Portugal's Digital Government Progress Noted

- The Administrative Modernisation Agency (AMA) is the central public institute responsible for digital government, modernization, and simplification in Portugal, operating under the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Administrative Modernisation. Its work is divided into three main areas: digital transformation, public service delivery, and public participation. - Portugal's National Digital Strategy Action Plan for 2026-2027 outlines ambitious goals, including making all public services digitally accessible by 2030, achieving full 5G coverage, and equipping 80% of the population with basic digital skills. Key projects include a "Virtual Citizen Store," a "Digital Business Wallet," and a "LicencIA" licensing platform. - The long-running Simplex program, initiated in 2006, is a key driver of administrative simplification and has been recognized with a European Public Sector Award. It focuses on reducing bureaucracy and improving the user experience for citizens and businesses interacting with the government. A recent focus of the Simplex program has been to streamline the housing permit process. - According to the 2025 Digital Decade country report, 71% of Portuguese citizens feel that the digitalization of services simplifies their lives. The country shows strong performance in providing access to e-health records but faces challenges in the adoption of AI by businesses. - Interoperability is a cornerstone of Portugal's digital government strategy, managed through the National Interoperability Framework (NIF) and the iAP platform. By law, government ICT projects exceeding €10,000 must be pre-evaluated by AMA to ensure alignment with national strategy, with a preference for open-source software and standards. - The national science and technology funding agency, FCT, is actively involved in implementing the National Digital Strategy. It co-manages a measure for monitoring future pilot projects in areas like Quantum Computing, Robotics, and Blockchain, and is also involved in initiatives to promote digital skills and encourage girls in STEM. - In the OECD's 2022 Digital Government Index, Portugal scored 0.64, slightly above the OECD average of 0.61, with its strongest dimension being "User-Driven". However, satisfaction with administrative services was at 43%, below the OECD average of 66%. - The government's digital strategy includes a strong focus on data, with the development of a sovereign cloud infrastructure to host public administration data, aiming to improve management, efficiency, and security. It also emphasizes data-driven decision-making and the promotion of open data.