Podcast 🎧 & blog: Reform calls for digitalisation, and the other way around
Written by Federico Plantera
Ask most governments about their digital transformation strategy, and you’ll get one set of documents, one institution, one timeline. Ask about public administration reform, and you’ll get another entirely. Surprisingly, as it may sound, the two do not often speak to each other – different ministries, different consultants, different metrics of success.
This institutional separation might seem like a sensible division of labour (it isn’t). According to Margus Sarapuu, Senior Expert in Governance and Engagement at the e-Governance Academy, treating these agendas as independent tracks is precisely why so many digital reforms stall, burn resources, or fail to deliver.
In this episode of the Digital Government Podcast, Sarapuu explores why public administration reform and digitalisation cannot succeed in isolation and what happens when governments try to implement them separately. He also highlights examples from Bangladesh, Estonia, Kosovo, Moldova, and Ukraine, where eGA is currently supporting or has previously supported digital transformation efforts.
The Interdependence Problem
The issue is visible immediately, says Sarapuu. “Look at how governments structure their reform efforts. They have separate strategies for e-government and public administration reform, separate institutions responsible for each.” However, this structural division conceals a functional reality: neither can succeed in isolation.
It’s just not possible nowadays to have any effective public administration without digitalisation,” Sarapuu explains.
“And to deliver any digital transformation, you need a strong public administration. If you don’t have those capacities within the administration, the IT solutions a government procures will not be of good quality.”
The relationship cuts both ways. Without digital infrastructure, administrative reforms remain paper exercises. Without capable institutions, digital systems become expensive, rigid solutions that duplicate rather than replace legacy processes.
Legacy and Honesty
Sarapuu has seen across multiple country contexts what happens when digitalisation lands on unreformed bureaucracy. Digital layers get added on top of legacy processes rather than redesigning them. Citizens end up with the worst of both worlds – required to navigate digital portals while still carrying around physical documents.
The point is, the problem runs deeper than inconvenience. When digital reforms proceed without internal capacity building, governments may end up locked into vendor dependencies with limited ability to adapt or iterate. “You are very much reliant on the specific digital solution your provider is offering you,” notes Sarapuu. “It becomes more expensive and quite rigid to change.”
And when governments chase the latest technological hype – blockchain yesterday, agentic AI today – without solid foundations, they waste resources on solutions they lack the infrastructure, data quality, or institutional culture to implement effectively.
For Sarapuu, the prescription begins with a diagnosis. “Being honest about the government status, or starting point, would be a good idea to begin with,” he argues.
Too often, political rhetoric about digital transformation outpaces reality, creating implementation gaps that swallow resources without delivering value.
The distinction matters between cost and investment. Digital spending becomes an investment only when it produces benefits, which requires the institutional capacity to spend taxpayer money in ways that generate real value. Without capable administration, digitalisation becomes a cost without return.
A Window of Opportunity
Estonia’s digital success story is often invoked, but Sarapuu cautions against treating it as a simple blueprint. The country benefited from a specific historical moment: the collapse of the Soviet Union, a young and open-minded generation coming to power, and widespread enthusiasm for democracy. “However, empires don’t collapse too often,” he notes dryly.
Yet luck alone doesn’t explain Estonia’s trajectory. “In fact, in Estonia’s case, the window of opportunity came exactly from being ready for it, prepared,” says Sarapuu. And the clear strategic priorities (EU and NATO membership) aligned political will with governance reform.
Another distinctive factor is the private sector, which has pioneered digital services. Estonians got accustomed to good e-banking before e-government existed, creating citizen demand that pulled public administration forward.
When the government came in, people were demanding the same level of good digital services as they got used to in the private sector.”
Drawing on e-Governance Academy’s work in Ukraine, Kosovo, Bangladesh, and Moldova, Sarapuu identifies different gradients of opportunity vs. constraints – and other lessons about reform under pressure, or in transition.
Ukraine demonstrates resilience: pre-war digitalisation created capacity that has proven essential to functioning under extreme conditions.
We can see not only how the government does reforms in wartime, but how resilient government supported by digitalisation is part of actually winning the war.”
Kosovo faces a different challenge – political gridlock that stalls reform, even in the absence of active conflict. Bangladesh is facing a leadership vacuum, as a legitimate government has yet to take office. Moldova, meanwhile, sits at a potential turning point: recent pro-European electoral victories create an opportunity window that may not recur.
According to Sarapuu, Â Moldova has a historic opportunity to push forward public administration and digital transformation reforms and bring them closer in line with EU standards.
Within the next years, it is possible to reform the government of Moldova in a way that will make people see the benefits of a pro-European democratic government.”
The Recipe, Such As It Is
What are the non-negotiable ingredients? Leadership matters, as concrete prioritisation backed by resource allocation. The gap in service quality between Estonian institutions often stems from whether leadership has made digitalisation a priority.
Societal demand plays an equally important role. Citizens expect high-quality digital services, and decision-makers must respond accordingly. Because when the private sector too benefits from quality public services – through lower transaction costs and easier business processes – firms become invested stakeholders in continued reform.
And the investment logic needs to be understood correctly: public administration reform enables digitalisation, which in turn allows economic growth, which funds further public investment. The cycle is self-reinforcing – when it works.
For government leaders listening, Sarapuu’s message is direct: stop treating the public administration reform and digital transformation as separate agendas.
“There is interdependency,” he reiterates. “Public administration needs to be empowered by digitalisation, and digitalisation can only be done by capable public administration.”
The doctor analogy is apt: correct diagnosis enables correct treatment.
Governments that are honest about their current state – about capacity gaps, legacy constraints, institutional weaknesses – can design interventions that actually work.
Those who chase rhetorical victories over substantive reform will continue deploying resources on solutions that, perhaps, may turn out to be not much of a solution as envisioned. Neither path is self-intuitive, but only one leads somewhere.