This chapter provides an overview of public sector innovation in Kazakhstan. It considers how existing strategies, reforms, investments, and capabilities impact the government’s ability to work in new ways, identifying enablers and barriers to innovation across the public administration. Throughout, the chapter highlights examples of innovation in Kazakhstan and draws on good practices globally to foster innovation in the public sector.
OECD Public Governance Scan of Kazakhstan
Toward a More Agile, Responsive and Effective Public Administration
Abstract
4.1.1. Innovation in the public sector helps governments to deliver on their objectives, while keeping up with the pace of change in the world
As governments around the world navigate complex challenges, the ability of public sectors to adapt to change and work in innovative ways is crucial (OECD, 2017[1]). New ways of working – from adopting technology to adapting internal processes – help governments to deliver on ambitious objectives, while keeping pace with the change in the world. This is particularly relevant in Kazakhstan where an ambitious vision has been set out to enter the 30 most developed countries globally, while simultaneously the government is continuing with a far-reaching programme of public administration reforms (President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2015[2]; Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021[3]).
This chapter provides an overview of public sector innovation practices and supports in Kazakhstan. It aims to identify enablers and barriers impacting public sector innovation and highlight examples of innovative practices in Kazakhstan. In addition, this report identifies relevant international practice and case studies where innovative approaches have been adopted by governments to address similar challenges in varying contexts. Public sector innovation can take different forms, depending on the objectives, resources and challenges of a particular context. The OECD definition of public sector innovation identifies three characteristics (OECD, 2017[1]):
New or novel: Public sector innovations are new or novel to a particular public sector context.
Implemented: Public sector innovations are implemented, not ideas, pilots or prototypes.
Impactful: Public sector innovations have impact and shift public value in areas such as increased public satisfaction, reduced costs or improved effectiveness.
Public sector innovations occur in every country, evidenced by the growing repository of innovation case studies submitted to the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation Case Study Library (OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, n.d.[4]). However, there is growing recognition that governments can take proactive measures to increase their innovative capacity – the systemic ability of a public sector to work in innovative ways. At an international level, this recognition is demonstrated by the 43 countries who have adhered to the OECD Declaration on Public Sector Innovation (Box 4.1), a legal instrument outlining principles for supporting public sector innovation (OECD, 2019[5]).
The OECD Declaration on Public Sector Innovation is a legal instrument based on five principles and associated actions that governments or public organisations can use to inform and enhance innovation and its management. The Declaration articulates a shared understanding among governments about the role of innovation in meeting challenges and helps to build concrete commitments to support, improve and expand public sector innovation. The Declaration is structured around five principles:
Embrace and enhance innovation within the public sector.
Encourage and equip all public servants to innovate.
Cultivate new partnership and involve difference voices.
Support exploration, iteration and testing.
Diffuse lessons and share practices.
Since its adoption in May 2019, 43 countries have adhered to the Declaration. The Innovation Playbook was developed by the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation as a practical guide to help managers and senior government officials to translate the five principles into relevant actions for a particular country context.
There are many factors that contribute to a government’s innovative capacity – such as political agendas, ease of institutional collaboration, accountability frameworks, access to technology, specialist teams, approaches to risk management and audit, availability of skills, leadership, performance management, evaluation approaches and funding (Kaur et al., 2022[7]) (OECD, 2017[8]). For the purposes of this review, and to help navigate these many factors, observations are structured around three themes:
Strategies and investments supporting public sector innovation: This section reviews the system-level enablers such as cross-government strategies and investments supporting innovation.
Mechanisms to manage and increase innovation: The section considers how explicit mechanisms – programmes, teams and tools – are used to manage and increase public sector innovation.
The operating environment for innovation: This section reviews the wider public sector operating environment in which innovation is taking place, considering the extent to which skills, processes and ways of working support or inhibit public sector innovation.
Lastly, this chapter will provide recommendations for building innovative capacity in Kazakhstan’s public administration, and avenues for further investigation. These recommendations draw on the experiences of other countries, in similar and contrasting contexts.
4.1.2. The context for public sector innovation in Kazakhstan: ambitious goals, public administration reforms, and digital government
This is the first dedicated effort to review public sector innovation practices in Kazakhstan. While it should be recognised that Kazakhstan has made significant efforts to boost innovation across the country and economy more broadly, the scope of this review is to explore innovation in the public sector specifically (OECD, 2017[9]).
There is no agreed definition, understanding or language describing public sector innovation that is used commonly across public sector organisations in Kazakhstan. Despite this, this review has identified many examples of innovative practice used by public servants to achieve objectives, particularly efforts to digitalise and improve public services. Similarly, there is no single organisation with dedicated responsibilities for innovation in the public sector. Instead, multiple organisations – such as the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry, responsible for leading the digital government agenda – have responsibilities which overlap with public sector innovation priorities (this is examined further in Section 1.2).
There are three important contextual factors for public sector innovation in Kazakhstan to highlight, and which will be explored further in this chapter. Firstly, the government has identified ambitious objectives; the 2015 Plan of the Nation – 100 Concrete Steps sets an objective and pathway to enter the 30 most developed countries globally (President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2015[2]). These objectives are set against a backdrop of ongoing geopolitical tensions, slowing economic and trade growth, and the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic (OECD, 2023[10]). To deliver such ambitious goals a significant amount of innovation will be required. Secondly, the government continues a programme of significant public administration modernization reforms, coordinated by the Ministry of National Economy, initiated since its independence in 1991 (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021[3]). Many of these modernization efforts – from an increased emphasis on training and professionalization of the civil service, to improved monitoring of the quality of services – provide the support and stimulus for innovations across the public sector. Thirdly, the investments in transitioning to a ‘Digital State’ through the digital government agenda have kickstarted new ways of working in public sector organisations and different forms of interaction between citizen and state, and constitute one of the most important reform efforts in Kazakhstan since 2005. These have involved close collaboration between the public administration and joint stock companies and state-owned enterprises, which are major employers and form a substantial part of Kazakhstan’s economy (OECD, 2014[11]). These three factors combine to set a context where there are significant opportunities for public sector innovation to reinforce and augment the government’s ability to meet its objectives.
This section reviews the strategies and investments that are driving public sector innovation in Kazakhstan. Innovation, like other core functions of government, requires support to do well and strategies and investments enable the public sector to plan, coordinate and implement innovations (OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, n.d.[6]) (OECD, 2017[1]).
4.2.1. Public administration reform efforts are supporting innovation, but lack of a strategic framework, institutional mandate and common language for innovation inhibits coordination and support
There is no dedicated strategy to support public sector innovation in Kazakhstan. Similarly, there is no institution with a mandate for steering and coordinating public sector innovation. Despite this, public sector innovation is being supported through sectoral strategies and the ongoing public administration reform agenda. An ambitious programme of public administration reforms (see Chapter 1), initiated after Kazakhstan’s independence in 1991 and continued since then, aim to modernise the public administration (Baimenov, Uteshev and Suleimenova, 2022[12]). Most notably, the Concept for Administration Reform in the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2030 defines priorities which are stimulating demand for innovations in the public sector (see Table 4.1) (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021[3]). For example, the priority to develop a more “client-oriented and open state apparatus” requires innovations in how public sector organisations involve citizens in the design and development of services (OECD, 2020[13]). In 2021 this led to the implementation of the “E-appeal” system, providing citizens with new ways to submit appeals to the government through mobile applications. Other priorities have the potential to increase the capacity of public sector organisations to innovate. For example, “improving the quality of human resources” through investments in training for civil servants can support public sector organisations to upskill their staff in key skills required to work in new ways (OECD, 2017[14]).
Responsibilities for reforms are distributed across different organisations.
Note: Suggestions provided in the centre column demonstrate how public administration reform priorities could support public sector innovation, based on practices in other countries.
