While working with the Interoperability Frameworks for e-government services at country level, one theoretical issue that I’m faced with is, the debate on methodology for attaining interoperability in e-government context. For some, it is the National Enterprise Architecture (NEA) and for others it is the Government Interoperability Framework (GIF).

However, while going through both NEAs and GIFs of various countries, an emerging trend is witnessed, that the distinctions are getting blurred gradually – at least the way these are documented. Though, I need to get it validated – independently.

All the GIFs contain ’standards’, so does the EAs, the difference though, is the way in which these standards are categorized and clustered.

Take the case of GIFs first. Australia (2005), Brazil (2006), Denmark (2005), Malaysia (2006), New Zealand (2006) and the UK (2005) (- let’s call them the first lot-) categorizes the standards according to ‘technical layers’ but Germany (2006) and the EU (2004) ( – the second lot) uses ’services or life events’ to categorize the standards .

The ‘layered’ model – used by the first lot – clustered the standards in typical technical categories (or layers) such as interconnection, data integration, information access and presentation, metadata and security. Clearly the focus here is only on the ‘technical’ dimension of interoperability. In comparison – the second lot – grouped the standards in such a way, that the focus spreads beyond just the ‘technical’ dimension of interoperability to the ‘organization/process’ and the ‘data/semantic’ dimensions of interoperability as well. The standards – in the second lot – are categorized according to the services or life events such as income taxes, job search, social security contribution, personal documents, car registration, permits, certificates, enrollment, announcement of relocation and health-related services etc.

Interestingly however, it is also observed that many countries – many from the first lot – have reviewed and few others are still reviewing their original GIFs and are planning to address the unattended dimensions (‘organization’ and ‘data’) of interoperability in their future versions of GIFs. The possible reason for taking the route of addressing the technical interoperability first, by the majority of the countries, could have been the ease in standardizing the technical matters(?).

Take the case of the latest version of New Zealand’s e-GIF (2008). It clusters the standards in layers such as network, data integration, business services, access and presentation, web services, security and best practices. The ‘web services’ is comparatively (w.r.t 2006) a latest addition and attempts to address the missing links of ‘organization’ and ‘data’ dimensions of interoperability.

The point is, in cases of older GIFs, if the standards were not categorized by the life events, then categorization of standards was limited to technical layers only, neglecting the two (organization and data) of only three (organization, data and technical) aspects of interoperability. However with addition of new categories such as ‘web-services’ (still under ‘technical’ dimension though) this missing link is being attempted to be bridged.

There is another trend though. Many countries instead of revising their existing GIFs, are working through their respective National Enterprise Architecture (NEA) to address the ‘organization’ and ‘data’ dimensions of interoperability. This confluence is now reflected in the latest versions of the GIFs and the NEAs. The distinctions are getting blurred.

Consider the case of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s – Enterprise Information Technology Architecture (2008). This can be treated at par with any National Enterprise Architecture (NEA) in a limited context. The Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM) which provides an architectural framework to identify the standards, specifications and technologies that support the commonwealth’s computing environment, uses access and delivery, information, application, integration, management and security to categorize the standards – a very similar classification system as seen in the latest version of New Zealand’s e-GIF.

Do you see a converging trend here?

In one of the social networking sites I saw a banner flashed by one gentleman on his home page – wittily enough – campaigning for a popular Indian cricket commentator (Harsha Bhogle) for the post of India’s President during India’s last presidential elections – “Bhogle for President”. Not that I have any less regard for Harsha, but it immediately struck a chord in me about a similar sounding campaign – ‘ICT for Development’ or ‘ICT4D’ and the debacle the ‘field’ itself is currently going through.

There is a growing feeling among development practitioners and organizations that ICT4D was more hype than hope (!) and was a misplaced development focus. We are clearly witnessing a gradual trend of fading institutional support for ICT4D. Today there are fewer institutions supporting the field or supporting it with same consistency we saw in the past.

