Proposing a 5-pillar Model for a National Digital Strategy

As governments around the world are in the midst of a historic and highly challenging process of shifting away from traditional methods of operation, seeking to modernize and digitalize their processes, so as to fully leverage the potential of digital technology for economic and social development, this article aims to offer a five-pillar model for a national digital strategy for digital transformation on a country level. It builds upon a different way of framing the role of the state in digital transformation, perceived as a facilitator of change, instead of a mere provider of services to be digitalized. Whereas literature tends to focus on verticals such as e-commerce, or legislative and policy frameworks that are either too narrow or too abstract, the proposed strategy includes a set of horizontal and vertical interventions in an integrated manner. The aim is to offer incentives and support to private initiatives critical for the digital transformation of different aspects of the national economy, as well as developing an ecosystem of innovative new digitally based entrepreneurship. It also contains measures to build a competitive and extrovert IT sector, as well as to attract foreign direct investment from international ICT companies.