Responsibilities for wider public administration reforms in the Concept for Administration Reform in the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2030 are shared across different institutions. The Executive Office of the President defines the strategic vision and development programme for the country which shapes the objectives of public administration reforms (President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2024[19]). The Ministry of National Economy is responsible for coordinating the implementation of the Concept for Administration Reform in the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2030 and annual monitoring of the activities carried out under the action plan. The Agency for Strategic Planning and Reform is responsible for monitoring some key performance indicators related to its implementation, such as government effectiveness, corruption and legal compliance. Line ministries and relevant public agencies, such as the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry and the Agency for Civil Service Affairs, are responsible for delivery of specific activities included within the strategy’s action plan. This institutional framework, with a defined role for coordination and monitoring, has supported the Ministry of National Economy with delivery of the Concept for Administration Reform in the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2030.
This landscape for public sector innovation – with no strategic framework for public sector innovation and no organisational mandate for steering and coordination of public sector innovation – means there is no clear prioritisation for innovation in the public sector, and the ability to assess innovation needs, coordinate activities, or scale innovations between institutions is limited. This risks missed opportunities to identify where innovations are most needed, where innovative approaches addressing one priority could be adapted or scaled to support another priority, and where resources are being spread too thinly leading to low-quality initiatives (Kaur et al., 2022[7]). These risks are exacerbated by a lack of common language used to describe public sector innovation. Some participants in workshops and interviews conducted for this review did not recognise their work as being innovative, or part of an agenda to increase innovation in the public sector, despite applying new and innovative ways of working to tackle challenges in the public administration.
OECD member countries have adopted different approaches to provide a strategic framework for public sector innovation (see Box 4.2). Some countries, such as Ireland, have developed dedicated public sector innovation strategies (Government of Ireland, 2020[20]). Others – such as Bulgaria, Chile and Portugal – have included mechanisms to coordinate and support public sector innovation within broader public administration reform and modernisation strategies (Government of Chile, 2022[21]) (Government of Portugal, 2020[22]). Both approaches recognise the centre of government’s role in stewarding cross-cutting policies and guiding good practices across a public administration (OECD, 2024[23]).
A dedicated public sector innovation strategy in Ireland
Public sector innovation strategies can help prioritise investment in innovation and outline the necessary resources required to ensure that efforts are implementable.
Framed under the “Better Public Services” public sector transformation strategy, Ireland’s Department of Public Expenditure and Reform adopted a strategy for embedding innovation in the Irish Public Service with the aim of delivering better services to the public and building trust. The strategy defines measurable objectives to monitor and assess implementation.
Additionally, the strategy is designed to be used by other public sector organisations to develop their own organisational public sector innovation priorities and strategies and to define measurable objectives at the organisational level which contribute towards those at the national level. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has developed guidance, supports and toolkits to assist other public service organisations to do this. These were developed using a piloting approach with four public service organisations: the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine, the Courts Service, the Local Government Management Agency and Monaghan County Council.
Incorporating public sector innovation into Bulgaria’s National Development Programme 2030
Bulgaria’s Council of Minister’s Administration has recently committed to integrate a dedicated action plan for public sector innovation into the National Development Programme Bulgaria 2030, alongside dedicated budget and innovative capacity indicators. Public sector innovation will be recognised as a core function through formal integration into the National Development Programme Bulgaria 2030’s Institutional Framework Priority.
The three pillars of the public sector innovation priority within the National Development Programme 2030 are: (1) the strategic steering of public sector innovation, (2) a State Administration designed for change, and (3) a workforce equipped with future-ready skills and incentives.
This approach was preferred over creating a new strategic framework to avoid duplicating strategic documents and to ensure coherence with other related priorities. This decision was taken following an OECD assessment of the innovative capacity of the Bulgarian administration, and will be coordinated by the Council of Minister’s Administration.
Source: Based on (Government of Ireland, 2020[20]) (OECD, forthcoming[24])
Similarly, some OECD member countries have created dedicated teams in the centre of government with a mandate to coordinate and support public sector innovation (see Box 4.3). The exact functions of these teams vary from country to country, but typically include a combination of:
Applying innovative methods to government priorities: For example, the Government of Chile’s ‘Innovation Laboratory’ is a dedicated team to support public sector innovation. In 2018 the team was moved as part of a restructuring to the centre of government (CoG) reporting to the Ministry General Secretariat of the Presidency, enabling the team to connect public innovation with specific priorities in the government’s agenda (Laboratorio de Gobierno, 2021[25]).
Coordinating and scaling cross-government innovation initiatives and priorities: For example, France’s Direction Interministérielle de la Transformation Publique, located in the Prime Minister’s Office, oversees the transformation programme of the government coordinating between ministries and local prefectures (Government of France, n.d.[26]).
Building skills, networks and competencies: For example, Romania’s Innovation Lab is located within the General Secretariat of the Government and provides training in innovation-related skills, as well as convening an innovation network of public servants in order to share best practices and provide assistance across different public institutions (Government of Romania, n.d.[27]).
A whole-of-government strategic framework would better enable the government of Kazakhstan to make the most of innovations supported through existing public administration reforms (for example, through scaling innovation approaches between public institutions), as well as to identify where further innovations in the public sector are most needed and to target resources appropriately. Given the close relation between existing public administration reforms and support for public sector innovation, this strategic framework could be incorporated into the existing Concept for Administration Reform in the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2030 as a dedicated priority section (following a similar model to Bulgaria’s inclusion of public sector innovation priorities within its national development plan, see Box 4.2). This framework would be supported by a dedicated unit within the centre of government with a mandate to support public sector innovation. The responsibilities of this unit could include identifying innovation needs across government to deliver on priorities, funding and coordinating innovation projects in high priority areas, providing expertise in applying innovative ways of working, identifying skills and capability requirements for innovation, and supporting the spreading of best practices across the public sector.
Romania
The General Secretariat of the Government of Romania has established a ‘Service for Public Sector Innovation’ in the centre of government (Government of Romania, n.d.[27]). This team supports a range of functions, including:
Manging an Innovation Network of over 300 participants designed to provide training and share best practice.
Training of public sector colleagues through events and seminars, in collaboration with the Institute for Public Administration.
Leading innovation projects through the ‘Innovation Laboratory’ unit within the service, which works in partnership with other public sector organisations to apply innovative methods to tackle policy challenges.
Coordinating implementation and monitoring of a forthcoming cross-government public sector innovation strategy.
Denmark
Denmark’s Center for Offentlig-Privat Innovation (CO-PI) is a national centre created by the government, Local Government Denmark and Danish Regions (Center for Offentlig-Privat Innovation, n.d.[28]). Its goal is to increase the quality and efficiency of the public sector through innovation. This is concentrated on three ‘focus areas’: time-saving technology that supports welfare; climate, green transition and environment improvement initiatives; sustainable construction. Activities to promote and coordinate public sector innovation include capacity building through training and tools, support for innovative public procurement, and programmes to bring different public stakeholders to collaborate on shared challenges.
Latvia
The State Chancellery in Latvia has established the Latvian Innovation Laboratory (OECD, 2023[29]). It works to coordinate and promote public sector initiatives that are aligned with public administration reform priorities, as well as carrying out innovation projects in partnership with other public sector organisations. Innovation projects apply design methodologies – through “design sprints” – to tackle government problems. The Innovation Laboratory partners with public sector organisations that have defined a specific problem and provides a facilitated process to develop and test solutions. The Innovation Laboratory also facilitates training in various innovation methods and hosts an innovation expert network to spread and scale the use of innovative approaches across government.
France
The Direction Interministérielle de la Transformation Publique, located in the Prime Minister’s Office, oversees the transformation programme, and set up and manages a fund to support the digital transformation of government activities (Government of France, n.d.[26]). The unit also monitors the implementation of the French government’s priority reforms in liaison with local ministries and prefectures. Their priority is to ensure the implemented transformations have an impact on citizens.
South Africa
The Centre for Public Service Innovation, under the Department of Public Service and Administration, is mandated to develop innovative, sustainable and responsive models to improve public sector service delivery, policy outcomes, efficiency, effectiveness, and quality (Centre for Public Service Innovation, Republic of South Africa, n.d.[30]). Guided by public sector innovation methods, the Centre enables an environment within the public sector to support, sustain and coordinate innovation.
Source: Based on cited sources.
