In this interview, Robert Ifeonu, winner of the Best Research Paper Award at ICEGOV 2025, reflects on his journey from digital banking to public sector transformation, and offers a compelling look into the philosophy and practice behind the Micro-Transformation Framework (MTF).
He identifies a critical gap in existing digital government models: they often assume levels of capacity, stability, and institutional readiness that many public administrations lack. The MTF try to respond to this gap by grounding transformation in sequenced gains, capability accumulation, and trust-building, rather than large-scale programmes that overstretch institutions. Pilot implementations will start in 2026.
Robert Ifeonu serve as Lead Digital Development Specialist in the Information Technology Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria, where his work focuses on digital governance, institutional reform, and data-driven innovation in the public sector. Ifeonu hold a PhD in Information Systems Management, with his doctoral research (2015) examining technology trust and mobile banking adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa. That work planted the first seeds of what has evolved into the Micro-Transformation Framework (MTF) presented at ICEGOV. For him, this award serves as a strong incentive to move from concept to implementation.
United Nations University - Operating Unit on Policy-driven Electronic Governance (UNU-EGOV): Your career is strongly rooted in the financial sector and digital banking, and later expanded into digital innovation leadership at the Central Bank of Nigeria. How has this background shaped the way you understand and approach digital transformation in the public sector?
Robert Ifeonu (RI): Over the last fourteen years, I've had the opportunity to work across both the private and public sectors and experience both ends of the digital transformation spectrum. I've always been fascinated by the unspoken factors that determine whether transformation efforts actually succeed or just fizzle out. My early years in financial services showed me a world with clear rules: competition, customer segmentation, performance metrics. Digital transformation there moves fast and aggressively, focused on shareholder value, profitability, and market expansion. You know who your customers are, you decide where to play and how to win. Speed and scale aren't just nice to have; they're survival. That experience taught me the power of market-driven innovation, but it also taught me that the customer is the ultimate test of value.
When I moved into the Central Bank of Nigeria, my perspective shifted. Public institutions operate under fundamentally different constraints. They don't get to choose their markets or isolate a specific user group. They're mandated to serve everyone, equitably and accountably. Legacy systems are entrenched, and change moves at the pace of law, politics, and bureaucratic culture, not market forces. The transformation lens shifts entirely, from growth to legitimacy, accountability, and stability. That contrast made me realize you can't simply transplant private sector playbooks into public sector reform. The technology is often the straightforward part. The real challenge is understanding the unique context: the interaction of capability gaps, political realities, timing, and trust. Looking back, all those experiences, the wins and the frustrations, became the undercurrents that shaped what eventually became the Micro-Transformation Framework. I see it as one piece in a much larger system of rethinking how we approach institutional change. My work now focuses on building diagnostic tools and adaptive models that recognize transformation in government can't be rushed or forced. It has to be context-aware, sequenced, calibrated, and above all, sustainable.
UNU-EGOV: Your recently awarded "Best Research Paper" presented at ICEGOV introduces the Micro-Transformation Framework (MTF) as an incremental, capability-building approach to public sector innovation. What gap in current digital government models motivated you to develop this framework, and why is a micro-transformation perspective needed today?
RI: When you look at digital transformation models across the field, many perform well in environments with clear mandates, stable governance, strong institutional capacity, and coherent data systems. The public sector rarely enjoys those conditions, especially in capacity-constrained environments where the barriers are structural, persistent, and often political. Institutions are expected to deliver ambitious reforms while navigating electoral cycles, fragmented data landscapes, entrenched legacy systems, and cultural resistance to change. The result is a widening gap between what conventional transformation models prescribe and what public institutions can realistically execute.
In my work across government, on enterprise systems, interoperability initiatives, and policy design, I repeatedly saw large-scale programmes stall not because the ideas were flawed, but because the institutions implementing them lacked the absorptive capacity to carry them. The move toward AI has only intensified this risk. The gap, therefore, was practical, not conceptual. We needed an approach that acknowledges institutional constraints instead of abstracting them away. The micro-transformation perspective does exactly that. It prioritizes capability accumulation, sequenced gains, and trust as an operational asset. It allows institutions to make meaningful progress without overwhelming the system or relying on ideal conditions that may never exist. It meets institutions where they are and gives them a pathway to move forward with discipline, realism, and sustainability.
UNU-EGOV: For readers who are encountering the MTF for the first time, how would you describe the framework?
RI: The MTF is a seven-pillar model that helps public institutions execute digital reform through small, sequenced, and strategically bounded interventions. It was designed from a deep study of what has worked and failed in public sector digital transformation over more than a decade across the globe. It treats transformation as the progressive accumulation of operational, technical, and governance capabilities rather than a single programme or some grand master plan. It doesn't ask you to downsize your ambition for digital transformation. It asks you to decompose it into well-timed, sequenced, outcome-driven steps that build the institutional muscle to absorb and sustain change over time.
