- The digital transformation of government goes beyond technology; it requires governance, institutional capacity, and continuity.
- Spain offers five key lessons: regulatory framework, shared services, sovereign artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and specialized talent.
- Latin America and the Caribbean can adapt these lessons to their own contexts and strengthen regional cooperation to accelerate digital transformation.
Moving toward more efficient, integrated, and people-centered public administrations is a common challenge for governments in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially amid fiscal constraints, nascent regulatory frameworks, and high turnover among technical staff.
Spain offers valuable insights into consolidating digital transformation in the public sector. In 2024, it achieved an E-Government Development Index score of 0.9206 and ranked 17th in the United Nations E-Government Survey. The first study tour on digital government organized by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Spain provided an opportunity to analyze this experience and draw a key conclusion: digitally transforming the government requires not only digitizing processes or incorporating new technologies, but also building capacities, institutions, and governance mechanisms that will sustain these advances over time.
Representatives from Bolivia, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay participated in this study tour in Madrid to analyze which elements of the Spanish model can offer relevant lessons for their own digital transformation processes. This exchange yielded five key insights that can guide the discussion in Latin America and the Caribbean.
1. Regulatory Framework, Governance, and Institutional Continuity.
The Spanish model of digital transformation has been built over more than thirty years on three pillars: a regulatory framework adapted to digital transformation; a governance model that defines responsibilities, functions, and obligations among the different levels of government; and a long-term vision that has provided institutional continuity for digitization as a matter of state policy. This continuity helps explain much of its success, beyond any specific tool.
2. Shared Services to Accelerate Digital Transformation.
The “build once, reuse many times” approach is reflected in centrally funded digital infrastructures and services. These include:
- Cl@ve, the digital identity system with more than 25 million registered users;
- the Data Intermediation Platform, which connects 54 agencies, offers more than 240 shared information services, and processes approximately 300 million transactions per year; and
- the Single Authorized Electronic Address, which processes more than 200 million notifications per year.
This approach lets institutions with limited resources—such as smaller municipalities—access advanced digital services without building the necessary infrastructure themselves. Sharing capabilities and reusing solutions can reduce duplicated effort and support digital transformation across government levels.
3. Moving Toward Sovereign Artificial Intelligence.
Within the European Union, specific regulations define artificial intelligence use cases and provide for the creation of supervisory bodies. In Spain, this regulatory framework and its governance systems have supported implementation and the creation of the Spanish Agency for the Supervision of Artificial Intelligence (AESIA).
In addition, Spanish government bodies have defined a strategy to achieve sovereign AI. To this end, they have supercomputing capabilities already being used to develop Spanish-language AI models, such as ALIA, a publicly funded Spanish-language AI initiative, with the goal of sustaining in-house generative models over time.
One key idea highlighted during the study tour was to view artificial intelligence in public administration as a “co-pilot” for public employees—always under human supervision and adhering to transparency standards.
4. Cybersecurity as a Pillar of Digital Transformation.
Spain's Cybersecurity Operations Center protects the public administration’s information assets and coordinates incident response. It currently serves 132 agencies and more than 200,000 public employees, and manages more than 12,000 incidents per month. These capabilities operate under a specific governance framework and a clearly defined risk management system.
5. Specialized Talent to Sustain Digital Transformation.
In governments with a high degree of digital maturity, the challenge lies not only in having civil servants with technological skills, but also in attracting, developing, and retaining that talent to preserve the government’s knowledge and strategic capabilities.
In Spain, the professionalization of public sector talent specializing in information technology is supported by ICT units with rigorous selection processes, highly qualified profiles, and a career path focused on systems management, data, cybersecurity, and digital services. This internal capacity allows the government to retain knowledge, technical leadership, and institutional continuity without relying exclusively on external providers.
The National Institute of Public Administration (INAP) participates in selecting public employees through competitive, merit-based processes and in their ongoing training. This helps update skills and prepare managers and specialists to face new technological and organizational challenges. Sustainable digital transformation therefore requires not only investment in technology but also institutions capable of training, professionalizing, and retaining digital talent within the government itself.
One country’s experience cannot be automatically applied to another. Fiscal capacities, regulatory frameworks, and levels of digital maturity, among other factors, make each context unique. However, the principles analyzed—ranging from governance and shared services to artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and talent—can serve as a reference for developing roadmaps tailored to each country’s needs and capabilities.
These capabilities build over time and do not necessarily develop at the same pace. Each government must define its priorities and determine how to move forward based on its own context. The discussion also raised the possibility of sharing standards and infrastructure within public administrations and across countries to facilitate adoption and implementation processes. The study tour's closing discussion highlighted this regional dimension, presenting the upcoming Ibero-American Summit as an opportunity to move toward an Ibero-American Artificial Intelligence Alliance that would promote regional cooperation and digital sovereignty.
The IDB facilitates knowledge exchange among governments and helps adapt international experience to the challenges Latin America and the Caribbean face. This work brings together knowledge, financing, and institutional strengthening to support the design of sustainable public policies.
Explore the Observatory on Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence in Latin America and the Caribbean (OGDILAC), the IDB’s platform for systematizing experiences, generating evidence, and supporting decision-making on digital transformation.