4.2.2. Investment in digital government is driving innovation in public services, supported by a clear mandate to coordinate across public sector organisations and ensure interoperability of digital services
Most public sector innovations identified as part of this review were examples of public services being automated or offered digitally for the first time, indicating that digitalization is driving public sector innovation in Kazakhstan. Successive strategies, including the 2013 Information Kazakhstan 2030 and the 2017 Digital Kazakhstan, have prioritised the digitalisation of public services (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2017[31]). This is reflected in the findings of the United Nations e-Government survey, where Kazakhstan outperforms other Central Asian countries and is aligned with the average performance of OECD countries in ‘e-government’ and ‘online-services’ (UN, 2020[32]) (OECD, 2023[33]).
There have been four stages to the digital government agenda in Kazakhstan (see Box 4.4). Most recently, the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry focused on offering major services online via the digital government portal, facilitating transactions such as paying state fees, fines, and utilities online. Significant progress has been made, with 92% of public services delivered digitally in 2022 (Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2023[34]). The priority of the digit government agenda has evolved to ensure the improvement of existing digital public services, including a move towards more ‘proactive services’. For example, some interactions as part of certain services include automated SMS messages to citizens.
The Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry is responsible for leading the digital government agenda in Kazakhstan. There have been four distinct stages of development since 2004, each of which introduced significant new functionalities:
Information: The digital government portal was launched providing information about government agencies and their services available to the public.
Interactive: The digital government portal supported citizens to send requests and receive some documents electronically from state agencies.
Transactional: This stage enabled transactions for the first time, such as paying state fees, fines and utilities online.
Transformational: This is the current stage of development for the digital government agenda. In this stage, the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry aims to increase the speed and improve the citizen experience of those using digital services.
The digital government portal acts as a single digital gateway for finding information and accessing services. Citizens can login to the digital government portal through a browser or a QR code to access the mobile application. In 2020, the introduction of digital signatures enabled users to sign documents in the cloud. This led to a significant increase in usage, and there are now 13 million active users of the digital government portal.
However, while digitalization of services is key to a more user-centric and proactive public service in Kazakhstan, it is important to ensure that the country also has strong digital government foundations in place for an effective and sustainable digital transformation. Particularly following the response to the Covid-19 pandemic, “it has become clear that accelerating the digitalization of the public sector does not automatically lead to better outcomes, and more transformative and sustainable changes” (OECD, 2024[36]). Therefore, as it positions for the future, the Government could consider how best to align to the pillars of the OECD’s Digital Government Policy Framework (see Box 4.5) to improve its digital government maturity and ensure a more sustainable digital transformation.
The Digital Government Policy Framework is an instrument to help government identify key determinants for effective design and implementation of strategic approaches to transition towards higher levels of digital maturity of their public sectors. It is based on six dimensions, including:
1. Digital by design: governing and leveraging digital technologies to rethink and re-engineer public processes, simplify procedures, and create new channels of communication and engagement with stakeholders.
2. Data-driven: valuing data as a strategic asset and establishing the governance, access, sharing and re-use mechanisms for improved decision-making and service delivery.
3. Acting as a platform: deploying platforms, standards, and services to help teams focus on user-needs in public service design and delivery.
4. Open by default: making government data and policy-making processes available to the public, within the limits of existing legislation and in balance with national and public interest.
5. User-driven: centring on people’s needs and convenience in the shaping of processes, services and policies, and by adopting inclusive mechanisms that enable this to happen.
6. Proactive: anticipating people’s needs and responding to them rapidly, avoiding the needs for cumbersome data and service delivery processes.
Source: (OECD, 2020[37])
The Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry is responsible for leading the digital government agenda to digitalise and improve public services. As services are delivered by many different public institutions, this requires significant cross-government coordination and collaboration. The Ministry’s Committee on Public Services coordinates between relevant public institutions to prioritise, select and deliver digital projects (see Box 4.6). The Committee is also responsible for assessing the quality of public services, providing methodological assistance on issues relating to electronic document and signatures, and controls operation of the e-government portal.
The Ministry’s ability to lead and coordinate digitalisation efforts across many different institutions is supported by a mandate within the Concept for Administration Reform in the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2030 and legal provisions within the Administrative Code. The Administrative Code specifies how citizens can expect to interact with the state and includes provisions such as: recognising the validity of digital signatures; requiring state bodies to reduce or exclude the use of paper documents when providing services; specifying an authorised body for inter-sectoral coordination of digital transformation; and defining methodological support for state bodies in digital transformation efforts. Defining the legal rights to good, consistent and predictable administration is in line with practice in many countries and the European Principles for Public Administration (OECD, 1999[38]).
Kazakhstan’s efforts towards a single digital gateway are a key step towards building secure and resilient digital public infrastructure – ensuring “seamless and secure access to digital services and promoting efficiency through standardized and reusable tools” (OECD, 2024[39]). This also includes the availability of a digital signature solution and secure digital authentication to access the gateway and online public services, aligning with the OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Digital Identify (OECD, 2023[40]).
The process for digitalisation projects
The Ministry of Justice has digitalised many of its services and processes with the aim of reducing bureaucracy and increasing the efficiency of citizens engagement with services. There are four stages involved in digitalising a service or process:
Identifying opportunities: The public agency proposes which of its services or processes should be digitalised based on its own strategic priorities. This is reviewed by the Committee on Public Services which decides whether these proposals will be included within the annual work plan.
Defining a brief: The public agency collaborates with the Ministry of Digitalisation, Innovations and Aerospace Industry to define the requirements of the project, drawing on Committee on Public Services’ experience of similar digitalisation projects across all government services.
Development: The Ministry of Digitalisation, Innovations and Aerospace Industry commissions National Information Technologies, a joint stock company and operator of the e-government infrastructure, to develop the digital service.
Implementation: The service is implemented and included in the registry of state services. A report is compiled by National Information Technologies based on usage data from the first two months of implementation.
Example digital innovations in the Ministry of Justice
Digital Notary has successfully transferred notary services online. Inspired by the French online notary service and enabled by the ability to carry out biometric identification via the e-government application, the service has facilitated 74,000 powers of attorney and 20,000 consents of spouses.
E-Zan Komegi is a mobile application designed to make seeking qualified legal assistance more secure and more efficient. To achieve this, the Ministry of Justice developed a registry of qualified level advisors. Citizens can access and pay for legal advice using the application. The next stage of development aims to incorporate ‘GPT-Justice’, a chatbot for legal issues. It is hoped this will decrease the burden on legal service operators and increase the legal literacy of citizens in Kazakhstan.
The leadership and coordinating role played by the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry has helped to ensure clear prioritisation of digital investments, increased interoperability, and consistency of standards across services administered by different public sector organisations. It has also enabled the Ministry to invest and maintain critical cross-government digital architecture. Notably, the Smart Bridge platform (see Box 4.7) was developed by the Ministry to enable integration of different databases across organisations for digital services and products (Astana Civil Service Hub, 2023[41]). This tool has enabled a consistent approach to drive the use of data across government and beyond.
The Smart Bridge Platform was developed by the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry to support the integration of different databases. The platform, inspired by Estonia’s X-Road platform (Vassil, 2016[42]), lists services of all government organisations and descriptions of data they hold. Any organisation can view the descriptions of the data available via the Smart Bridge platform using their business account and apply to access the data. The Committee for Information Security is responsible for verifying applications to integrate data from third parties.
The Smart Bridge platform supports sharing of information across government organisations, but it also supports information sharing with external organisations. For example, second tier banks in Kazakhstan are among the users of the Smart Bridge Platform meaning they can access information about customers using the Smart Bridge platform as part of a mortgage application process.
As the digitalization agenda in Kazakhstan matures, the role of the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industries could be adapted to provide more support and guidance to other public institutions, contributing to developing the digital government capacity across the government more widely. Currently, the experience and specialist skills for developing and testing digital innovations are concentrated within the Ministry, rather than more evenly distributed across the government. Now that most services In Kazakhstan have been automated, stronger capabilities across public institutions responsible for services will support ongoing efforts to improve existing digital services. In many OECD countries this is enabled by dedicated units responsible for supporting digital government. For example, the United Kingdom’s Government Digital Service builds common platforms to help departments make better digital services and works to coordinate across government on digital issues (Digital Government Service, n.d.[44]). In Kazakhstan, the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry could enhance its role through the development and publication of similar standards, guides, tools and advice to support other institutions to build digital capabilities.
