CEE e|Dem and e|Gov Days 2021

Is CoV-19 a driver for eGovernment? Undeniably, the pandemic has changed our patterns of life considerably including usage of the digital media for working, shopping and communicating. In Public Administration, sending administrative staff to home office due to a pandemic “lockdown” brutally exposed shortcomings in public-sector digitization: Crime suspects had to be released because public prosecutors could not issue warrants from their home offices, building permits were not granted for months for lack of electronic files, school education virtually breaking down because neither necessary infrastructure nor useful concepts and content were available for remote teaching.

This raises the question, whether Corona may turn out to be the ultimate boost for digitization in these domains and whether administrations with better levels of digitization also fared better during these months, but also whether there are limits to what can be done digitally.