Latvia’s Digital Transformation Guidelines for 2021-2027
July 2021
Strategies and Action Plans
Author: Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of the Republic of Latvia
The Digital Transformation Guidelines for 2021-2027 (Latvijas Digitālās Transformācijas pamatnostādnes 2021–2027) document outlines Latvia’s digital transformation strategy for 2021-2027. It sets specific goals, objectives, and action plans across five main areas of development:
1. Digital skills and education
This development area addresses the need to enhance digital literacy across society:
- Goals:
- Equip individuals with digital skills to actively participate in the digital economy.
- Train educators and public sector employees to ensure widespread digital competency.
- Provide advanced digital education tailored to specific industries (e.g. healthcare, research, public administration).
- Challenges identified:
- Insufficient digital skills among the population and workforce.
- Limited ICT adoption in private enterprises.
- Shortages of skilled ICT professionals.
- Actions proposed:
- Develop flexible and unified skills management systems to align digital education with labour market needs.
- Promote lifelong learning initiatives.
- Address inequalities highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the digital divide between urban and rural areas.
- The guidelines sets the following KPI for Latvia in the digital skills area by 2027:
- 70 % of citizens with at least basic digital skills
- 45 % of citizens with the above basic digital skills
- 3% of ICT specialists among employed
2. Digital security and trust
This area focuses on ensuring the security and reliability of digital infrastructures and services:
- Goals:
- Strengthen national cybersecurity frameworks and policies.
- Promote secure digital identities and trust services.
- Protect users against harmful online content and ensure consumer rights in digital environments.
- Actions proposed:
- Enhance mechanisms to combat cyber threats and improve data protection.
- Expand the adoption of electronic identification systems.
- Create public awareness campaigns to build trust in digital platforms.
3. Telecommunications and computing access
Ensuring widespread and equitable access to digital infrastructure:
- Goals:
- Achieve 99% broadband coverage with at least 100 Mb/s speed by 2027.
- Ensure uninterrupted 4G coverage on national and municipal roads.
- Promote the adoption of future-ready technologies like IPv6.
- Actions proposed:
- Invest in high-speed broadband infrastructure and improve network mapping.
- Develop public-private partnerships to reduce connectivity gaps.
- Support the rollout of 5G and next-generation mobile networks.
4. Digital transformation of the economy and public administration
This area focuses on modernising the economy and governance structures:
- Goals:
- Establish open digital service platforms for businesses and citizens.
- Encourage the use of cloud services to enhance administrative efficiency.
- Increase SMEs’ participation in e-commerce.
- Challenges identified:
- Latvian SMEs lag in integrating digital technologies compared to the EU average.
- Limited use of data analytics and cloud computing among enterprises.
- Actions proposed:
- Promote data-driven decision-making by opening access to public datasets.
- Support SMEs in adopting e-commerce and digital marketing strategies.
- Develop digital tools for sectors like education, healthcare, and public safety.
5. Innovation in ICT industry and science
This area supports fostering innovation and advancing ICT research:
- Goals:
- Strengthen human resources and infrastructure for digital innovation.
- Encourage collaboration between academia, industry, and the government.
- Support experimental projects like autonomous vehicles and smart cities.
- Actions proposed:
- Invest in testbeds and regulatory sandboxes for emerging technologies.
- Facilitate technology transfer to commercialise innovative solutions.
Future Scenarios
The strategy explores three potential future development paths:
- #Me 2.0 (iChoose):
- Community-driven initiatives dominate.
- Focus on personalised and localised solutions enabled by technology.
- Platform governments:
- Governments act as central platforms, using advanced data integration to deliver services.
- Corporate connectors:
- The dominance of large tech corporations raises issues around sovereignty and inequality.