It will be important to maintain a robust approach to the planning, delivery and oversight of digital government investments. To support this, an end-to-end framework could help to ensure close strategic alignment and standardized delivery, while building digital capabilities in other public sector institutions. This could follow the OECD’s Digital Government Investment Framework (see Box 4.8).
The OECD Digital Government Investment Framework is a tool to analyse the challenges governments face in investing in the digital transformation of the public sector. It includes three pillars: strategic planning, coherent implementation, and sound monitoring and oversight. The framework identified the critical elements to be addressed within each pillar to strengthen the governance for digital government - enabling government to mitigate risks and exploit the potential benefits of innovations enabled by digital transformation.
Strategic planning: essential to strengthen the governance of digital government by establishing clear leadership, effective policy levers, and coordination mechanisms to steer the public sector digital transformation. Through strategic alignment and coordination between key stakeholders, governments can improve the planning of digital government investments.
Coherent implementation: the development of digital investments allows governments to build coherence and agility in the use of digital technologies in the public sector. Governments can leverage the use of shared tools and methodologies to secure benefits realisation.
Sound monitoring and oversight: key elements of governance to foster accountability and drive performance, enabling countries to track the investments portfolio, encourage projects to be managed effectively, and ensure these investments yield the intended benefits.
Source: (OECD, forthcoming[45]).
4.2.4. Kazakhstan’s digital government agenda would be enhanced by systematic approaches to involving users in the design of services, whole-of-government standards and guidelines, and innovative methodologies to drive improvements in services
Having automated many services, Kazakhstan’s digital agenda is focused on moving towards a more proactive delivery of services, based on a life events approach. Key events in life that involve interactions with the state – such as the birth of a child, entering education, entering the labour market, or eligibility for pension payments – are used as triggers by service provides in Kazakhstan to automatically contact citizens via SMS messages. This emphasis on life events echoes innovative practice in countries such as Armenia, Australia, Finland, France, South Korea and New Zealand (Welby and Hui Yan Yan, 2022[46]). As the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry progresses with these ambitions, there are opportunities to learn from innovative approaches applied in similar contexts.
Involving users in the design of digital services will help to ensure they meet the needs and expectations of citizens (OECD, 2022[47]). The Agency for Civil Service Affairs is responsible for collecting information about user satisfaction, providing a baseline for understanding satisfaction and effectiveness of public services. Information is collected by the Agency for Civil Service Affairs via surveys, mystery shoppers, focus groups and interviews, with results published annually (Agency for Civil Service Affairs, 2023[48]). However, there is no systematic approach to involving or consulting with users of services in the design of proactive digital services in Kazakhstan, and testing of new services before wider implementation is focused on technical functionalities. The OECD’s Good Practice Principles for Public Service Design and Delivery in the Digital Age define nine principles designed to set high standards for quality of public services, based on best practices across OECD member countries (OECD, 2022[47]). These include ‘Understanding users and their needs’ and ‘Making the design and delivery of public services a participatory and inclusive process’. Innovative methods – such as human-centred design, user research and prototyping – could support the design of new proactive services that better meet the needs of users (see Box 4.9).
Portugal’s Center for Public Sector Innovation
LabX is a team within the Portuguese Governments Administration Modernisation Agency. The team was founded in 2017 to generate new ideas to challenges faced by public organisations. Human-centred-design and citizen participation have been a hallmark of LabX’s approach to developing and testing new ideas. LabX’s methodology involves users across each of three stages: investigation, co-creation, experimentation.
LabX have applied the methodology to many different policy challenges. For example, LabX carried out user research with citizens to better understand their interactions with the state during a bereavement. The project identified several challenges for citizens experiencing a bereavement including inefficiency, lack of clarity, and negative perceptions of services. Through a collaborative process working with multiple public agencies delivering relevant services, LabX developed a prototype for an integrated approach to services where a death has occurred. This prototype was tested through pilots in two areas of Portugal.
Efforts to involve or consult with users of services in the design of proactive digital services in Kazakhstan could be formalized through whole-of-government standards or guidelines for service design. The top ten performing countries in the OECD Digital Government Index all have such standards of guidelines, with fundamental principles such as ‘understanding user needs’ and ‘involving users in the design and delivery of services’ (OECD, 2024[36]). For example, the Digital Government New Zealand have published a ‘Digital Service Design Standard’ which defines principles and standards for any public sector organisation’s digital services (New Zealand Digital Government, n.d.[50]). Similarly, the UK government has published a ‘Service Manual’ defining standards across many aspects of digital services, from accessibility and measuring success to user research and technology (GOV.UK, n.d.[51]). These approaches would be particularly valuable in Kazakhstan for efforts to reach vulnerable members of society who may have additional needs, in line with government’s target that 50% of services for vulnerable members of society are delivered proactively (in 2022 10% of services for vulnerable members of society were delivered proactively).
Behavioural public policy could also support Kazakhstan to better understand user needs and successfully develop more proactive services. Behavioural public policy involves approaching policy problems from the perspective of human behaviour and, having analysed a problem this way, seeking and applying relevant behavioural science evidence (WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2022[52]). The OECD has defined the LOGIC good practice principles – covering leadership, objectives, governance, integration and capability - to help governments to increase the motivation, opportunity and capability of organisations in applying behavioural public policy (OECD, 2024[53]). There are many examples of behavioural science applied by governments across a wide range of sectors, some of which are documented on the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation’s online case study navigator tool (OECD, n.d.[54]). For example, local governments in Japan increased the uptake of health check-ups by changing the default option on a form, providing concrete instructions, and adding framing context to reminder messages. Local governments were supported to implement this change by a national government handbook (Murayama et al., 2018[55]) (OECD, 2024[53]).
There are also opportunities to enhance the evaluation and monitoring of digital innovations. Increasing the capacity for the public sector to test and iterate innovations based on evaluation findings is important for improving the effectiveness of new processes and services (OECD, 2019[56]). As indicated previously, the Agency for Civil Service Affairs is responsible for collecting information about user satisfaction. Information is collected via surveys, mystery shoppers, focus groups and interviews and published annually (Agency for Civil Service Affairs, 2023[48]).
This annual report on satisfaction with services provides a useful overview, enabling the comparison of satisfaction with services across services, organisations, regions and between years. It contains rich insights at the organisational and regional levels, although the sample size at the individual service level is very small for some services which are less commonly used, limiting the usefulness of some individual service level findings. The Committee on Public Services uses this information to identify where improvements to services are required. However, the report could be complemented by methodologies which enable deeper investigation of the causes of dissatisfaction. For example, as shown in Box 4.10, ‘sludge audits’ are a structured process applying a user-centred, behavioural science-based methodology to identify and remove frictions in services (OECD, 2024[57]). A ‘sludge audit’ typically lasts between four and six weeks, meaning it is unlikely to be suitable for application to every digital service. However, the methodology could be used in a targeted way in Kazakhstan to understand frictions in services which are more complex (such as those delivered proactively around key life events) and where existing monitoring data from the Agency for Civil Service Affairs suggests dissatisfaction is higher.
The efforts to reduce sludge could also be complemented with a more comprehensive approach to the access, sharing and re-use of high-quality data across Kazakhstan’s public sector. This would require strong data governance frameworks, comprehensive and accessible data repositories, and the policies, legal frameworks, and technical means to facilitate the sharing of citizen data. By addressing those, the Government could enable the application of the “Once Only” principle to further improve the user experience of its services – minimizing the administrative burden on users by only requiring them to provide information or documentation to the public sector once, and instead shifting the responsibility onto those public sector entities to share the data amongst themselves for more proactive services (OECD, 2024[39]).
The sludge audit methodology was developed by the Government of New South Wales and is now used in over 16 countries around the world (OECD, 2024[57]) (New South Wales Government, n.d.[58]). The methodology aims to improve citizens’ experiences (CX) of services by tackling various different types of frictions that contribute to dissatisfaction with government services, such as:
Information that is hard to identify or difficult to understand.
