Every government institution in Sri Lanka is to establish a dedicated Digital Transformation Unit headed by a Chief Digital Officer, under a proposal approved by the Cabinet on Tuesday.
The proposal was presented by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in his capacity as Minister of Digital Economy, the government’s news service said.
Reporting line runs to the top of each institution
Under the framework, the Chief Digital Officer heads the unit and reports directly to the head of the institution rather than through an IT department, according to the Daily Mirror. The reporting line is the substantive change: it places digital transformation at the level of the institution’s chief executive.
The units are also the channel through which institutions draw specialist support from GovTech Sri Lanka (Pvt) Ltd — in enterprise architecture, data and artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and interoperability between systems. GovTech prepared the Digital Transformation Unit Reference Framework setting out how the units are to be structured and implemented.
Filling a gap identified last October
The requirement traces to the National Digital Economy Plan 2025–2030, approved by Cabinet on 21 October 2025. That plan identified the absence of a strong, standardised institutional mechanism inside government bodies to oversee sectoral digital transformation and to ensure compliance with the National Digital Commons Initiative.
GovTech was itself created last year as one of two bodies replacing the Information and Communication Technology Agency, which was wound down in April after 23 years. Tuesday’s decision gives it a defined counterpart inside each institution it is meant to serve.
Neither account states when the units must be set up, how the Chief Digital Officers will be recruited, or whether the posts are new appointments or existing officials redesignated.
