Spending on information technology (IT) by Middle East and North Africa (MENA) governments will reach $13.3 billion in 2022, growing 1.8 percent from 2021, according to Gartner.
Most budgets will go to telecom services, estimated to be worth $3.9 billion, followed by IT services ($3.13 billion) and software ($2.56 billion), said the report.
“MENA governments will continue to increase their spending towards digitalisation efforts in 2022,” said Apeksha Kaushik, principal analyst, Gartner.
Globally, government IT spending is expected to total $565.7 billion in 2022, an increase of five percent from 2021, the analyst firm said.
“The last few years of enduring pandemic challenges have mobilised a wave of digital transformation activities in government organisations across the world,” said Daniel Snyder, director analyst at Gartner. “Governments are executing innovative activities by harnessing technology to streamline digital services, advance automation processes and evolve citizen experiences.”
According to Gartner, in 2022, government IT spending is forecast to increase across all segments except internal services and telecom services. Continuing the trend from 2021, software is forecast to record the strongest growth across all segments in 2022. As legacy modernisation continues to be a priority in government organisations, growth in the data centre systems segment will continue to slow though the forecast period.
Governments continue to invest in critical application software that directly support end user interfaces driving strong growth in this segment.
Spending on telecom services is set to decrease in 2022 as governments reduce spending on expensive legacy systems in favour of digital service delivery models.
Gartner’s latest report also highlighted that 2022 will be a pivotal year for CIOs as they strive to make public services more agile, resilient and responsive. The need to optimise and modernise government business processes and services remains as great as ever.
There will also be increased focus on delivering citizen-centric service delivery, according to Gartner. This means that the industry need is not just about having better or smarter technology, but how experiences are designed.
Furthermore, Gartner revealed that Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) is gaining popularity across government organisations as it provides better return on investment normalising IT spend over time making budgeting for IT more predictable, while avoiding the accrual of technical debt.
Gartner predicts that by 2026, most government agencies’ new IT investments will be made in XaaS solutions.
“The pandemic sped up public-sector adoption of cloud solutions and the XaaS model for accelerated legacy modernisation and new service implementations,” said Snyder. “Fifty-four percent of government CIOs responding to the 2022 Gartner CIO Survey indicated that they expect to allocate additional funding to cloud platforms in 2022, while 35 percent will decrease investments in legacy infrastructure and data centre technologies.”
The widespread use will enable more digitalisation of services and building trust for adoption of digital government services. Adoption of government platforms has been seen as a means of sharing information and enhancing citizen inclusion and digital equity. Governments are integrating services in the form of mobile apps and moving with Total experience strategy to create seamless citizen/constituent experience that encourage digital transactions specially across the financial and health sectors.
With the ongoing talent challenges facing organisations, XaaS makes it easier for government organisations to find the right talent via XaaS operating models. XaaS delivery models require different internal IT skill sets and place less demand on the organisation to develop or acquire emerging IT skills, which are often hard to find and difficult for governments to afford.