Excessive wait times.
Lengthy forms, processes and decision points.
Confusing and overwhelming processes.
Complex regulations and legislation that is hard for the public to understand.
There are 7 steps which make up a sludge audit, which typically lasts 4-6 weeks, and can be followed-up by an audit to measure impact:
1. Mapping of the behavioural journey
2. Collection of inputs
3. Estimating time and cost
4. CX scoring
5. Access and equity checks
6. Anaysis of results
7. Designing solutions
4.2.5. Dedicated funding for public sector innovation is required to develop and scale innovative practice
While innovation activities in particular areas are funded via other strategic agendas such as the digital government agenda, there is no central dedicated funding for public sector innovation in Kazakhstan. This is unsurprising, given the lack of strategic framework or common definition for public sector innovation. However, three of five organisations surveyed for this review (Economic Research Institute, Ministry of Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry, and the Agency of Civil Service Affairs) indicated that availability of a funding was the ‘main barrier’ to more innovation in their organisation. Like other functions of government, dedicated support is required for innovation (OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, n.d.[6]). However, given the inherent uncertainty involved in innovating, investments may need to be more flexible than funding for day-to-day activities (OECD, 2017[1]). Dedicated innovation funds have been used in many countries such as Ireland, Norway and the UK to stimulate innovation in the public sector (Government of Ireland, 2023[59]) (The Research Council of Norway, n.d.[60]) (Department for Education, n.d.[61]). There are many different forms of innovation fund, but all innovation funds either:
Fund public sector organisations directly to develop or commission innovations. For example, Ireland’s Public Service Innovation Fund awarded €2.1 million of funding to various Irish Public Service organisations between 2019 and 2021 (Government of Ireland, 2023[59]). Similarly, the UK’s Government Communications Service innovation strategy encourages departments to spend 10% of a campaign budget on innovative techniques to pilot, test and learn from (UK Government Communication Service, 2024[62]).
Fund non-public sector organisations (private companies, civil society groups) to develop or scale innovations for the public sector. For example, the UK Government’s Department for Education awarded £4.6 million in direct grants and non-financial support to education technology companies with products that would increase innovation in the education sector (Department for Education, n.d.[61]). Similarly, Estonia’s InnoFond provides funding for innovative solutions aligned with the countries “Estonia 2035” strategy (Riigikantselei, n.d.[63]).
There is an opportunity to introduce similar funding programmes for innovations in the public sector in Kazakhstan. This financial support could take the form of a central innovation fund, coordinated by a dedicated strategy for public sector innovation, enabling the allocation of funding to meet pre-defined priorities and criteria. Financial support could also be supported through dedicated budget allocations within public agencies. Public sector innovation funding is often accompanied by non-financial support – such as expertise, training, access to test solutions, or access to mentors across government, academia and business – recognizing that innovations require more than just financing (Sellick, Solder and Roberts, 2018[64]). Astana Hub is the largest international technology park in Central Asia, providing support to technology companies to develop and scale products through access to mentors, accelerator programmes, free office space, and tax exemptions (Astana Hub, n.d.[65]). This model, which combines financial and non-financial support, is currently supporting innovators in the private sector. There is an opportunity to explore how Astana Hub could use these same rewards to support entrepreneurs to develop innovative solutions that can be applied in Kazakhstan’s public sector.
The section considers how mechanisms – such as explicit programmes, teams and tools – are used to manage and increase public sector innovation in Kazakhstan. Explicit mechanisms for public sector innovation can help to stimulate different forms of innovation and institutionalise processes that support different ways of working (Kaur et al., 2022[7]) (OECD, 2017[1]).
4.3.1. There is an unbalanced portfolio of innovation activities across Kazakhstan
This review surfaced 20 examples of public sector innovations across different areas of government in Kazakhstan through a survey of public sector organisations, interviews and a research workshop with participants from various public sector organisations. The OECD innovation facets model (Box 4.11) is a way to characterize different innovations (OECD, 2022[15]). Using the innovation facets model to review the examples identified we can observe an overrepresentation of enhancement-oriented and mission-oriented innovations and fewer adaptive or anticipatory innovations. Different mechanisms, support structures, skills and challenges can drive and influence different types of innovation (OECD, 2022[15]).
The public sector innovation facets model is a way to consider different innovative approaches and instruments that governments could use to respond to challenges. By considering the relative certainty (from incremental change to radical difference) and directionality (top-down to bottom-up), the model identifies four difference facets of innovation.
The Observatory of Public Sector Innovation has developed an online portfolio exploration tool to help teams, organisations or whole governments to map their innovation activities to the facets model. Having a diverse portfolio of innovation activities across these facets helps to ensure governments are making the most of opportunities to address challenges.
The four facets of innovation identified in the model are (OECD, 2022[15]):
1. Enhancement-oriented innovation: These innovations upgrade practices to achieve efficiencies and better results by building on existing structures without challenging the current system. For example, the Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms in Kazakhstan has introduced the use of artificial intelligence to develop templates for letters and presentations that define expectations for different document types, speeding up the process of drafting and reviewing.
2. Mission-oriented innovation: These innovations respond to a clear overarching objective for addressing a specific, time-bound, and concrete challenge. For example, the effective role played by the Committee on Public Services to lead and coordinate the digital government agenda and its objective to digitalise all public services, which is supported by cross-government strategies and legal requirements in the Administrative Code (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021[3]).
3. Adaptive innovation: These innovations test new approaches to respond to a changing environment or citizen need, without a pre-determined direction (e.g. adapting processes during the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate remote access).
4. Anticipatory innovation: These innovations result from exploring emergent issues that could share future priorities and commitments and may be highly uncertain in nature (e.g. applying strategic foresight methods while designing a strategy to gather evidence about likely future trends).
Source: (OECD, 2022[15]).
The overrepresentation of mission-oriented and enhancement-oriented innovations in Kazakhstan suggests the public administration performs well at:
Identifying opportunities for incremental improvements to existing services (supporting enhancement-oriented innovations). For example, the ability to use insights from the annual review of satisfaction with public services to target improvements (Agency for Civil Service Affairs, 2023[48]).
Defining top-down priorities for improvement and coordinating responsibilities across different organisations around those agendas (supporting mission-oriented innovations). For example, the mission to achieve climate neutrality by 2060 was adopted in a national strategy in 2023 (President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2023[66]). Like other cross-cutting issues, climate change is a complex problem requiring coordinated innovations across multiple sectors.
While the small sample size of case studies reviewed limits the ability to draw generalisable conclusions, the underrepresentation of adaptive or anticipatory innovations in Kazakhstan suggests the public administration has less capacity to:
Respond quickly to changes and source ideas for improvements from alternative sources or from the ‘bottom-up’ – such as from citizens, external experts, or staff working most closely to specific problems (supporting adaptive innovations). This capacity to encourage more ‘bottom-up’ policymaking is identified as a priority in the Concept for Administration Reform in the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2030 as part of reforms to increase the transparency in the adoption of policy and through the involvement of independent experts and citizens in policymaking (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021[3]).
Explore emergent issues where outcomes are more uncertain (supporting anticipatory innovations). This capacity is often supported by application of strategic foresight research methods to anticipate the future, steer towards preferred futures and build resilience what may come (Tõnurist and Hanson, 2020[67]).
4.3.2. Explicit support mechanisms and participatory processes would support more adaptive innovations driven from the bottom-up and build trust in government
Adaptive innovation tests and tries new approaches to respond to a changing environment and needs without a pre-determined outcome or direction (OECD, 2022[15]). Strong capacity for adaptive innovation enables governments to respond more effectively to unexpected threats or demands – such as a pandemic, or global conflict – and to exploit new opportunities more quickly – such as those presented by applying new technologies. Processes that support more bottom-up methods of working and citizen participatory can help to support adaptive innovation by enabling policy teams to understand problems in greater detail, surface ideas from new sources, and respond more quickly to changes.
