Between 2023 and 2024, the IDB, in collaboration with the governments of seven countries, conducted surveys exclusively targeting users of public services. The objective was to measure the experience of different population groups with government services and assess the government’s readiness for digital service delivery. These surveys, nationally representative of the user population, represent an innovative effort by emphasizing the collection of information on key variables such as sex, age, ethnicity, disability status, urban/rural location, and educational level of individuals who use government services. The questionnaires gathered data on connectivity, ownership of digital assets, digital skills, transactions carried out and the experience with those transactions, awareness of digital public services, and experience with specific social transactions.

These surveys are part of a broader study on the use of public services at the nationally representative level, the resulting database—Citizen Survey on Government Transactions and Equity (IDB, 2025)—is available for consultation in the IDB’s data catalog. The present database, titled User Survey on Government Transactions and Equity, brings together, on one hand, observations from collections conducted exclusively with users in seven countries, and on the other, observations of users identified within nationally representative surveys (which include both users and non-users).

To provide a general overview of 11 countries, comparable to that of Citizen Survey on Government Procedures and Equity (IDB, 2025), for the four countries where no user-focused data collection was conducted, only observations from users within the representative sample were considered. This integration enables the construction of a comprehensive and representative database on the experience of public service users in 11 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean.