Rebuilding institutional trust in the digital era

Digital tools can help close the trust gap when they make government easier to scrutinise, give people a real say, and deliver services that work for everyone. They are not a shortcut to trust: the evidence more often documents improvements in participation, service delivery, or government capacity than proves that a particular platform directly increased public trust.^[1][2][3]

Executive summary

1. Make transparency usable and accountable

Transparency is most useful when people can follow the chain from a government decision to the money spent and the results achieved. Governments can proactively publish decision-relevant information and make budget, procurement, spending, and activity data searchable, machine-readable, timely, and reusable.^[15][16][17]

Disclosure alone is not accountability. Pair publication with public participation and scrutiny by legislatures, auditors, and other oversight bodies. Information should be clear, reliable, relevant, and accompanied by metadata that explains how it was collected and any known quality limitations; privacy and security remain valid reasons for proportionate restrictions.^{[18][19][20][21]}

A practical pitfall is mistaking volume for openness. A large data dump may leave people unable to tell what was decided, how funds were used, or whether services improved. Prioritise information citizens need, maintain it through clear responsibilities and adequate staffing, and ask users what data would be useful.^{[22][23][24][25]}

2. Make participation meaningful and inclusive

Digital participation can strengthen trust when people can see that their contributions were considered, rather than simply collected. In the OECD’s 2024 survey, 69% of people who felt they had a say in government reported high or moderately high trust, compared with 22% of those who did not; this is an association, not evidence that a platform caused higher trust.^[26][27]

Build a visible feedback loop: explain how input informed a decision, publish outcomes, and make institutions responsible for follow-up. Design platforms with users, use clear and accessible language, and offer accessible formats, human assistance, and offline routes so people are not excluded by disability, connectivity, literacy, or digital skills.^{[28][29][30][31]}

Examples include Italy’s ParteciPA, which hosted 46 participatory processes and received more than 4,000 citizen inputs, and Croatia’s e-consultation system, which publishes comments on proposed regulations and responses to each comment. The Netherlands’ OpenStad, Barcelona’s Decidim, and Portugal’s Participa.gov are also documented as platforms for activities such as consultation, voting, participatory budgeting, and submitting ideas. These are examples of participation mechanisms, not demonstrated causal increases in trust.^{[32][33][34][35]}

3. Improve services people can rely on

Service reliability, access, quality, and responsiveness are closely connected with trust in government. Improve services by simplifying end-to-end journeys across agencies, designing with users, and making online services accessible and intuitive. Keep human support and non-digital alternatives available for people who cannot or do not wish to use digital channels.^{[36][37][38][39]}

Shared digital infrastructure, such as secure digital identity and responsible data-sharing systems, can reduce repeated requests for information and support joined-up services. But governments need privacy-by-design, security safeguards, transparent governance, and clear explanations of how algorithms are used; they should also monitor whole-service outcomes and improve services iteratively using user feedback and performance data.^{[40][41][42][43][44]}

Serbia’s World Bank-supported EDGE project offers a capacity-building example: it trained more than 4,000 public servants in data protection and cybersecurity, tailored training to different roles, extended training to local service institutions, and strengthened national security infrastructure. The account presents lessons for trusted digital government, but does not report a measured public-trust impact.^[45][46][47]

4. International examples and what they show

These cases illustrate different ways to put transparency, participation, or capacity-building into practice. Their results should be interpreted cautiously: documented activity or improved capacity does not by itself establish that public trust rose.

5. Pitfalls to avoid and a practical sequence

Conclusion

The strongest approach is to treat digital transparency, participation, and service delivery as one accountability system: publish information people can use, give them a meaningful way to influence decisions, show what happened next, and deliver accessible services with strong safeguards. Measure whether these changes improve access, responsiveness, accountability, and user experience, and do not claim a trust effect unless it is actually evaluated.^[72][73][74]