There are few explicit mechanisms to support more bottom-up engagement in the policy development or service design processes in Kazakhstan. Explicit support mechanisms – such as idea contests, challenge prizes and design sprints – can be used at different stages in the innovation lifecycle (Figure 4.3). Earlier in the innovation cycle, the outcome of an innovation process is less likely to be determined. For example, Azerbaijan’s Idea Bank is used during the ‘generating ideas’ stage of the innovation cycle to surface new ideas from citizens to improve government activities (Thijs, Mackie and Krievins, 2022[68]). Later in the innovation cycle, the outcome of direction of an innovation is more determined. For example, testbeds can be used to evaluate an innovation which is developed and ready for piloting in real-world settings (Nesta, 2019[69]).
Note: The innovation cycle is not always linear, but this image depicts the main stages.
The relatively few mechanisms that exist in Kazakhstan to support more bottom-up and participatory processes are used later in the innovation cycle when new policies or services are already implemented. For example, the ‘E-appeal’ platform enables citizens to proactively make and track complaints and appeals to the government. Similarly, focus groups and services carried out by the Agency for Civil Service Affairs to monitor satisfaction with public services are focused on existing services, rather than unmet needs and future innovations (Agency for Civil Service Affairs, 2023[48]). Table 4.2 maps some of the different mechanisms used globally to support bottom-up innovation processes against their stage in the innovation cycle.
Different mechanisms to support bottom-up innovation processes can be used at different stages in the innovation cycle.
Source: Based on sources cited.
Innovative ways to involve citizens and stakeholders in relevant issues and decision-making can improve the quality of services and policies (OECD, 2020[13]), and the OECD’s recent survey on drivers of trust in government found that perception of the “ability to voice opinions on local matters” and “public agencies use of innovation” are statistically significant drivers of trust in local government, and “improved services because of complaints” drives trust in the civil service and local government (OECD, 2024[16]). The OECD Survey on Drivers of Trist in Public Institutions is a large survey of people across 30 OECD countries about the experience with, and expectations of public institutions at all levels of government. Across the 30 countries, the share of people with low or no trust in the national government (44%) outweighs the share of those with high or moderately high trust (39%). However, trust in the judicial system, civil service and local government is higher than in national government. On average across OECD countries, only 39% believed a public service would be improved if many people complained, and a similar share believe that an innovative idea would be adopted by the responsible institution if it could improve the service.
In Kazakhstan, efforts to build trust in government are reinforced by the stated principle of a “listening state” underpinning public administration reforms (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021[3]). Levels of trust in government are measured via a survey developed by the Ministry of Information and Social Development, implemented in 2022. As part of efforts to build trust in government, various activities to support citizen and stakeholder engagement are included in the Concept for Administration Reform in the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2030, including (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021[3]):
Training for civil servants in new forms of interaction with citizens and stakeholders.
Development of a crowdsourcing platform to harness creativity, knowledge and generosity of volunteers towards tackling socially significant projects (see Box 4.12).
Launching an “E-appeal” system enabling tracking of appeals (see Box 4.12).
Launching an “E-petition” to enable online petitions for citizens to initiate reforms and proposals (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021[3]).
The 2017 Recommendation of the OECD Council on Open Government defines a ladder of increasingly developed citizen and stakeholder participation that can help to guide Kazakhstan’s efforts to reinforce trust in government and introduce more participatory mechanisms (OECD/LEGAL/0438):
Information: an initial level of participation characterized by a one-way relationship in which the government produces and delivers information to stakeholders. It covers both on-demand provision of information and “proactive” measures by the government to disseminate information.
Consultation: a more advanced level of participation that entails a two-way relationship in which stakeholders provide feedback to the government and vice-versa. It is based on the prior definition of the issue for which views are being sought and requires the provision of relevant information, in addition to feedback on the outcomes of the process.
Engagement: when stakeholders are given the opportunity and the necessary resources (e.g. information, data and digital tools) to collaborate during all phases of the policy-making and in the service design and delivery.
Activities to support citizen and stakeholder engagement in Kazakhstan referenced above focus primarily on the first two levels of citizen and stakeholder participation (information and consultation), with few supports for a more collaborative process. Mechanisms to enable bottom-up innovation – such as idea contests and design sprints – could be used earlier in the innovation cycle in Kazakhstan to ensure services and policies better meet the needs of citizens. These mechanisms would support public institutions to develop deeper engagement between government, citizens and stakeholders, and are in line with the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Human-Centred Public Administrative Services (OECD/Legal/0503). Importantly, any mechanisms deployed should ensure adequate support for participation and consider the needs of citizens and stakeholders. Typically, citizen engagement may require approaches that support participants with time, information, resources and incentives to engage, whereas stakeholders are more incentivized to engage and may already have dedicated resources to do so (OECD, 2022[77]).
Some activities to support citizen and stakeholder engagement in Kazakhstan are defined in the Concept for Administration Reform in the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2030. For example:
Bir Bergmiz was established in 2021 to support and coordinate charitable giving and volunteering across Kazakhstan. Fundraising through the Bir Bergmiz crowdfunding platform has been allocated to various charitable projects, including to provide housing, food aid and hygiene kits. The platform has been used to coordinate offers from volunteers during emergencies, such as fires.
“eOtinish” is designed for citizens to submit appeals to government agencies via the eGov mobile application.
Source: Based on (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021[3]).
This section reviews the wider public sector operating environment in which innovation is taking place. The availability of skills, human resource management, organisational culture and project management processes can support or inhibit public sector innovation (Kaur et al., 2022[7]).
4.4.1. Targeted training can increase capacity for innovation
Civil servants are at the centre of public sector innovation; it is they who spark and develop new ideas to enable government to work in new and more effective ways (OECD, 2017[1]). In the public sector, support for the abilities, motivations and opportunities of civil servants can help to ensure staff achieve their goals and are equipped and incentivised to work in new ways to support innovation (Kaur et al., 2022[7]) (Gerson, 2020[78]). For example, recent research in Bulgaria identified that innovation skills strongly determine public servants’ engagement in innovative projects; those public servants who perceived themselves as having applied innovation skills (such as prototyping, technology design, systems analysis) were 32% more likely to have participated in innovation projects (OECD, forthcoming[24]).
In Kazakhstan, the Agency for Civil Service Affairs is the state body responsible for coordinating human resource management processes. The Academy of Public Administration, subordinated to the Agency for Civil Service Affairs, is responsible for providing training to civil servants. OECD countries are increasingly embedding innovation skills in competency frameworks (structured and organised representations of the skills, behaviours and abilities required for general or specific roles within public administration) (OECD, 2017[14]; Kaur et al., 2022[7]). For example, as shown in Table 4.3, Estonia’s Competency Framework for Top Civil Service includes a Leading the Organisation competency which includes developing strategy, leveraging technology, and organisation work in ways that encourage innovative behaviours (Government of Estonia, 2024[79]). Likewise, the UK Civil Service Competency Framework includes a Changing and Improving competency, encouraging public servants to propose innovative ideas for improvement (UK Government, 2025[80]). Similarly, the European Commission and the OECD have developed guidance models that integrate innovate as a core competency of governments (European Commission, 2022[81]; OECD, 2017[14]).
This table shows international examples of competency frameworks supporting innovation skills, behaviours and abilities.
Source: Based on cited sources.
Training in topics related to public sector innovation is available to civil servants via the Academy of Public Administration. The Academy publishes a schedule of upcoming training and state bodies select which civil servants are to participate and submit applications. Currently, innovation-related training programmes scheduled include “Innovation Management in the Public Sector”, “Data-driven decision making”, “Foresight in future strategic plans”, and “Behavioural insights and effective public policy” (Academy of Public Administration, n.d.[82]).
There is no single tool or consistent approach used across the public sector in Kazakhstan to identify skills needs. This restricts the system-level view of the skills needs related to public sector innovation, preventing more effective targeting, prioritisation and resourcing of training. This review did not include a comprehensive assessment of skills needs across the public sector, but such a review is recommended to gather detailed information of skills needs across different public sector organisations, job families, and levels of seniority. However, interviews and questionnaires identified organisational-level training needs relating to citizen and stakeholder participation (conducting participatory research, planning citizen engagement, conducting interviews, focus groups and surveys) and applied innovation skills relevant for developing and improving services (user research, prototyping, design, applications of artificial intelligence). This is in line with recent individual-level surveys of civil servants to assess skills needs relating to innovation in Armenia and Bulgaria where only 37% and 27% of respondents respectively reported having skills related to applied innovation (OECD, forthcoming[24]).