As the editorial of ITID Volume-3 puts it, ‘As we move from cheerleading enthusiasm of the ICT4D roaring 1990s to the reactionary pessimism of the early 2000s – when nothing seemed to work – to the synthetic smart-experimentation stage of today…’, we need to ask, what went wrong?

In the context of various information management systems running in governments, the expectations to have ‘single version of truth’ is not something new. For better planning, organizing, controlling and leading, having access to timely and correct (non-conflicting) data/information is very pertinent. However, in many cases, few information systems, if any, running in government organizations, share information among themselves, even though many have similar functionalities and overlapping data sets.

The good news though is: the ‘need’ to share is gradually being realized in the connected world and ‘interoperability’ is being mooted as the solution.

Interoperability allows disparate systems to ‘talk’ to each other. Needless to say, the complexities in getting them to ‘talk’ can be further reduced by having these systems developed based on certain agreed standards. After all, it is easier to connect similar things.

There is a clear link between ‘standards’ and ‘interoperability’ – with increasing standardization, the ease to interoperate increases. However caution is warranted here, [in the beginning - in order to achieve interoperability through commanding standards] as, standardization is not only difficult to achieve and enforce but also would stifle the freedom of design.

In contrast, ‘interoperability’ as a concept, allows that bit of disparateness in systems to exist but still provides room for systems to ‘talk’ to each other.

It appears interoperability can be achieved either by developing information systems based on certain standards or without standards. However, efforts needed to make systems exchange data would be different in both the cases.

Although the growth in the telecenter ‘numbers’ came as bits and pieces from different projects, the evolution of their ‘role’ was organic in nature. It grew out of the needs of the communities and eventually leveled the differences in their origin.

By mid 2003, there were 73 telecenters in 12 districts of Orissa covering an area of about 44,716 square kilometers which contains large rural population. These telecenters are located in some of the perennially disaster affected/prone and poorest districts of Orissa. These are the areas that have traditionally lacked access to adequate information and lagged behind in terms of development.

Analyzing the telecenters in Orissa through the framework, it is apparent that the telecenters have evolved with respect to  Information and Services portfolio, Organizational Setup and Information Infrastructure systematically and survived the change in focus. Also, on the sustainability front, telecenters with regular access and usage have shown to be stronger on the revenue earnings enabling them to run day-to-day operations based on user charges.

Following are the highlights under specific parameters of the framework :

Information and Services portfolio:

In spite of original focus on specific areas, telecenters were quick to learn and therefore survived the transition with added information and services deliveries.  Partnerships with service providers played an important role in consolidating the portfolio.

Mainly offline content in local language in form of CDs (called knowledge hub) with scanned information from various government departments and other agencies helped establish telecenters as a reliable information source in the communities.

Subsequently, partnership with the Indira Gandhi National Open University enabled telecenters to administer certified computer literacy classes, similarly with Orissa Primary Education Programme Authority the telecenters offered IT aided education (using animated multimedia CDs done by Azim Premji Foundation) to the students of designated primary schools in nearby areas and with ‘Mission Shakti’, Department of Women and Child Development, Government of Orissa, it ran a programme to educate women members of Self Help Groups on basic computing on a payment basis.

All these have added to the relevancy factor and as a result, on the sustainability side of the telecenters.

Organizational Setup:

At the lowest level, each telecenter is managed (day-to-day functions) by a community IT volunteer – paid through the user charges – collected and managed by a management committee, constituted by a host organization in consultation with local government authorities and IT facilitator.

The community IT volunteer who is in charge of day-to-day activities in the telecenter is selected by the management committee and is preferably a basic IT educated unemployed youth of the same village.
 
Each IT facilitator is in charge of a number of telecenters. IT facilitator is also the member of the District IT Society and acts as a bridge between the District Collector (head of district level administration) and the rural community.

The District IT Society is an umbrella organization setup through this programme in programme districts, which tries to integrate all the IT related activities of the district including telecenters.

Role of UNDP-Orissa Hub in brokering the partnerships with various service providers is also a highlight. The Standard Operation Procedures (SOP) prepared by UNDP-Orissa Hub provided the guidance for day-to-day functioning of the telecenters. Its facilitation helped streamline the record keeping and reporting of the telecenters.

