Unleashing the power of government transformation: The Ministry of the Future

Learned a lot lending an editorial hand here:

PwC Strategy& Ideation Center, May 2022

by Fadi Adra, Yahya Anouti, Raed Kombargi, Paolo Pigorinia, and Dima Sayess

Middle East governments have ambitious plans to transform their countries in the face of economic, social, and technological challenges. This task has been made more urgent and difficult by the COVID-19 pandemic. The difficulty is that many of the ministries and agencies responsible for envisioning and guiding transformation are hampered by their own roles, operating models, capabilities, and governance structures. If these ministries and agencies are to play a leading role in national transformation, they will have to first transform themselves.The challenges for Middle East governments are substantial. They include changes in the region’s social fabric, mounting economic competition, technological advances, rising barriers to global trade, and budgetary pressures.In this environment, there is an urgent need for purpose-driven ministries and agencies that are fully accountable for delivering high-impact services. Too often, however, government itself becomes an obstacle to the achievement of national transformation. The sheer bulk of the region’s governments, attributable mainly to public-sector employment acting as a social safety net and weak private-sector and economic integration, reduces governmental efficiency, effectiveness, and decision-making ability. The over-involvement of government in operations and service delivery prevents private-sector engagement and expansion, hinders innovation, and creates negative competition. Moreover, few governments to date have fully taken advantage of the power of technology to lower the barriers to decision making, policy formulation, and performance evaluation.

Before they can transform their countries, governments need to become fit-for-transformation in seven ways. They must become:

• DIGITALLY POWERED: Relying on advanced and emerging technologies to enable solutions and conduct operations
• ANTICIPATORY AND PROACTIVE: Utilizing horizon scanning, foresight, scenario analysis, and best practices to address emerging and potential challenges and opportunities
• CUSTOMER-CENTRIC AND HOLISTIC: Adopting a customer-focused, whole-of-life approach to service delivery
• COLLABORATIVE AND PARTICIPATORY: Taking advantage of the collective resources, capacities, and expertise of the public sector, private sector, and citizens in order to design, deliver, and assess solutions
• AGILE AND DYNAMIC: Employing lean and flexible organizational structures staffed with fluid, crossfunctional, and accountable teams
• INNOVATIVE AND RESILIENT: Ideating, prototyping, piloting, and delivering creative and future-proof solutions that make government resilient
• EVIDENCE-BASED AND RESULTS-ORIENTED: Using targets and indicators to set, monitor, and evaluate clearly defined objectives, impacts, and outcomes 

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