As COVID-19 continues to create challenges for governments, many are using technology to adapt to a “new normal” responding to new challenges while trying to deliver essential services to citizens.
This is the second in a series of three blog posts related to Crisis Response. Read the first blog in the series by Daniel Sumner. For many governments, the world changed on March 11, 2020, when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. While several had been planning and preparing months in advance to address the virus and its cascading effects, many governments were unfortunately caught off guard by its rapid spread and were left scrambling to find ways to keep the numerous varied aspects of government from completely shutting down. Fighting the pandemic and its fallout have been incremental challenges on top of government’s responsibility to provide “everyday services” such as providing social benefits and support to citizens with existing needs, delivering the mail, and issuing business or building permits—all of which help keep the economy from collapsing. Additionally, governments are experiencing historic levels of applications for social service benefits from citizens affected by the economic fallout of the pandemic. Governments need to address this unique combination of challenges, and do it while maintaining social distancing and following other COVID-19 safety protocols, which in many cases meant government offices being shut indefinitely. However, several months into the pandemic there is cause for hope. While the virus continues to ebb and flow at different rates around the world, most governments are getting a good grip on the situation as they adjust to “the new normal.” Thanks in large part to the use of technology, many governments are now able to maintain vital services that citizens depend on day to day, while they were also creating new functions required to address the unprecedented public health, economic, and societal challenges associated with COVID-19. Of course, the technology industry has not been sitting still in the face of this global crisis. Microsoft has been investing heavily to increase the scale and security of technology offerings. Those of us on Microsoft’s Government Industry Team are leveraging technology applications from other industries to help governments address their current set of challenges. One example is a new offer just launched in July to help the retail industry combat fraud: the new Dynamics Fraud Protection offering was originally developed for retail, using sophisticated AI and Machine Learning technology to prevent fraud.
