Government Transformed

In this episode of Government Transformed, Estonia’s minister of justice and digital affairs, Liisa Pakosta, speaks to GGF’s executive editor Richard Johnstone about her country’s digital transformation journey.

She explains how, after regaining independence from Russia in 1991, Estonia set out to end government corruption and make all public sector activities trackable for citizens. Together, Pakosta and Johnstone discuss the country’s success to that end, touching on the role that digital signatures play in making its government departments more efficient, as well as how data trackers allow Estonians to know when a government official has accessed their data, and on what legal grounds.

Pakosta also discusses why governments around the world to strike universal accords on AI safety, likening the technology’s capacity for progress and destruction to that of nuclear energy.

She also speaks about Estonia’s approach to cybersecurity, which she says is tightly organised around strict rules, cooperation between public and private sectors, rapid incident response, and a voluntary cybersecurity squad. Highlighted in this thread of the conversation is Estonia’s centrally managed distributed Data Exchange Layer (DXL), known as ‘X-Road’, which Pakosta offers as an example of secure architecture used today by both Estonia and Ukraine.

Estonia boasts some of the world’s most sophisticated digital public services, and is widely considered an exemplar among nations in the field of digital transformation in government. In this episode, Pakosta explains how the country’s fully furnished suite of personalised digital public services began with something very simple: the provision of automatic support for parents immediately after a child is born.

Listen to the episode to find out all this and more.
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In the fifth and final episode of Government Transformed 2.0, David Halpern rejoins Richard Johnstone and Nicholas Gruen to discuss the efficacy of evaluative processes in government, and how public servants can and should be empowered to make better evaluations of public policy.

Gruen explains the concept of the institutional imperative by way of Warren Buffett's ‘business imperative’, from which he admits he has borrowed the term.

“What [Buffett] says is that business managers find that they are driven to expand the business. His argument is that, as an investor and a business manager, his role is not to expand a business, but to use capital as productively as possible. And those two things are not the same in government.”

Gruen went on to say that the institutional imperative often risks becoming a “preoccupying force” in government, such that it crowds out “problem-solving [and] critical thinking about how a system can improve”.

Listen to hear Gruen and Halpern also discuss:

· The importance of independent evaluations of policy,
· The role of curiosity in driving innovation
· The potential for bottom-up meritocracy to improve government services.
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Governments around the world are focusing on how to use technology to deliver better public services, and in this episode of Global Government Forum’s Government Transformed 2.0 looks at how governments can realise the digital to usher in a public health revolution.

In this conversation, Nicholas Gruen and Sherry Glied, professor of public service at New York University, discussed the potential for genetic and DNA testing to provide more personalised public services.

Gruen spoke about the potential of services like 23andMe to be used for preventative and personalised public health services. He described going to San Francisco in 2012 to see Anne Wojcicki, the firm’s former CEO, give a presentation on the service.

The company is a private sector company, but Gruen said he thought about how it has the potential to work in government.

“There was this perfect opportunity. What should happen with 23andme is that the government should pay for the genomic analysis, it should get a copy of the genome, which, of course, it should keep private.”

Broadening the conversation, Glied spoke about concerns that were both economic and political. In America, the idea of government owning information on individuals is problematic, which is a challenge, and, indeed, using genomes “hasn't actually generated as much medical advance as people had thought”.

The conversation also touched on countries that have led the principle and practice of digital government, and how pioneering governments are not just looking at how to give citizens easier access to digital public health services, but proactively making them aware of these services when they reach life milestones.

Listen to this episode to find out:

· The potential for public-private digital partnerships
· Challenges in leveraging digital technology in healthcare
· The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public trust

Finally, DO NOT MISS your chance to be among the stellar list of delegates and speakers at GGF's flagship UK event, Innovation 2026.
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In the third episode of this podcast series, Richard Johnstone, Nicholas Gruen, and Dan Corry discuss the evolution of government's role in technology regulation – and what it mean to truly embrace technology for digital engagement, collaboration, and transparency.

In this conversation, they discuss the potential identified in the 2009 Government 2.0 report on the potential for digital engagement, collaboration, and transparency in government – and whether governments have been able to realise this potential.

In this conversation, Gruen discusses the reasons behind slow progress, which include risk aversion in public service, and a lack of leadership.

Listen to this conversation to hear:

The importance – and challenges – of data linkages in government to improve services.
The benefits of transparency in policy making – and how it can help.
The need for transparency as AI is used more in government service delivery – and how to implement it.

Finally, DO NOT MISS your chance to be among the stellar list of delegates and speakers at GGF's flagship UK event, Innovation 2026.
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The second episode of Global Government Forum’s Government Transformed 2.0 podcast discusses the changing nature of public goods in the digital age – and what governments must do to maximise their benefits.

The series comprises conversations that look at the story of digital transformation in government over the last 15 years, and this second discusses the evolution of public goods in the digital age.

In this episode, host Richard Johnstone, regular contributor Nicholas Gruen and guest David Halpern, discuss what now counts as public goods in the digital age – and how they can be harnessed for public policy ends.

In this conversation Gruen – an Australian economist and government innovation thought leader – and Halpern – president emeritus and former chief executive of the UK's Behavioural Insights Team, and now director of The Downing Battcock Institute – discuss the public goods of the digital era.

This discussion explores how digital platforms like Wikipedia and Google have become public goods of opportunity, providing free access and generating significant value, and how governments can support and leverage these digital public goods.

They also discuss the potential for government to act as a benevolent wholesaler, providing information to help citizens make informed decisions and improve market functioning.
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