Increasing the amount of training taken-up by civil servants is a priority as part of ongoing human resource management reforms (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021[3]). Notably, reforms include the introduction of a fixed quota of hours that civil servants can participate in training, and the introduction of a mandatory advanced training for all civil servants at least once every three years. There is an opportunity to use this investment in training to prioritise building skills and capabilities required for public sector innovation. The Agency for Civil Service Affairs could carry out an assessment of the skills needs related to innovation, and provide targeted training to the individuals, teams, or organisations who would benefit. Importantly, this training could consider the needs of different civil servants; public sector innovation skills cover many different domains but can be grouped into those required by practitioners (technical skills to carry out innovative processes) and those required by leaders and managers (managerial skills to create an enabling environment for teams to apply innovative ways of working) (OECD, 2017[14]). Dedicated training related to public sector innovation is offered to civil servants in many countries, such as Austria, Chile, Sweden and the UK (Government of Austria, 2018[83]; Government of Chile, 2024[84]; UK Government, n.d.[85]; Government of Sweden, 2019[86]).
Attracting and retaining staff with expertise related to innovation is also critical. Public sector salary reforms in Kazakhstan have increased the salaries of civil servants in an effort to reduce the gap between pay in the public and private sectors, and to reduce the gap in pay between staff employed in central government and regions of Kazakhstan (Agency for Civil Service Affairs, 2022[87]). However, interviews conducted as part of this review identified recruiting and retaining highly skilled staff with specialist skills related to innovation as a challenge. The introduction of ‘contract employees’ is designed, in part, to address the problem of attracting specialist skills (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021[3]). Public authorities can request to recruit short-term ‘contract employees’, with the Agency for Civil Service Affairs responsible for approving those requests based on criteria to ensure a clear distinction between standard civil servants and contract employees, and to ensure there are not already civil servants who can fill the role. In some countries, specialist job families and roles have been developed to support innovation. For example, in the United Kingdom a set of roles has been developed to recruit staff with expertise in leading digital, data and technology innovation projects (see Box 4.13).
The UK Government has developed a set of roles to effectively lead digital, data and technology projects. This aims to recognise the different skills required for various digital and data roles across government.
To improve the consistency of skills and expectations of civil servants in those roles, the Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework defines expectations for the roles, including a description of the role, skills and competencies required, and a description of potential career paths for civil servants within that job family. Each skill is assigned one of four skills levels, reflecting the required proficiency depending on the job level.
4.4.2. Incentives for public servants to innovate will help to build a more proactive and innovative culture across the public administration
A proactive culture towards innovation in the public administration – where civil servants have the motivation and permission to work in new ways – can help to make the most of innovation opportunities (Kaur et al., 2022[7]). In Kazakhstan, a bonus scheme provides increased salaries to some civil servants based on their job performance and “taking initiative” is one of eleven competencies described in the competency framework used to define expectations of civil servants. However, workshop participants indicated that there are few incentives in Kazakhstan for civil servants to innovate in their daily work and that a hierarchical culture in public sector organisations can lead to the perception that civil servants do not have permission to innovate. Table 4.4 describes different practices used globally to incentivise and promote innovative behaviours, particularly among civil servants in non-leadership roles.
Practices to incentivise and promote innovative behaviours are adapted to suit the needs of a country context.
Introducing formal practices to incentivise and promote innovative behaviours in Kazakhstan – such as innovation awards, innovation competitions and dedicated training – could increase motivation to innovate proactively and increase the perception that civil servants have permission to work in new ways (Kaur et al., 2022[7]). For example, Bulgaria’s Institute of Public Administration runs an annual competition that invites applications from civil servants with innovative ideas to optimise work processes (see Box 4.14). Building a high-performing civil service requires an alignment of many high-performance work practices (OECD, 2018[96]). As such, it should be considered how practices to incentivise and promote innovative behaviours can be aligned and supported by existing human resource management practices, including tools for ‘360 degree assessments’, performance management, and performance review processes defined by the Agency for Civil Service Affairs.
The Institute of Public Administration in Bulgaria launched an innovation competition in 2023. Its primary goal is to stimulate and develop new ideas that optimise work processes.
Innovation competitions can be designed in different ways, depending on the objectives (Challenge Works, 2022[72]). As shown in the table below, the design of the competition combines practical support for winning participants to implement ideas with public recognition for participants. The competition received 18 entries in 2023 and 10 in 2024. Of those, one winning idea has been fully implemented, one is in the process of being implemented, and a third is under discussion.
The table below provides further information about the design considerations of the innovation competition in Bulgaria.
4.4.3. Reforms introduced to project management processes are promising, but public sector organisations will require support and guidance to embed these changes and make the most of their potential
Reforms to project management processes are being piloted to professionalise and modernise project management with the aim of improving the efficiency of interaction between central and local executive bodies and development institutions (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021[3]). Project management approaches can be used to support innovation, particularly where they enable more flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances (OECD, 2017[1]) (Kaur et al., 2022[7]). The project management reforms in Kazakhstan, described in Box 4.15, involve significant changes at the portfolio level (how the centre of government monitors priority programmes of work), the programme level (how public authorities align reporting and delivery of projects contributing to the same goal), the project level (how individual project teams manage individual projects) and the individual level (how specific roles facilitate new project management methodologies).
Changes to project management processes in Kazakhstan are being piloted as part of public administration reforms towards “an optimal and effective state apparatus” (Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021[3]).
The implementation of the reforms is led by the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry’s Project Management Department. Currently, the updated project management methodology is being implemented across three priority portfolios of work: modernisation of schools, healthcare in rural areas, and internet in rural areas.
The new methodology involves changes in three important aspects (Ministry of National Economy, 2022[18]):
1. A three-level structure: The reforms define a ‘project’ (a plan of work completed by a single team), ‘programme’ (a group of projects linked by a characteristic or objective within a public authority), and a ‘portfolio’ (a group of programmes aiming to achieve a national priority, as defined in National Action Plans or by the Supreme Council for Reforms under the President of the Republic). This approach is designed to better align related projects and to enable a birds-eye view of priority activities from the Executive Office of the President (which monitors at the portfolio level) to leaders of public authorities (who monitors at the programme level) and individual project teams (who monitor at the project level). At the portfolio level, information is presented to the Executive Office of the President via a dashboard which is updated weekly by project teams, increasing the visibility and timeliness of information about priority initiatives.
2. Specialist project management roles and agile methodologies: Using an agile project management methodology, specific roles such as ‘facilitators’, ‘assistant facilitators’ and ‘scrum masters’ are assigned within project teams. Regular ‘scrum’ meetings are held to monitor and adapt workplans across a project timeline, enabling more flexibility from week-to-week within projects while still maintaining progress towards the end goals.
3. Building capacity for implementation: 44 ‘Project Offices’ have been created (24 in central executive bodies, 20 in local executive bodies) to lead the implementation of the new approach in their organisations. Representatives from the Project Offices meet weekly to report on progress, and each Friday there is a session to provide training or technical support to Project Offices. Each project is encouraged to create a “Lessons Learned Journal” documenting key findings. The Academy of the Public Administration is providing training to support for project managers, reaching 632 civil servants in 2022.
The Kazakhstan Project Management Awards
An annual awards programme, the Kazakhstan Project Management Awards, is held with the purpose of encouraging and showcasing best practice in project management (Academy of Public Administration, n.d.[97]). 31 public sector organisations submitted applications in 2022, with award categories for projects, project managers and project offices.
