Building Future-Ready Governments: Insights from the Pandemic

Today, the IBM Institute for Business Value, in collaboration  with the National Association of Public Administration (NAPA) and the IBM Center for the Business of Government, released the report “Building future ready governments.” 

The new report summarizes lessons learned by governments during the pandemic era and explores the actions taken to transform and boost IT capabilities during an unprecedented  and challenging time. The report, based on a 2023 an IBM survey of 635 government leaders in 44 countries, assesses how governments ramped up resilience to meet future crises and issues recommendations to bolster preparedness for shock-level events in the future. 

As the pandemic spread in 2020, and its associated health and economic costs reached  crisis proportions, governments around the world mobilized resources. In 2020 alone, huge increases in government spending on health reached a new high of $9 trillion, representing approximately 11% of global GDP. This spike in government spending led to a period of unprecedented growth in mission capabilities and transformation of operations.

The study found that in the aftermath of this unprecedented challenge, many government leaders now find themselves not as preprepared for the next round of future shocks as they  should be as the rate at which organizations are improving has slowed. This despite 70% of  leaders believing shocks are likely to increase in their intensity and impact in the future.

“Due to its global scope and scale, the COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique opportunity  to understand where mission-critical capabilities stood and how governments ramped up  resilience to meet the unprecedented times,” said Cristina Caballe Fuguet, Managing Partner and Vice President, Global Public Sector, IBM Consulting. “Through the innovation and investment spurred on by the pandemic, governments entered an era of growth in functional capabilities and organizational transformation that should only  expand as the new era of AI – with responsible generative AI tools – offers tremendous  potential for governments around the world.” 

“As extreme events happen more frequently, local, regional, and national government organizations must be even more agile, resilient, and forward-looking to navigate what lies ahead. While technology maturity played a large role in building resilience and bolstering governments’ mission, the report shows that the embrace of new technologies like  generative AI is also a strong indicator for success,” said Casey Werth, General Manager,  Global Public Sector IBM Technology. “This report provides essential insights that can  help government leaders around the globe take stock of where they are now and take  necessary actions to reinforce resilience and build future ready governments.” 

Insights of the IBM survey indicate actions and investments made to improve resilience, as  well as mindsets and attitudes toward organizational transformation. The surveyed leaders in over 40 countries identified specific actions and attitudes required of government leaders to not only develop a playbook for preparation, but to also make progress along the  way.  

Lastly, the study confirms government organizations that flourished during the pandemic  expressed very different characteristics when compared to those that reflected a slower  pace of transformational progress with performance gaps showing the need for these  organizations to make progress on all of the elements of resilience to improve overall  mission capabilities. 

The report also includes a series of recommendations as they develop capacities to  respond to the next shock event. Moving forward, government organizations must continue to invest in building resilience, be vigilant by bolstering cybersecurity, expand adoption of  advanced cloud, AI, automation, and other emerging technologies, and develop and follow  a playbook for preparation.