Digital Service Design Hub — Serbia Institutionalises Citizen Co-Design for Accessible E-Government

On 31 October 2024, the Government of Serbia's Office for IT and eGovernment (ITE), together with the UN Resident Coordinator's Office, UNDP, FAO and UNICEF, launched the Digital Service Design Hub under the banner "Clicking Together with Citizens," aiming to move digital public-service design from a top-down process to one built with citizens — explicitly naming the elderly, people with disabilities and rural communities among the priority groups it intends to reach.
The Hub is a three-year, EUR 3.25 million programme funded by the UN Joint SDG Fund with contributions from the EU and the governments of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. It combines redesign of existing digital services with capacity-building — product-management and user-research training for ITE staff, civil-servant training through Serbia's National Academy for Public Administration, and international study visits — with a stated goal of reaching roughly 2.45 million citizens (37% of Serbia's population) and of writing citizen-centred design principles into national legislation and e-government processes.
As a programme still in its early implementation phase, public reporting so far covers its launch, funding and intended scope rather than measured results for the specific accessibility barriers people with disabilities face; the 2.45-million-citizen figure is a programme target, not a count of services already redesigned or people already served. It is included here as an early-stage but well-funded, clearly governed institutional commitment whose outcomes for disabled citizens are worth tracking as they emerge.

Read the full analysis: https://serbia.un.org/en/282451-clicking-together-citizens-technology-serving-community