Portugal’s new ICT strategy, published last week Wednesday, emphasises government modernisation. The strategy makes technology “an instrument of transformation”. The goal is to improve public services, to create new and prototype eGovernment services, and to reduce public sector costs. One of the ways to achieve this, is by sharing and reuse of ICT resources.

The ICT Strategy 2020 strategy aims “first and foremost, to ensure that digital services are simpler, more accessible, more inclusive, and accessible to all citizens”, the government writes in the Executive Summary.

The ICT plan describes actions for all types and levels of public administrations, including Education, Social Security, Infrastructure, and Agriculture. In addition, it details ten measures that emphasise ICT interoperability as an essential best practice. Examples include an ICT reference architecture (measure 4), new eID functionalities (measure 5), a new ICT competence centre to help increase ICT skills in public administrations (measure 9), and the creation of a government cloud and rationalisation of government data centres (measure 10).

“The strategy facilitates cooperation between all areas and levels of government”, writes the country’s Minister of Administrative Modernisation, Maria Manuel Leitão Marques in her introduction. Through working together and by sharing ICT and other skills, she expects to avoid the unnecessary repetition of platforms and portals, reduce waste and redundancies, and improve investments.

More information:

ICT Strategy 2020 (in Portuguese)
announcement by AMA (in Portuguese)