The introduction of agile project management methodologies being piloted via these reforms could support more adaptive innovation within the delivery of projects (OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, 2021[76]). Agile project management typically involves more testing of ideas and products during their development and contrasts with traditional ‘waterfall’ project management, where project phases are pre-defined and carried out sequentially, by providing more flexibility to adapt to new information (Kaji et al., 2017[17]). Agile methodologies originated in software development contexts, and their use in government is an emerging practice (see Box 4.16). Agile methodologies can support innovative ways of working as they enable teams to test and adapt plans for a new service or product innovation in circumstances where the final outcome or product may be hard to define from the outset (OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, 2021[76]). In Kazakhstan, for example, the introduction of agile methodologies could be leveraged to support government teams to respond and adapt to feedback from citizens and stakeholders about the design of new services and products before implementation.
Agile project management methodologies originated in software development contexts, and their use in government is an emerging practice.
Apply agile to design UK services
Agile methodologies are being applied in the UK to manage projects developing digital products and to improve services. The UK government’s Service Manual includes guidance to understand, apply and govern projects delivered using agile methodologies (GOV.UK, n.d.[51]). The Service Manual defines four stages of an agile project:
Discovery: In this stage, teams work to understand the problem that needs to be solved.
Alpha: In this stage, teams try out different solutions to the problem. This phase is a chance to explore new approaches, and services are not available for the public to use.
Beta: In this stage, teams start to build solutions and begin testing with real users.
Live: In this stage, the solution is launched.
Apply agile in Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees set up an IT lab to manage high numbers of asylum applications (OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, 2021[76]). Agile methodologies were used to develop software in recurring two-week cycles. By working in short cycles, the products developed could be developed incrementally over time, responding to information received about the adapting demands and needs of users.
Adoption of the new project management methodologies by public sector organisations is optional, outside of the three priority portfolios identified (modernisation of schools, healthcare in rural areas, and internet in rural areas). Considerable effort will be required to demonstrate the value of changes to project management methodologies to organisations, teams and individuals, and to ensure teams have the skills and guidance to implement changes effectively. The Kazakhstan Project Management Awards, see Box 4.15, is one effort to do this. Held annually since 2020, the awards showcase and recognise best practice in project management via examples published online by the Academy of Public Administration (Academy of Public Administration, n.d.[97]). However, this could be supported by the wider dissemination of guidance demonstrating how the new methodology works in practice in Kazakhstan and how it can enable organisations to apply more innovative ways of working.
A framework for assessing the implementation of the pilot project management reforms is currently being developed jointly by the Ministry Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry and the UNDP and will be launched in 2024. It is appropriate to test the updated methodology before considering wider rollout, and agile project management is unlikely to be suitable for all types of projects (Kaji et al., 2017[17]). Any assessment or evaluation of these reforms should include consideration on how these reforms can be leveraged to enable more innovation, particularly working methods which support government to test and adapt services and products during their development.
Increasing the public sector innovation capacity of Kazakhstan will help the government to harness innovative technology and new ways of working to achieve its ambitious goals for the future. Extensive ongoing public administration reforms set the scene for an emerging landscape of public sector innovations taking place across the public sector in Kazakhstan – from investments in digital government to training for civil servants. However, the lack of strategic coordination for public sector innovation efforts and investments prevents better identification of innovation priorities, resource allocation, and spreading of innovative practices across the public sector.
This is reflected in the balance of innovation activities across the public sector; innovation activities are primarily focused on making enhancements to existing processes, with less capacity across public agencies for adaptive and anticipatory innovation to help the government respond to changing circumstances or build resilience for the future. There are few mechanisms to support more bottom-up innovation processes during the development of new policies or services in Kazakhstan, particularly earlier on in the innovation cycle before new policies or services are implemented. Addressing this would help to build capacity for a wider range of innovations and is aligned with Kazakhstan’s stated ambition to introduce more participatory policymaking processes involving citizens and stakeholders. All these efforts would be supported by maximizing on the opportunities that public administration reforms present to develop a more enabling operating environment for public sector innovation across the public sector.
Develop a public sector innovation strategy, incorporated into the Concept for Administrative Reform in the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2030
The public sector innovation strategy should establish clear responsibilities for public agencies to carry out interventions to support public sector innovation.
This strategy should be incorporated as a dedicated priority within the existing Concept for Administration Reform in the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2030, with implementation coordinated by the Ministry of National Economy.
Set up a dedicated ‘Public Sector Innovation Unit’ in the Ministry of National Economy
The unit should be responsible for coordinating the implementation and monitoring of activities defined in the strategic framework for public sector innovation, modelled on similar units internationally.
The unit should carry out public sector innovation needs assessments to identify priorities, as well as to coordinate with the Agency for Civil Service Affairs to review the skills needs for public sector innovation across public agencies.
The unit should provide technical assistance to public agencies on the implementation of future public sector innovation mechanisms – such as the use of ideas contests, design methodologies, or targeted public sector innovation funds.
Introduce dedicated financial and non-financial support for public sector innovation
As part of developing the public sector innovation strategy, financial and non-financial supports for innovation should be considered.
Financial support could take the form of a central innovation fund, coordinated by the ‘Public Sector Innovation Unit’, financing innovative projects in the public sector around pre-defined priorities and criteria. Financial support for public sector innovation could also be supported through dedicated budget allocations within public agencies.
Other forms of support should be considered to stimulate new innovative solutions designed for the public sector. For example, the Astana Hub and Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry should explore how the current model of support provided by the Hub could be expanded or adapted to encourage entrepreneurs to develop solutions for the public sector.
Incentives for public servants to innovate in their day-to-day activities should be developed through public sector innovation awards and performance management processes.
Enhance the role of the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry to build capacity for digital innovation across the government
The Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry should develop whole-of-government standards and guidelines, building on the OECD’s Good Practice Principles for Public Service Design and Delivery in the Digital Age.
This effort should reinforce the Ministry’s importance role to define centralised standards for issues such as accessibility and interoperability, while building the capacity for other public agencies to innovate digital services. This is in line with wider efforts to decentralise functions from the centre of government to line ministries and improve the overall effectiveness of the public administration.
The Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry should develop an end-to-end framework to help ensure close strategic alignment and standardised delivery. This could follow the OECD’s Digital Government Investment Framework.
Harness innovative methods to improve digital services
Involve users earlier in the process of developing or improving digital services – before services are implemented. The Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry should formalise expectations and define standards for the involvement of users during the design and testing of services via the whole-of-government government standards and guidelines suggested above.
The Committee on Public Services should ensure that the design of new proactive services based around life-events incorporate insights from behavioural science.
Current assessment of the satisfaction with public services should be enhanced by “sludge audits” and other methodologies to enable targeted investigation of the causes of frictions or dissatisfaction with public services. This should be applied to services where there is a combination of low satisfaction, high complexity, and high demand.
Support a more diverse portfolio of innovations and build trust in government through mechanisms to support more bottom-up innovation and citizen participation
Mechanisms to enable bottom-up innovation - such as idea contests and design sprints - should be used earlier in the innovation cycle. Support for public sector organisations to develop and apply these mechanisms should be provided via the recommended dedicated unit for public sector innovation in the centre of government.
Adequate consideration should be given to the time, information, resources and incentives that citizens and stakeholders may need to engage in participatory processes.
Create an enabling environment for innovation through training and project management reforms
Assess the skills needs related to innovation through a comprehensive review, to define and target training in innovation skills more effectively.
Invest in dedicated training programmes to support innovation-related skills, such as citizen and stakeholder engagement and applied innovation. The Agency for Civil Service Affairs and the Academy of Public Administration should ensure that this programme covers the technical skills required for innovation, as well as the managerial competencies to create an enabling environment for innovation. Proposed reforms to introduce training quotas for civil servants should be leveraged to ensure that uptake of innovation-related training is high.
Harness reforms to project management processes and training to identify where agile methodologies can be used to support more innovation. For example, the framework for assessing and monitoring the pilot of project management reforms being developed by the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry and the UNDP could evaluate how reforms are supporting more innovation. The Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry should develop a set of criteria to decide when agile project management methodologies should or should not be used.
The Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry, the Agency for Civil Service Affairs and the Academy of Public Administration should disseminate guidance for applying the new project management methodology and practical examples of its use in Kazakhstan to the 44 Project Offices. Submissions to the Kazakhstan Project Management Awards should be used to source best practice examples.
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