IN MANY countries, including the Philippines, the public sector has been found to be lacking in the overall response to the current pandemic.
The only way to regain governments’ position is to explore and rethink their approaches to the public health emergency rather than look at past experiences, according to Dr. James Brumby, senior adviser for Governance, Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions vice president of the World Bank Group Singapore.
A challenging crisis like the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is calling for the reshaping and shifting of existing approaches to ensure the effective and efficient delivery of public services. In other words, innovate to be resilient under the so-called “new normal.” Old formulas may no longer work or not as effective as they were before.
In the current context, the past may not be a good guide to the future. This is the worst pandemic since the Spanish Flu, the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, but none of us have lived to experience these.
To shape the future of governments, what should influence service delivery? Brumby cited the following:
* One is contagion risk, which he said is “determined by the prevalence of the physical proximity within public service workforce for a given function, proximity between workforce, customers, and clients and physical objects that need to be passed from one to another, and the shared ‘space, materials, and air’ between or across groups.”
The reduction of virus transmission might “involve capital works” and “changes in work actions and practices” that will be “required to manipulate or guide demand” in government.
* Another factor is technological process substitution through digitalization. Governments – national and even local – must embrace new technologies and digital systems to improve service delivery.
Some government services could be digitalized, such as tax administration, one-stop shops, immigration registration, customs and employment services, and public transportation.
* Also, governments would have to deal with fiscal and wider public financial risks due to the outbreak. A large economic programs support in 2020 will crowd out public spending in future years.
* Lastly, government information is being challenged during this pandemic.
The pandemic showed that nontraditional information sources might be increasingly important and profoundly influential. Governments need to get used to the idea of “big data.”
Nontraditional information sources include human mobility data, satellite data, crowdsourced user data, transaction data, text mining, and data fusion. These can trigger more direct actions from citizens and impel governments to act.
Indeed, to be resilient under the “new normal”, innovation is key. Explore new ways. Think out of the box.
