APCICT Digital Leaders Programme

Digital transformation is reshaping governance across the Asia-Pacific region and globally. Governments are increasingly adopting digital technologies to modernize administrative systems, enhance transparency, and deliver more efficient and inclusive public services. Emerging tools such as big data analytics, blockchain, and artificial intelligence (AI) are becoming integral to the public sector’s innovation and reform agendas. However, with these opportunities come new challenges, including data privacy, cybersecurity, ethical risks, and persistent digital divides.

Against this backdrop, AI has emerged as one of the most transformative technologies of our time. While AI offers immense potential to improve service delivery and efficiency, its deployment raises questions of trust, ethics, and accountability. Policymakers must navigate a complex landscape of opportunities and risks, ensuring that AI adoption is transparent, fair, and secure. Trustworthy AI is now a global priority, with international frameworks from UNESCO, OECD, and the European Union emphasizing principles such as fairness, accountability, transparency, inclusiveness, and human rights. Governments need to build institutional readiness, strengthen governance frameworks, and ensure that public officials are equipped to lead responsibly in this new AI-driven environment.

At the same time, digital government remains the broader foundation for public sector transformation. Beyond technology adoption, digital government is about redesigning governance processes to be more agile, participatory, and citizen-centric. It encompasses strategies for open data, whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches, digital literacy, and the use of emerging technologies for innovation. Countries that have advanced in digital government demonstrate the value of integrated digital ecosystems in driving efficiency, transparency, and trust in government.

In the Asia-Pacific region, countries are at varying stages of digital transformation. Some have developed advanced digital government strategies, while others face significant barriers such as limited infrastructure, digital skills gaps, and institutional challenges. Policymakers and civil servants across the region consistently highlight the need for targeted capacity building to strengthen understanding of digital government strategies and frameworks, and to responsibly harness frontier technologies like AI.

The Asian and Pacific Training Centre for ICT for Development (APCICT), a regional institute of ESCAP, has been responding to this demand through its flagship programme, “Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders”. Two new modules on Trustworthy AI and Digital Government for Public Sector Innovations have recently been developed to equip policymakers and civil servants with practical knowledge and actionable tools to address these emerging needs.

To roll out these new modules, APCICT, in collaboration with the Ministry of Science and ICT of the Republic of Korea, Incheon Metropolitan City and Incheon Tourism Organization, is organizing a two-day capacity-building programme that will convene its network of national partners, comprising of government officials, policymakers, and practitioners to explore the fundamentals of trustworthy AI and digital government, share good practices, and strengthen institutional capacities for innovation.