The digitalisation program of the City of Cordoba commenced in 2019 in response to an urgent need to simplify the way citizens had to complete certain civic formalities. To achieve these objectives, the Secretariat of Planning, Modernisation and International Relations (SPMRI) was established and is in charge of managing the reform.

The strategy was developed with two main objectives:

1. designing and implementing projects to simplify and digitalize procedures and services in the municipal public administration.
2. implementing agile methodologies and open innovation models to accelerate public and social innovation processes.

The digital transformation has the following components:

• e-government procedures
• Digital file: administrative documents have been digitized
• Digital and electronic signature
• Electronic administrative address: For each administrative procedure, there is an electronic access point
• An electronic notification system to communicate with citizens.
• Digital identity
• Remote management to access the files / perform municipal services remotely.
• Interoperability of municipal services       

Citizen support has been achieved through two fundamental tools:

1. The citizen's digital identity, which allows the citizens to validate their identity with the State through a digital service. In September 2020, the number of citizens with digital identities was 727,608, out of a total population of 1.4 million,
2. Electronic notification, which will avoid the use of physical postal mail and generate immediate electronic communications.

The digitalization project has accelerated the speed of administrative procedures, which has been especially helpful during the pandemic. It has generated monetary savings of more than 241 million pesos for the Municipality. For each digitisation programme, thousands of litres of water, tons of paper and, therefore, thousands of trees were saved. Finally, the results of the initiative are reflected in the time saved for citizens in performing the following procedures:

• Digital civil registration
• Electronic notification
• Digital ID card
• Electronic auction
• Electronic official documents
• Citizen App
• Digital neighbour platform
• Digital guide to procedures

Real time information app (CorLab) for public transport services

The project faced the following challenges:

• There was no registry of administrative procedures existing, so it was difficult for citizens to follow their digital transformation.
• The procedures were highly subjective and the way to complete them was very heterogeneous. The same implementation procedure required different criteria and requirements depending on the entry desk where they were initiated (the municipality has several decentralised entry desks in the city).
• The vast majority of procedures were paper-based and even required the presence of the citizens to initiate, continue or follow up.   
• The interface of the municipality's website had many sections, but they were not systematised, which made it difficult for citizens to use. Updating the open government portal required manual uploading of data, generating high costs for the municipality.
• Public innovation: There was no use of agile methodologies for the design or monitoring of initiatives. This resulted in low citizen and public employee participation in the development, implementation and monitoring of new projects.

The successful transferability of this project to another city requires the following actions:

• Clear leadership and support of the municipal chief executive.
• Involving experts to follow the reform processes
• Legal advice for reform
• Spaces for innovation and experimentation
• Private sector participation
• Emphasis on simplification of procedures
• Generating early wins to gain buy-in from stakeholders and municipal employees
• Communication strategies to convey goals and results
• Forging alliances with strategic partners