Over the past few decades, digital technologies have become embedded in the functioning of governments and public administrations worldwide. From online service delivery and electronic participation tools to open government data and the growing interest in artificial intelligence, digital transformation has reshaped how the state interacts with citizens, businesses, and other public stakeholders. Much of the appeal of these reforms lies in their promise to simplify administrative procedures, improve efficiency, enhance transparency, and support economic and social development.
This optimism is justified, but the socioeconomic impacts of digital government are neither automatic nor evenly distributed. Understanding the conditions under which these transformations translate into broad societal benefits, therefore, remains an open and increasingly important policy and research question.
A growing body of research suggests that digital government can generate socioeconomic benefits across several dimensions. By simplifying procedures and reducing the need for repeated interactions with public authorities, digital tools can help lower administrative and regulatory burdens for citizens and firms. Digitalization has also been associated with improvements in transparency and accountability, particularly where public sector data is collected and made more systematically accessible. Digital government can strengthen oversight and, under certain conditions, serve as a deterrent to corrupt practices by reducing discretionary interactions and increasing traceability. However, these benefits do not emerge uniformly or instantaneously. They depend on how digital reforms are designed and implemented, as well as on the capacity of public administrations and citizens to use the technologies effectively.
While digital government can deliver significant benefits, its effectiveness depends on factors that extend beyond the mere adoption of technology. Digitizing existing procedures without rethinking underlying processes, organizational practices, or legal and regulatory frameworks may limit potential gains. As an illustrative example, research based on Brazilian courts, forthcoming at the time of writing, shows that the introduction of digital case management systems does not necessarily translate into faster case resolution or lower backlogs, highlighting that simply transferring analogue workflows into digital environments may not suffice to deliver all the promised gains.
Alongside these potential gains, digital transformation raises equity concerns that, while distinct from debates around privacy, security, and algorithmic bias, are equally consequential. Digital divides, shaped by differences in access, skills, age, gender, and social and cultural norms, shape who digital transformation leaves behind. As a result, digital government progress may improve average outcomes while simultaneously reinforcing existing inequalities. Without deliberate efforts to address barriers to access and use, the very tools designed to simplify interactions with the state risk creating new forms of exclusion, particularly for vulnerable groups.
Digital divides also manifest across countries, reflecting disparities in resources, infrastructure, and institutional capacity. Recent benchmarks, such as the GovTech Maturity Index 2025, reveal that despite widespread progress in digital government maturity worldwide, gaps between the most and least mature countries are widening. Paradoxically, countries with the highest potential to benefit from administrative modernization are often those where digital divides are most pronounced, meaning that poorly designed reforms risk leaving the most vulnerable populations behind precisely where improvements are most needed.
Evidence from contexts facing capacity constraints, such as recent UNU-EGOV work on Guinea-Bissau’s digital transformation strategy, illustrates multiple challenges related to administrative capacity, coordination, resource scarcity, skills gaps, and political instability. In such settings, digital reforms may struggle to translate into tangible benefits if foundational elements, including skills, infrastructure, and institutional arrangements, are not addressed in parallel. Structural factors also matter. For example, research on small island states indicates that scale and geographic constraints can limit digitalization trajectories even when other conditions are similar.
Taken together, research and practice point to a central lesson of digital transformation. Digital government can lead to more efficient, transparent, and accountable public sectors, but its socioeconomic impact is shaped by context, capacity, and design choices. Without deliberate attention to inclusion, skills, institutional arrangements, and complementary reforms, digitalization risks reproducing or amplifying existing asymmetries, even as aggregate indicators improve. As governments continue to expand and deepen their digital agendas, the challenge is not only to adopt new technologies but to ensure that digital government evolves as an inclusive governance tool, capable of delivering broad benefits across societies.