The seven pillars cluster around three core concerns. First, strategic positioning: Strategic Inflection Points and Innovation Leadership help institutions identify when and how to initiate change. Second, human-centered design: Participation & Co-Creation and End-User Defined Value ensure reforms actually serve the people they're meant for. Third, sustainable execution: Outcome-by-Design, Integrated Trust, and Incremental Execution provide the governance and operational discipline to make change stick. Together, these pillars give institutions a structured way to modernize without destabilizing themselves. The framework provides a pathway for reform teams to start where they are, demonstrate early outcomes, and build the momentum and credibility needed for deeper change.
UNU-EGOV: You are currently developing the MTF Toolkit, which translates the framework into practical instruments. What are the core components of this toolkit, and how does it support institutions with varying levels of digital maturity?
RI: Moving the MTF from conceptual framework to implementable tool has been a priority because there's a real need for instruments that give practitioners tools to solve real problems. The toolkit operationalizes the framework through diagnostic instruments, templates, and low-barrier tools that institutions can adopt without major restructuring. The core components include the MTF Diagnostic, a rapid assessment tool measuring absorptive capacity and readiness across the seven pillars; Micro-Intervention Playbooks offering short, targeted interventions that deliver measurable gains within weeks; Implementation Guides with step-by-step instructions for managing scope, risk, and stakeholder alignment; and Capability Maturity Maps showing how small interventions cumulatively shift an institution toward higher digital maturity over time.
To illustrate how this works in practice: imagine a municipal registry office facing a backlog of paper-based land title applications. The diagnostic would help identify their highest-friction process. Rather than recommending full digitization, the playbooks would guide a micro-intervention focused on automating just the intake and routing workflow, the kind of targeted change that could reduce processing time significantly within weeks, build staff confidence, and create momentum for the next intervention. What's particularly valuable is the toolkit's adaptability. High-capacity institutions can use it to streamline programmes or avoid over-engineering, while capacity-constrained institutions can use it to start transformation without waiting for ideal conditions that may never come. The goal is to put something practical in practitioners' hands that helps them navigate the messy reality of public sector transformation with more clarity and confidence.
UNU-EGOV: When do you expect to advance pilot implementations of the MTF, and what kinds of insights or evidence are you hoping to gather at this early stage?
RI: The first pilot sites are expected to begin in 2026, with preparatory assessments already underway. It's a phase I'm particularly excited about because it offers a real opportunity to collaborate, learn, and iterate. The case studies and pilot implementations cover a portfolio of digital governance touchpoints, including AI in knowledge management, Digital Public Infrastructure, and the re-engineering of legacy processes. These are all happening in institutions tasked with matching digital ambition against high operational pressure, fragmented data landscapes, and repeated reform fatigue, the kinds of contexts where the micro-transformation approach is most needed. Three forms of evidence are central: capability accumulation, measuring how quickly institutions can build and retain new capabilities using small interventions; transformation velocity patterns, examining whether institutions accelerate, stagnate, or overheat at different reform paces; and trust dynamics, understanding how early wins, transparency, and reduced complexity influence internal and external trust in reform.
Interestingly, the principles of the MTF have been inadvertently applied and succeeded at both institutional and national levels, across the public sector and even in multilateral institutions. Most notably at the Central Bank of Nigeria, where innovation leadership, trust, and co-creation were key to delivering the "DocFlow" solution that catalysed institution-wide behavioural and operational change, ushering in a paperless work environment. Long-term, I'm keen on seeing how these patterns manifest across different country contexts. These findings will shape the next version of the toolkit and refine how micro-transformations are deployed across different sectors and maturity levels. It's early days, and much like the framework itself, the work is starting small with a vision for scaling its contribution to the digital governance ecosystem.
UNU-EGOV: Finally, reflecting on ICEGOV 2025: what stood out most to you during the conference, and what does receiving the Best Research Paper Award mean to you personally and professionally?
RI: ICEGOV 2025 was a pivotal experience. When I submitted my paper back in May, I had no idea it would lead to finding a vibrant community of like-minded problem solvers from all over the world. What made the conference so powerful wasn't just the quality of research being shared; it was discovering that people around the world, policymakers, academics, practitioners, are all facing the same challenges and working through the same systemic struggles. The contexts might look different, but the core challenges are universal: building trust, working within institutional constraints, managing political realities, and figuring out how to match what we want to achieve with what we can actually deliver. Being at ICEGOV made me realize I'm part of something much bigger, and the cumulative impact we can make when we work together.
Receiving the Best Research Paper Award is particularly meaningful for two reasons. Personally, it's a significant moment that validates years of trying to bridge practice and research in a way that speaks to the realities of institutions like the ones I work with. It endorses the passion I've had for this work and affirms that the path I've been on matters. Professionally, it signals that the global digital governance community sees value in rethinking how public sector innovation is approached, especially in capacity-constrained contexts. I've seen firsthand what incremental, well-governed reform can achieve, and the award has sparked a real desire to move this work into an implementable reality for government institutions.