Information Infrastructure:

The selection of location for these setups was driven by the objectives of the original projects, and it did have an effect on the overall effectiveness of the telecenters. In few cases the locations were changed later to tap onto the available infrastructure of new location in order to enhance the deliverables of the telecenters.

Availability of telephone connection, internet access and power supply did have an effect on many services in the telecenters, specially the one which tried to lodge complaint to the district collectors through a website www.aamagaon.com. But more than anything else, it was not a hit because of lack of automation at government’s end, because once the complaints reached the collectors office, it is subjected to the same old route of the paper documents (in form of printouts) and delays.

The premises for the telecenters were provided by the host organizations and this has contributed in strong ownership by the communities.

In summary, as pioneering effort in setting and running of telecenters in Orissa, the initiative has extended the benefits of ICTs to the poorest of the poor and gained a lot in terms of learning. Analyzing the project from the perspective of the framework of Information and Services portfolio, Organizational Setup and Information Infrastructure, it offers guidance to the new initiatives planned on top of this.

The State of Orissa, situated on the eastern cost of India was hit by an unprecedented super cyclone on October 29th, 1999. The cyclone caused massive damage to houses, vegetation, livelihood and the environment.

The relief and rehabilitation work that ensued, involved several UN agencies along with government and non-governmental organizations.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) – Orissa Hub, supported the Government focal points to coordinate with various agencies working during this period to appropriately target the resources flowing in by building and facilitating use of databases on disaster damages, needs and gap analysis through the United Nations Information Technology Services (UNITeS).

In the reconstruction phase these ’setups’ were handed over to the Block and Gram Panchayats – the lowest level of administrative units in the State – to function as Block Disaster Management Information Centres and Gram Panchayat Disaster Management Information Centres respectively. These where then thrown open to public to access rehabilitation and reconstruction related information in respective areas. This unique effort of the UNITeS was acknowledged with the program being chosen as one of the finalists of the Stockholm Challenge awards in the year 2001.

This was the beginning of telecenter movement in Orissa.

While Orissa was yet to recover from the shock of the unprecedented natural disaster, the State was face to face with yet another natural calamity of vast magnitude, that is, the floods of July 2001.

Following the floods in 2001, the UK’s Department for International Development’s Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department (DFID-CHAD) supported project, ‘restoration of agriculture based livelihoods’ was successfully implemented in 7 affected coastal districts. During the exit phase of this project, used computers were mobilized and provided to village farmers committees, implementing partners and to the district agriculture offices, in order to expand the scope of the Agriculture Service Centres to Agriculture Information Centres and networking them to the coordinating agencies and the line department.

This was again a unique case of extending the ICTs to the masses through organic growth of institutions.

Likewise, in partnership with different departments of the Government of Orissa, in total, 73 ICT kiosks/telecenters in 12 districts have been established which are currently being hosted by Women Self Help Groups/ Panchayats (Local Government)/ NGOs/ CBOs/ Youth Clubs. These centres are being managed by the Community IT Volunteers paid through user charges collected and managed by local hosts.  ICT Facilitators posted at district level supervise the Community IT Volunteers and provide a link between the communities and the various district line departments for content and services.

Consolidation of such a diverse set of ICT kiosks/telecenters was imminent given the constraints of ending original projects and expansion of scope. Subsequently these telecenters were brought under one brand umbrella of ‘Aamagaon Soochna Kendra (ASK)’ [My villages’ information center] for delivery of equitable information and services to rural masses.

ICT kiosk model developed has been adapted by the State government in setting up 4000 ICT kiosks across the State under self employment scheme.

With some sense of what could influence telecenters being used for their indented purposes – given its mix of generic ICT offerings – information, connectedness and devices, telecenters – in their many forms – can attempted to be understood by the ensuing framework.

This framework has three base components: (1) Information & Services portfolio, (2) Organizational Setup and (3) Information Infrastructure, which with their varied degrees of influence characterize telecenters.

Further – access, awareness and interface – (the critical elements in ‘making IT used’) in telecenters are also the derivatives of these above mentioned three components.

