One app, many services: How Laos is integrating public services to increase efficiency

Governments have been approaching the digital age in different ways, by creating websites, applications, and digital services for various functions.  

But operating on different platforms has its own set of problems. 

With government agencies using different digital platforms, citizens were left with the responsibility of understanding the different paths to access the services they needed, thus wasting time to navigate complicated journeys and bureaucratic procedures.  

“As a citizen, I felt the pain because every time I wanted to do an endowment, it took me a whole day. This inefficiency burdens both citizens and businesses by limiting government effectiveness,” shared Lao PDR’s Ministry of Technology and Communication, Digital Government Centre, Deputy Director General, Vannapha Phommathansy.

She was speaking at GovInsider’s Festival of Innovation (FOI) event earlier this week. 

In order to take out the pain points of fragmented public services, the Digital Government Centre of Lao PDR developed the Gov-X app to create a one-stop digital platform to access public services - from healthcare and education to transport and commerce.  

During her presentation Phommathansy shared the government’s mission to simplify and digitise public services under a unified platform. 

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Streamlining access to public service 

The Laotian digital transformation agenda aims to digitalise public services through three pillars: digital economy, digital society, and digital government.  

Phommathansy said the challenges and goal were to bridge disintegrated public services across different agencies. 

It was with this intention that the Gov-X app - which stands for government cross with other products - was launched in August 2023 with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), she added.  

“We wanted to make it a one-stop digital platform, integrating all the essential public services across ministries… with one application, citizens can access several services online, which modernises our governance,” she noted.  

This solution allowed for a simplified process for citizens to access their required services, without having to travel to different offices or filling in repetitive paperwork.   

One example shared during her presentation featured a digital driving licence that citizens can use to verify their identity and eligibility to drive, without having to worry about always carrying the physical version of the license.  

This feature was developed in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Transport, which included providing scan devices for the police to carry out authentications, said Phommathansy. 

Another e-service that the app offers is Khangpanya, an education platform that provides access to textbooks and lesson plans to ensure continued learning among students. 

The feature was created in collaboration with the Ministry of Education after noting the difficulty for students, especially in rural areas, to attend school during the Covid-19 pandemic.  

Other features of the app include social welfare status check for Laotian citizens, business registration, and government office for official document processes such as visas and passports. 

Understanding the problem 

Phommathansy emphasised the importance of breaking down silos to create an interconnected public service sphere.  

She said the technical challenges in developing the Gov-X application involved difficulties in accessing the data and achieving consensus from the different agencies who were working separately.  

The key to overcoming these challenges was to move step by step and expand the application according to the capabilities of the Ministry of Technology and Communications.  

The app was launched during the pandemic with digital registration of phone numbers to verify personal information and access vaccination and timeline reporting. 

Since then, the Laotian government dedicated more focused efforts to the development of e-services through the application. But Phommathansy said that the work is far from over.  

“We want to expand more services from other government agencies and onboard them into the Gov-X,” she noted, adding that the current efforts are to expand reach at the district and village level so that every citizen in Lao PDR has access to public services online.  

Cross-border collaboration and what’s next 

The Lao PDR’s digital transformation journey takes the lessons from other governments that have successfully digitised public services to ensure cost efficient and timely service delivery.  

A number of other digital government initiatives are in the works between the Ministry of Technology and Communications with UNDP including a national e-government protal and a cloud-based data center. 

Working with GovTech Singapore’s experimental tech development arm, Open Government Products (OGP), the Laotian government has been looking to leverage FormSG and adapt it to the local context so that citizens can fill in forms and effectuate transactions online.  

As the app expands and more citizens use it, Phommathansy shared that the next step was to onboard AI-powered chatbots to help users understand basic processes of public services, such as where to submit documents or what happens after the submission.  

Additionally, the app aimed to expand in terms of data protection measures. Currently, only citizens in Lao PDR can use the app due to data security. In future, the expectation was to ensure accessibility and ease of use regardless of location.  

To read more stories about Lao PDR's Digital Government Centre, please click here.