Background

UNDP-APDIP recently participated in research involving the production of a “Roadmap for Open ICT Ecosystems.” This Roadmap resulted in increased awareness on Open Standards within the government sector worldwide.

Even more recently, UNDP-APDIP organized a Policy Dialogue on Open Standards at the Regional Conference on Open Standards, Bangkok, 2-4 May 2006. Participants from 13 Asia-Pacific countries took part.

Both these initiatives concluded that government policies for interoperability based on open standards are advantageous and that, if they have not already done so, governments in the region should consider formulating their respective Government Interoperability Frameworks (GIFs).

Government Interoperability Frameworks

Experiences of e-government initiatives show that new ICT-based systems are very often developed from scratch at both central and local levels. New systems are developed with specifications and solutions that match goals and tasks relevant to a particular administration, but without adequate attention to the surrounding government institutions and information and communications technology (ICT) systems. The result is a patchwork of ICT solutions that are not always compatible with each other despite the need for interoperable systems. In addition to the loss of efficiency there is a huge loss of resources on solving the same problems, as well as on generating the same data from many different places.

Formulating a nation-wide strategy for coherent and efficient e-government systems and services, will, apart from ensuring interoperability, also save major resources and enhance efficiency of the public sector. These e-government systems and services include central and provincial level systems that should be interoperable via architecture frameworks outlining common principles for design and development of e-government services. In addition to benefits obtained through delivery of efficient government services, such frameworks enable governments to enhance security as well as enhance flexibility and scalability of solutions to continuously accommodate changing needs of the State and its administration as it serves the public.

GIFs are official government documents that articulate a set of agreed policies, technical guidelines and standards, and timelines for implementation to allow electronic information and transactions to operate seamlessly across agencies and jurisdictions.  Many countries are creating these GIFs and some are creating enterprise-wide architectures or technical reference guides and attaching policy papers to inform their development.  Here, we use the term GIF to refer to a cohesive plan that addresses both technical and policy issues to develop government-wide systems and procedures. 

GIFs are usually published by the Ministry of ICT or a relevant technical agency within government. In some countries, GIFs are developed and published by the Ministry of Finance or Planning or even the Treasury because of the direct economic and market impact that they have. Governments that have published Government Interoperability Frameworks include Brazil, Canada, Denmark, the European Union and the UK. In the Asia-Pacific region governments such as Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and New Zealand have also published GIFs.

Government Interoperability Frameworks: A Project Proposal

UNDP-APDIP, with support from IBM and Oracle, is proposing to implement a project that will:

• Conduct a review and analysis of whether and how existing GIFs are focused on a service-oriented approach and on open and/or proprietary standards, and identify promising practices on interoperability achieved based on Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) or Open Standards adoption.
• Prepare, publish and promote a “best practice” template/reference document that includes at least three e-government case-study featuring interoperability achieved based on SOA and/or Open Standards from at least three countries participating in this initiative.
• Prepare, in collaboration with the relevant national agency in three Asian countries a draft GIF based on an SOA approach and Open Standards.
• Prepare detailed interoperability implementation guidelines on 2 -3 specific citizen service areas such as National ID, Land Records, Tax etc.

Methodology

GIF Review/Research Phase: Comparative Study of GIFs

1. To constitute a GIF Study Group consisting of government representatives from about 14 countries (to be selected from governments who have worked on GIFs , those with promising practices on achieving interoperability, and other nations in the region and elsewhere interested in this topic. Representatives from academia, multi-national institutions and the private sector will be invited to serve as domain experts.
2. To hold one face-to face meeting and virtual meetings in order to develop an agreed framework of analysis of existing GIFs; analyze, compare and document different GIFs; identify gaps in GIFs, if any, for open standard and SOA deployment; propose a step-by-step guide for interested governments to produce their respective GIFs.
3. To provide policy recommendations on Open Standards and SOA vis-a-vis GIFs.
4. To publish (in hard copy and online) and disseminate the comparative analysis, guidelines and recommendations in a report in the name of the Study Group.
5. To hold a public event where the results of this study would be presented and discussed by 1-2 members of the Study Group on behalf of the entire group.

GIF Formulation and Dissemination/Outreach Phase: Development of GIFs for Select Asian Countries

1. To identify and assist up to three Asian countries on the formulation their respective GIFs and where needed, to convene a working meeting of all stakeholders (government, private sector, civil society) and lead agencies in each participating country to make plans for setting up a National GIF Working Group and organizing national GIF Roundtables.
2. Where not formed, to constitute a National GIF Working Group(s) involving all stakeholders (government, private sector, civil society) to discuss and help guide the national counterparts to develop their respective public draft of national GIFs.
3. Where not in practice, to electronically publish notes of each national working group meeting for the benefit of all other national working groups and in order to solicit feedback.
4. If not occurring, to hold between three GIF Roundtables in each country in order to receive input from stakeholders and the public-at-large nationally; each roundtable to involve at least 1-2 members of other national working groups. 
5. If GIF working groups are already in place, hold 1-2 meetings with those groups and outside experts to advise on existing process and progress to date.
6. To publish at frequent intervals, for wider national consultation and feedback, reports of progress achieved on working towards a public draft GIF.  
7. To disseminate widely the resulting public draft GIF.
8. To hold at least one public event in each country where the public draft GIF would be presented and discussed by 1-2 members of the national working group.

Timetable

The project is expected to start in January 2007 and last twelve months. The GIF review/research phase is expected to last approximately six months and the GIF formulation and dissemination/outreach phase approximately nine months, with the two phases overlapping some three months. The first face-to-face meeting of the Study Group will be held around early March 2007.

Expected Outputs

• A report containing comparative analysis of GIFs published by different Governments and guidelines, including a step-by-step guide, that will enable interested governments to produce their respective GIFs;  case studies of promising practices in achieving interoperability.
• Public Draft GIFs for countries participating in the GIF Formulation Phase.

Project Management

UNDP-APDIP will manage and coordinate the project. It will do so in collaboration and partnership with national research partners participating in the project and the International Open Source Network, a centre of excellence for Free/Open Source Software (FOSS), Open Content and Open Standards - an initiative of UNDP-APDIP supported by the International Development Research Centre of Canada.