In many cases, in order to be commercially viable, telecenters have drawn from the experiences of profit oriented entities, where keeping revenues up and costs low becomes a priority too. Telecenters with Cyber Cafes models are good example of this kind. Therefore this factor also gets positioned along sides the base parameters and helps in understanding the holistic picture.

Information and Services portfolio:
The information and services needs of the communities are often under-captured, (in many instances because of incapacity in articulation). Nonetheless, availability of relevant and adequate information and services, has understood to be of great significance in getting the telecenters visited and used by members of the communities. Furthermore partnership with appropriate service providers further enhances the scope of deliveries at telecenters and its influence.

Organizational Setup:
The ways in which telecenters are managed – either as stand-alone setups or part of a network – organizational arrangements, plays an important role in characterizing the telecenters. Management structures, including ownership arrangements at different levels (especially when, the telecenters are functioning in a ‘hub and spoke’ model – having many telecenters linked with a hub center for support services) influences its usage patterns. Responsibilities at these different levels also varies, from running of day-do-day operations in a single unit to the tasks which are strategic and are applicable organization wide – such as building partnerships with service providers, developing standard operating procedures etc.

Information Infrastructure:
The available hard and soft infrastructure such as connectivity, electricity and community ownership in a specific location not only influences the decision of setting up of telecenters but also affects the range of information and services being delivered through these setups. Online and offline delivery modes of many information and services in telecentres are highly influenced by this parameter.

Telecenters are acknowledged as – the facilities that offer community members the ability to use ICTs in a publicly shared manner. However, the concept of telecenters in ICT for Development domain has remained a mystery. Mystery – because the concept has been evolving ever since its articulation and therefore the exact nature of its constructs have remained hard to pinpoint. So much so that because of its ambiguous characterization, the measurement of its impact, to a certain extent has also been misplaced and contributed to the original suspicion on ICT led development.

For instance, on sustainability front, some telecenters were subjected to the rigors of being economically viable – i.e. revenues earned through usage must meet or surpass cost of running the telecenters and some were treated as ‘public services’ like government run hospitals or schools, in which case the questions of monetary sustainability fall through. In such contrasting situations, analyzing successes and development impacts posed great challenges – and the need to have an innovative and comprehensive framework to accomplish that, was conspicuously felt.

It appears that the implementation of telecenters continued across developing countries without taking much into consideration the past experiences and cumulative learning in setting up and running of telecenters – which were widespread in the development field in early 1990s – resulting in mixed bag of successes and failures later.

Failures in meeting the development goals through telecenters also rests with the notion of addressing the issues of digital divide by just ‘having IT there’. Whereas the aspects of ‘access’, ‘awareness’, and ‘interface’, which underpins the concept of ‘getting IT used’ have demonstrated to be of critical importance in cases of successes in ICT for Development field in general and in telecenters in particular.

On the whole, there was an undeniable void of a solid conceptual framework to analyze various experiences in telecenter projects and then building on it.

Development is a package deal. It happens not because of just one thing but due to collation of many things working together. Policy, institutions, capacity, technology and many more factors impact development. (So, a linear relationship between only ICT and development may not be that direct to extrapolate!)

Conversely, lack of development is just a manifestation of many deeper root causes (– and not the reason thereof). For example – digital divide – like hunger is not a problem in itself (poverty is!), but an indicator (– and definitely not the cause) of more critical issues – dipper socio-economic divides.

Therefore, caution is warranted here! The efforts in ICT for Development arena too, should attempt to tend to the underlying causes and not the symptoms directly. The efforts to bridge the digital divide for that reason, should not only limit to ‘having IT there’ but also ‘getting IT used’ because, the sense of ‘use’ per se relates to a ‘purpose’ and focus thus remains on the basic ideas of information needs, voice and participation of communities which enables their stakes in the process of development.

Ensuring usages by the communities, of the ICT, is the key to (sustainable) development. To make that happen, the strategies required need to address simultaneously the issues of access (in terms of physical, social, economical and political), awareness (in terms of knowledge of its availability and possibilities it can offer i.e. value proposition), and interface (in terms of medium, devices, language etc.) of the tools and technologies with the communities.

