Interoperability stands as a linchpin for the enhancement of public policies, offering a transformative framework that streamlines administrative processes, fosters collaboration, and aligns diverse systems seamlessly. By enabling different components of PA to work together cohesively, interoperability eliminates silos, ensuring that information flows efficiently across departments and agencies. This interconnectedness is vital for data-driven decision-making, allowing policymakers to access comprehensive insights and make informed choices that lead to more effective, targeted, and sustainable public policies. Furthermore, the strategic emphasis on interoperability contributes to increased agility within PA. This agility enables timely responses to emerging challenges, promotes innovation, and facilitates the incorporation of feedback, ensuring that public policies remain dynamic and relevant in the face of a rapidly changing landscape. In the context of collaborative and multi-level governance, interoperability acts as a catalyst for effective coordination among different levels of government and various stakeholders. It facilitates seamless information exchange, breaking down barriers that often impede collaboration. By promoting a shared understanding of goals and challenges, interoperability enhances the capacity of public policies to address complex issues that transcend geographical and administrative boundaries. Taking this approach in mind we conducted a study to evaluate how interoperability contributed, to promote the access to energy tariffs for groups of citizens (most digitally excluded) and therefore to the mitigation of energy poverty and consequently, to enhance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially in a context of collaborative and multi-level governance, transcending national measures to supranational levels. A case study was conduct taking into consideration the research question: "What is the impact of introducing interoperability between systems on the scope, quality, and efficiency of the social energy tariff allocation?". Three hypotheses were taken into consideration (for the period 2010-2022): H1: The introduction of interoperability increased the number of beneficiaries of the social energy tariff. H2: The introduction of interoperability improved the service quality within the scope of the social energy tariff allocation. H3: The introduction of interoperability enhanced the efficiency of administrative processes in the social energy tariff allocation. For hypothesis validation, a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative and quantitative techniques was chosen to gather and analyse data, optimizing results for evaluation under a case study of social energy tariff implementation in Portugal. The data collected and analysed confirmed that the introduction of interoperability in the social energy tariff attribution, increased the number of vulnerable individuals, contributing to the reduction of energy poverty (increased by 2630% between 2013 and 2021) - hypothesis 1 validated. Concurrently, the response time was reduced, increasing the frequency of automatic identification and validation of clients from quarterly, in a year, to monthly, with the Social Security (SS) and Tax Authority (AT) proof - Hypothesis 2 validated. Quality gains with interoperability was also found, turning the service more personalized, inclusive, and environmentally beneficial – Hypothesis 3 validated. The research conclusions suggests that interoperability significantly contributed to reduce energy poverty among socioeconomically vulnerable individuals, allowing local poverty measures to be complemented by actions taken at the national government level, framed by the internationally defined Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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Interoperability,Sustainable Development,Policy implementation,governance,SDG