GovTech platforms are more effective in fostering citizen engagement in high-income economies and in countries where the government is efficient, institutional and social fragility is low, and there is no conflict or only low-intensity conflict. The results of the Africa focused analysis indicate that African countries that have adopted digital platforms likewise experience an increase in citizen engagement.

The remainder of this research paper is organized as follows: Section II provides a brief review of the existing literature; Section III presents the data used and an overview of the adoption of GovTech platforms and the level of citizen engagement worldwide; Section IV describes the main methodological framework and displays the main findings; section V describes the robustness checks and displays the findings; Section VI presents the sensitivity analysis; Section VII presents the additional analysis focused on Africa; and Section VIII concludes with recommendations.

# **II. Literature Review**

Literature shows, in general, a positive effect of the use of digital technologies on government performance (World Bank, 2022; Waddington et al., 2019; Bae et al., 2019; Diergarten and Krieger, 2015; Lindstedt and Naurin, 2010; Aidt, 2009; Shim and Eom, 2008). For instance, implementation of the Proactive Listening Initiative (an online/mobile phone user feedback platform) in the Dominican Republic has supported growing resolution rates of reported issues and reduction of corruption reports by 70%, with close to 100% of the feedback provided indicating good or excellent levels of satisfaction, according to Peixoto and Fox (2016). The analysis of Haikin et al. (2015) assessing the impact of the online voting platforms in Brazil highlighted that at minimum, a 12.2% increase in citizen participation is directly attributable to online voting. Also, by assessing the impact of digital tools on the inclusivity of citizen engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hofstra et al. (2023) found that digital tools, including interactive platforms, facilitate citizen participation.

However, the consensus on the impact of digital platforms on citizen engagement is also debated and notable caveats exist. David (2017) explored both the theoretical and empirical literature on civic engagement in the context of e-government and found that citizen engagement through e-government has the same shortcomings and caveats as citizen participation, and the use of ICT itself brings with it additional challenges. According to this study, quality control measures must be followed to use ICT for civic engagement to produce the expected benefits. Similarly, Lee-Geiller and Lee (2019) conducted a qualitative meta-analysis of four strands of literature and developed the Democratic E-governance Website Evaluation Model. From the literature review they conducted, they found that governments have used their websites mainly for nascent patterns of communication, particularly information sharing and communication between the citizens and their governments. Spada et al. (2015) studied the effects of technology on citizen engagement through online voting in Brazil, finding that technology appears only more likely to engage people who are younger, male, of higher income and educational attainment, and more frequent social media users.

Other literature has studied the contextual factors needed to ensure that digital technologies and platforms translate into improved citizen engagement. World Bank (2022) highlights the potential of e- government to make the interactions between government and citizens easier by allowing governments to reach more people and provide a wide range of information. However, the study identifies key foundations needed to be in place for such initiatives to succeed, such as digital infrastructure availability, digital skills of public servants, as well as the legal and regulatory framework. Gulati et al. (2014) assessed the relationship of political factors and policy initiatives to improved e-government services and e- participation capabilities using the online service index and the e-participation index of the United 4