Governor Uba Sani’s Fascinating Digital Revolution for Efficiency in Governance?

BOOK TITLE : BUILDING DIGITAL PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE AT STATE LEVEL (A Roadmap For State Governments in Nigeria)

NUMBER OF PAGES : 70

AUTHOR: Kaduna State Government

REVIEWER: Nasir Dambatta

The increasing complexity encountered in the administration of human affairs, as the world glides faster and farther into the complex purposes of its existence, has, consequently, continued to increase the complexity of systems in the proper administration of those affairs according to the demands of the emerging times.

This startling situation has created the most-crucial imperative for the utilisation of technology, which now guides virtually all conducts of human activities and affairs, to digitalise the management of those activities and affairs according to the demands and development levels of the various human societies in the modern world.

In the Nigerian situation, this all-engulfing global trend has precipitated the urgent need for government at the federal and state levels to build the required digital infrastructure to facilitate safer, simpler, proper, more efficient, more purposeful, more expedient and, very fascinatingly, much cheaper system for the delivery of the desired quality of governance.

This is exactly what this book: BUILDING DIGITAL PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE AT STATE LEVEL: A Roadmap For Kaduna State Government, has aimed to achieve.

In 70 pages divided into 20 topics, the author carefully, tactfully and sharply compressed all the required critical components for building a Digital Public Infrastucture at the state level.

In the foundation topic, ‘EXECUTIVE SUMMARY’, the author attempted to convincingly explain to the reader what an emerging and increasingly robust evidence base globally for the impact of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) can have on government efficiency.

In seven pages, he rolled out a wide range of advantages of the DPI in capsulated form, to explain to the reader that DPI is a foundation framework comprising interconnected digital platforms that are open to the public and can work together seamlessly. He subsequently attempted to explain that it enables governments deliver crucial public services to the citizens in such forms as: cash transfers, online education, e-health and other e-governance services.

Under ‘CONTEXT AND APPROACH’, the second part of the book, the author made an attempt to carry the reader along through the impact of digitising public infrastructure. He, in 13 capsulated subtopics, tried to convince the reader about the existence of an emerging and increasingly robust evidence base globally for the impact that the development of digital financial services and mobile money ecosystems can have in citizens resilience, economic growth, government efficiency, financial and economic inclusion, social protection, gender equality and women’s economic empowerment.

There is also the need for you to ‘IDENTIFY YOUR REASON TO ACT’. Accordingly, the author asserts that everyone has a different objective or reason to act, thereby pricking the conscience of Kaduna State government to identify his own/its own. This, he believes, is because, the reasons governments choose to prioritise digital financial services vary.

With this, the author attempted to transit the reader smoothly to ASSESSING FEASIBILITY which sets out the key elements within a feasibility study and how its output can also provide a strong baseline for ongoing monitoring and evaluation.

Then arise, the need for UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEXT, which covers contextual analysis of the broad range of needs and opportunities, enabling environment; legislation, policy and regulation; payment readiness in public and private sectors.

Under The VISION, BLUEPRINT, ROADMAP & DELIVERY STRUCTURES component of the book, the author wants the government to state its specific vision for the state’s digital payment system which provides a focal point for designing activities and an overarching guide to steer the implementation of specific activities and projects.

This component also talks about mapping potential use cases; blueprint action plans; and implementation roadmap.

The author then states the need for government to IDENTIFY, INCENTIVISE & ONBOARD PARTNERS in the project. Specifically, he believes, there is the need for identifying capability gaps and incentivising partners; and how to mobilise resources got the digital public infrastructure building project.

After the TEST & LEARN component, where he proffers a list of testing solutions, the author arrived at the need to SCALE FOR SUCCESS where he wants the government to develop strategies for driving widespread adoption of the digital systems and identify the capacity gaps and challenge.

Under IMPACT MONITORING AND EVALUATION, he expressed the need for the government to MONITOR & EVALUATE, which covers tracking progress and building structures; develop a cyclical and inclusive knowledge management system; identify existing systems; create accessible and effective avenues; and host periodic Town Hall events across various localities.

He then brought out the need for SOCIAL PROTECTION where he wants the government to develop the ability to provide social payments to citizens in a targeted, efficient and cost effective way as a key objective for digitising social register and payments system.

The author talked about STRUCTURING GOVERNANCE FOR SOCIAL PROTECTION, under which he posits that governance at a project level is as important as governance at a state level, especially where a use case cuts across multiple MDAs and, therefore, strong coordination is required.

The reader is then taken to the TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE component of the book, where the author calls for delivering a robust digital public infrastructure programme that requires string of technical expertise in a range of different areas.

The book concludes with DATA AND RESEARCH where the author says there is a significant library of research available to understand the value and methodology for digitisation to help guide state level strategy and planning.

In this 70-page book, the author has safely and smoothly taken the reader to a fascinating voyage of discovery on the convincing reasons for building digital public infrastructure by Kaduna State to ease the delivery of the desired governance for all sectors of the state economy as necessitated by the increasing complexities of the modern world.

The book: BUILDING DIGITAL PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE AT STATE LEVEL, is a very ambitious, relevant and invaluable material not just for Kaduna State but for any state government in this country, desirous of fashioning out the most efficient and simplest system of delivering the quality governance with the most-proputious application and management of available resources.

The author was, however, very much at pains to simplify terms for the proper understanding and easy application of the concerned MDAs engaged in the broad gamut of state administration.