Take the case of ‘Grameen Village Phone’ in Bangladesh. Through this venture, mobile phones into the hands of the poor have been made possible through innovative practices which have enabled poor people to exploit the technology to attain hitherto unknown benefits.

When a micro entrepreneur buys a phone with a loan from the Grameen Bank and then sells the use of it on a per call basis – it is nothing but fall of an economical barrier to the access. Also, the fact that these entrepreneurs are women makes the access socially much easier for other women in a comparatively conservative setup. Physically, access is eased by the roaming ‘telephone ladies’ taking mobile phones door to door.

However, all this would have not worked had it been not made known through various means to the villagers that this facility now exists and that what value it can create for them.

Furthermore, mobile phone is a simpler device – less buttons, less clumsy – at least simpler than a bulky computer. Also, the helpful guidance of the ‘telephone ladies’ helped bridge the gap between up till now, an unknown device – the mobile phone – and mostly illiterate users.

With adequate thrust to issues pertaining to access, awareness and interface, Grameen Village Phone is a success story not only from social venture side but also from business perspective. Today, Grameen Phone is the largest cellular phone company in all of South Asia with over 8.5 million subscribers.

(data: http://www.grameenfoundation.org)

(more: http://www.telecommons.com/villagephone/contents.html)

Establishing relationship between development and ICT has never been easy. This was precisely the situation in businesses few years ago. It wasn’t easy either for the businesses to see value in using ICT for growth. It took time and understanding of the nuances before it got established that ICT can clearly offer strategic advantage to the businesses.

Enterprise Resource Planning, Supply Chain Management, Customer Relationship Management, Knowledge Management, Data warehousing /Data mining, e-Commerce etc., which have now become part and parcel of doing business – were never heard of before. These and other such concepts which are made feasible by ICT have offered clear paybacks to the companies of the modern world. The demands of the ‘flat world’ are hard to cope up with, without embracing ICT.

However, the concept of – impact of ICT on development – has to still fight many tough battles. The situation gravitates further due to a valid question on the importance of the basic necessities such as food, water, shelter etc. versus ICT. In response to this, practitioners have resorted to ‘prioritization’ as a way out. The similarities between this dilemma and those faced by the businesses few years ago are hard to ignore.

Today – after various phases of evolution – when the businesses stand victorious, the lessons learnt too are hard to ignore.

Eventually, the development sector will learn from the businesses. ‘If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it’, approach wouldn’t work in this case. The lessons have been learnt the hard way of the inadequacy of measuring Returns on Investment (ROI) in cases of ICT investments (/spending!). Also, on the other side of the spectrum the valuation for companies in the ICT industry has remained – a not so exact science.

This thing is different! May be, the challenge here is to manage what you can’t measure!

If technologies were/are so vital for organizations, it must be also evident in-as cumulative effect-on nations to grow! 

This is my take:

Development in countries has traditionally been associated with spurts of new technologies (locally or globally – if they are linked well with the global economy). Researchers have established that growth between 1780s and 1840s in many countries was mainly driven by technologies related with textiles industry. Between 1840s and 1890s it was steam power and railways. Similarly, electricity and steel were at the centre stage of development between 1890s and 1940s. Hereafter it was mass production of automobiles and synthetic materials, which have been instrumental in the economic growth in many countries. 

Nowadays, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are by and large considered technologies of the new millennia and are seen as main drivers of growth in the twenty-first century. 

Here comes the difference though – and the effects. The difference between these technologies and those of past is, others remained concentrated in only few countries for quite some time and this one crisscrossed the globe in comparatively very little time. These technologies have fewer entry barriers. 
 
Taking it further, ICTs are much easier to be exploited for growth by developing countries than other technologies of the past eras and this has to be a remarkable opportunity.

Working on this hypothesis, can we say that, this period compared to any other ‘technology periods’ in the past, will see more countries crossing the line – low income to middle income and middle income to high income?