the Service Delivery Innovation Labs, to better serve the needs of citizens with a focus on women and vulnerable groups, including those living in remote areas affected by climate change. Additionally, the project will increase the number of users of government digital services by 40 percent, with special emphasis on reducing the gap among female users of Gob.do, the government citizen portal (currently 27 percent female versus 70 percent of male users).
The project adds to the World Bank's efforts to support governments in Latin America and the Caribbean in the use of digital technologies to transform public administration.
Learn more about the work of the World Bank in the Dominican Republic.
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