How can one app change the whole country?

In the era of high-tech services at your fingertips, Ukraine as a state kept operating in the old Soviet way for years, forcing citizens to give bribes, tolerate petty tyranny of government clerks and stand in endless queues, hoping to receive one document or another.

To transform this crooked system into a human oriented service, we changed the way the government interacts with its citizens, by re-engineering dozens of state services and making them available on tap on one online portal and in one mobile app—the Diia.Digital State (‘action’ in Ukrainian).

In 2019, Ukraine was once again included in the list of the most corrupt countries in the world, according to the Corruption Perceptions Index. For years, lack of transparency in obtaining basic public services had given rise to grassroots corruption and nepotism throughout Ukrainian society. No wonder why people had been distrustful of the government, and associated public and state services with stress and wasted time.

To prevent corruption and make public services more accessible, the previous government of Ukraine made attempts to digitize them. However, instead it came down to the blind digitalization of the usual bureaucratic chaos.

This time it had to be different. The newly established Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine set about transforming an outdated system and creating a digital state that would provide prompt and stress-free online services as a one-stop shop.

But how to make the bureaucratic behemoth work in a new way?

For the first time in the history of digitalization in Ukraine, the state started listening to people rather than to governors in corridors of power.

Teamed up with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, we started our work by conducting a national survey in order to find out what people expect from the digitalization of public services first and foremost. ?Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians responded that equal access to services free of corrupt practices is of great importance. However, they primarily want convenient and understandable interaction with the state.

Based on these answers followed by quality research, we developed the Human First Strategy—a digital state with neither processes, nor procedures, but a person at the core.

For years, communication between the Ukrainian state and its citizens had been akin to the conversation of an adult with a delinquent child. The dialogues were dry and reluctant, the tone of voice was demanding, making people feel bewildered, nervous, and somehow always taking the fall.

People hated this didactic tone from the officials who are supposed to serve, not impose on their fellow citizens. They needed a helper, who understands their needs, can put everything clearly and simplifies their life. So, after analyzing the results of the national survey, we started working on simplification and clarification of every service and product our government has provided.

People and their interests finally appeared at the forefront of all the government processes. And our basic concept was not a mechanical digitalization of the bureaucracy, but re-engineering of each service to make it more understandable and comfortable.

Apart from re-engineering the services and making them unified and accessible, we needed to create a brand, which could integrate all the projects of the digital transformation of Ukraine and became a symbol of a new transparent and progressive government.

This brand got the name Diia ('action'), as the dialogue with the state was reduced now to a simple action—tapping a button.

Diia.Digital State became a magnet that attracted leading IT companies, international funds, and Ukrainians that believe in the future of their country and are eager to put these changes into action. The project inspired millions of people to see the opportunities for developing Ukraine and supporting this movement.

Moreover, we helped people to start trusting the government again.

- Around 13mil app installations—30% of the population

- 8.1mil portal users—18.5% of the population

- Ukraine became the 4th country in Europe to digitize driver’s license

- The 1st country that equated digital passport to the paper/plastic one

- Developed an algorithm for simplifying every governmental service that consists of 4 steps: survey, rearrangement, testing, launch.

- 54% of online registrations of sole proprietorships arranged in Diia (500,000 in total)

- 12 services and 12 digital documents provided in Diia app, including: digital driver’s license, international passport, EU Digital COVID Certificate.