The 2025 edition of Government at a Glance Southeast Asia takes stock of governance practices in public institutions in Southeast Asia (SEA). It offers a range of data describing how governments in SEA undertake important governance functions and processes. Comparable data are presented on how these functions are managed in OECD countries and, where possible, relative to performance in SEA in the 2019 edition. Nine SEA countries are included: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam. Data are presented for these countries wherever available.
SEA countries continue to experience robust economic growth while advancing human development. After a sharp contraction around the COVID-19 pandemic, all countries returned to growth by 2022. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecasts regional economic growth of 4.7% in both 2025 and 2026. Eight of nine countries improved their Human Development Index scores between 2013 and 2023, and where available, data indicate that poverty in the region is falling.
Public finances have largely recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, but public debt levels are higher. Where data are available, SEA governments provided support to citizens and businesses during the pandemic, averaging 9.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) in extra public spending and foregone revenue (some also provided significant off-budget support to businesses and people). As a result, budget balances deteriorated from -0.9% of GDP in 2019 to -5.2% in 2020, before partially recovering to -2.1% of GDP as of 2023. However, the pandemic has left higher public debt across the region: on average, general government gross debt levels rose from 44% of GDP in 2019 to 58% in 2023.
Maintaining sound fiscal frameworks will require effective budgetary practices; greater domestic revenue mobilisation could also help. SEA countries generally have budgetary practices to support a sound fiscal framework. Six of seven have fiscal rules and objectives to support sustainable fiscal policy and macroeconomic stability, and seven of eight use multiannual top-down expenditure ceilings to constrain and focus medium-term expenditure plans. However, governance practices to provide external oversight and accountability for budgetary decisions are less well-developed. Only four of eight SEA countries (50%) have an independent fiscal institution, compared to 76% of OECD Member countries. Improving domestic revenue mobilisation would also support sound fiscal frameworks and provide additional resources to support government priorities. In 2023, general government revenues averaged only 17.8% of GDP across SEA countries, compared to 34% in OECD countries.
In infrastructure governance, SEA governments generally demonstrate strong capacity in evidence-based decision making and in balancing policy objectives across the infrastructure life cycle. All four countries with data available have long-term, cross-sectoral infrastructure plans and have adopted procurement practices that promote value for money and market access. Environmental considerations are also well integrated into infrastructure planning. However, only one of four governments in SEA for which data are available conducts independent and impartial reviews of infrastructure projects, compared to 72% of OECD countries, which do so for at least some projects. This points to a broader opportunity to strengthen appraisal processes and better incorporate lifecycle costing and risk analysis to meet development and environmental challenges.
SEA governments could substantially improve their digital government practices, particularly on artificial intelligence (AI) and open data. SEA countries score an average of only 0.37 out of 1 in the OECD Digital Government Index – which assesses maturity of digital governance – compared to 0.61 in OECD countries. SEA countries perform best on the “Digital by design” pillar (0.6 out of 1), with most having a National Digital Government Strategy in place, and institutional structures to oversee digital government work. SEA countries performed poorly on average in “Proactiveness” (0.23), that is, anticipating people’s and businesses’ needs and responding to them promptly. This could be enhanced substantially through the effective use of AI. SEA countries can also make government data more openly available. SEA countries’ average score on the OURdata Index, which examines open data maturity, is 0.22 out of 1, compared to 0.48 on average in OECD countries. Only 23% of high-value datasets in SEA are currently easily accessible to the public, compared to an average of 47% in OECD countries. This assessment dataset considers topics of public interest, including the economy, environment, meteorology, government finances, justice, education, health and social welfare
People are largely satisfied with healthcare, education and justice, yet large room exists to improve public administrative services, including through digital tools. SEA enjoys high levels of satisfaction with public services, with 87% of people reporting themselves satisfied with healthcare services and 89% with education services. Many objective measures of service delivery, such as the number of doctors and the availability of educational materials, have improved over the past 10-15 years. However, while seven out of eight SEA countries have a strategy to improve public administrative services, only four out of eight countries regularly publish information on public service performance, and some do not regularly survey users to understand their needs. Digital services remain underdeveloped and are not widely adopted. In seven of eight countries, most online public services are not accessible through a secure and user-friendly digital identity. Additionally, in seven out of eight countries, most of the eligible population have not created a digital identity to access public services.
Public institutions across SEA can do more to foster public participation and feedback. Gaps in practices to enable public engagement and transparency appear in each of the areas examined in the report. In budgeting, only one of seven SEA countries currently uses digital and interactive fiscal reporting platforms to make budgetary information more publicly accessible, compared to 75% of OECD countries. In infrastructure, no SEA country for which data are available currently mandates consultation with stakeholders during the construction, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning of infrastructure assets, compared to 45% of OECD countries. In digital government, only two out of eight SEA countries test new digital public services with users or providers before they are launched, compared to 60% of OECD countries. Building stronger public engagement into governance practices is an important next frontier for governments across the region.