Past Projects

INT13001: Centre for Innovation on e-Government Development

Main Expectations:
The project aims at the establishment of a Regional centre for e-Government innovation and various related activities, to be developed in close cooperation with the Colombian Government (MINTIC - ICT Ministry) and UNDP, with the following objectives: a. To generate and share knowledge about research, trends and good e-Government practices at national, regional and international levels, including a methodology for the identification and management of innovative e-Government knowledge. b. To support e-Government innovation exercises in public administration institutions. c. To outline a sustainable model for the systematization of e-Government innovations in the short and médium term. To provide an incentive for the development of an e-Government culture of innovation in Colombia and other countries. The Centre of Innovation on e-Government Development will have a national, regional and international nature in disseminating all these trends from a Latin American perspective. The Project has been signed in September 2013 until December 2013. The annual budget of US$ 800,000 follows a calendar year but in all likelihood will extended until 2014 and beyond.

Objective/Purpose of Project: The objective of the project is to demonstrate the potential and benefits of using Open Government Data (OGD) in advancing transparency, accountability and sustainable development in selected countries of Latin America and East Asia regions, currently identified to be Bangladesh, Nepal, Panama, and Uruguay. br />
In partnership with the national counterparts , the project aims at developing a strategy for open data, particularly in thematic areas relevant to the achievement of internationally agreed development goals, including MDGs. Primarily, the government expenditure and budgeting data, environmental data, procurement data, demographic data, socio-economic indicators, healthcare data, geographical data and local transportation data.

The project aims at assisting with the development of a policy framework and technical infrastructure for implementation of OGD initiatives. It will strive at strengthening the open data community within selected countries. The target beneficiaries include, but are not limited to government officials responsible for data coordination in the country such as Chief Information Officers (or equivalent), Information Privacy Commissioners, Procurement Divisions and relevant government officials from ministries and governmental institutions responsible for selected policies (e.g. Ministries of Planning). Indirect beneficiaries include citizens and communities at large.

The project will also stimulate a south-south knowledge transfer and cross-fertilization of OGD by bringing together OGD-beginners with more OGD-advanced countries.
International workshops, online training courses, and availability of workshop reports will increase the outreach of the project on a global scale, particularly for countries in regions most in need of such support.

Time Frame: September 2013 - November 2015

Funding:Development Account (DA)
Proposed Budget: US$164,189
Division: DPIDG
Focus Countries: Developing Countries
Comment: The project was concluded and became sustainable as an institutional part of the Government of Colombia.

INT14X26: 2014 United Nations Global e-Government Forum

Main Expectations:
- Increased knowledge of e-Government policies, trends, solutions and best practices of countries, which will be showcased and shared with the Member States through UNPAN and United Nations Public Administration Country Studies (UNPACS)
- Recommendations and suggestions to provide guidance for the Member States to refer to and adopt them for realising Smart Government and Smart Society.
- Renewed commitment of policy makers to adapt their acquired knowledge and expertise for elaborating innovative e-Government development strategies fit for their countries.

Objective/Purpose of Project: The 2015 Astana Economic Forum comes at a time when governments are required to be more responsive, transparent, and accountable to efficiently respond to the challenges of sustainable development. Governments nowadays are being faced with much more complex problems, especially in terms of meeting sustainable development challenges, than in the past. Citizens’ demands toward their governments are becoming so diverse that the traditional role of governments as mere service providers cannot satisfy any longer citizens’ needs. Citizens now demand from their governments: (a) more citizen-centric services keenly customised to satisfy their expectations, (b) greater degree of transparency and accountability, and (c) greater citizen participation in public decision-making processes. The theme of this year’s Forum, which is on “Infrastructure: driver of sustainable economic growth”, is very timely and provides an opportunity to discuss how leveraging the potential of ICT tools, such as social media, can transform traditional forms of government financing into smart ones which can respond to complex needs and various challenges proactively. One of the ways that social media is playing that role is through crowd-funding, which allows citizens to provide funding of activities which they support. Citizen, government and even the UN have used crowd-funding to finance projects.

Session 1: Social media as a tool for financing and knowledge sharing for sustainable development Social Media in particular, crowd sourcing could be used as a tool for financing development, especially in municipalities, local government and specific projects that had a high social impact. Access to Internet is critical to developing an economy thus governments should create a connectivity strategy to get everyone connected to the Internet. For disadvantages section of the population government should think about providing access subsidies low-income population. Design digital literacy programs into curriculums for all levels (primary school, high school, university, job/vocational training, with special programs for elderly and low-income communities. Crowd sourcing as a tool for financing development: • use of social media as an appropriate tool to promote crowdfunding for small-scale municipal projects • for local crowd financed projects (debt or equity), financial benefits accrue to the community • municipalities and government projects should consider the social impact bond • create a crowd sourcing ecosystem for developing states Celebrate and promote people and organizations who are the champions of social networking to create economic opportunities through all media. Designate a week per year (Innovation Week) to celebrate innovation, invite innovation and entrepreneur thought leaders from around the world to give talks, meet with entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs need access to capital, but government shouldn't be deciding which entrepreneurs to give it to. Therefore, one can create a fund that matches money raised in the marketplace (crowdfunding, venture capital, etc.) and ensure that entrepreneurs have access to these funds and the requirements for access are clear and straightforward.

Session 2: Open Government data: a pillar for sustainable development Government data mining through identification of government data resources and addressing an exhaustive state of existing government data. Political will, coupled with a strong legal framework were critical to the development of open government data. Data Accessibility & Usability: • Easy access to data via an open portal • Clear categorization of data to make it easier for users to understand what type of information is available • Use of common standards to facilitate reuse • Provision of simple and easy to use tools to enable all users regardless of technical ability to use data Political will coupled with a strong legal framework is indispensable for optiminizing the release of data and promoting the triangular relationship among the public sector, private sector and citizens. There is a need to create of data-mining software that will clearly categorize data for to ensure simplicity of data mining process. The public administration needs to have a clear understanding of the type of data and information that citizens want to have at their disposal. There must be a clear understanding and definition between data, big data and open data in management of governmental data.

Session 3: The role of private sector in supporting sustainable development Open government data increase transparency between government and civil society while reducing the resistance for Public Private Partnership. Public administration should develop templates that can handle standard situations between the private sector and public sector. This should include multiple models and step-by-step instruction in dealing with the private sector. This will allow civil servants to choose the appropriate template and/or model to use in specific cases. Capacity building in area of public-private-partnership should be strengthened at all levels of government. Governments should implement a completely transparent e-procurement system that instils accountability, transparency and trust between the public and private sectors. E-procurement information should be freely available for businesses, associations and individuals. It is Important to manage the transformation and expectation from classic to Private Public Partnership in e-Government. Governments in emerging and developing countries should recognize the importance of the growth of private sector in promoting ICT in ensuring the sustainable development. E-Government program, should be in line and committed to developing private sector and promote ICT for sustainable development. a) Encouraging entrepreneurship & innovation by providing financial and non-financial support to prospective entrepreneurs in the field of ICT. b) Introduced Open Government initiative enabling public app development. c) Facilitate knowledge exchange and ICT market development by conducting international eGovernment forums and IT Expo thereby providing an opportunity to bring together the ICT community for business building d) Involving NGOs and private sector in the ICT capacity building of citizens and government officials. e) Encouraging private participation in enhancing citizen engagement and participation f) Provides opportunity to private sector in enabling access channels to eGovernment services and support Green IT initiatives of the Kingdom. Create Knowledge repository: Create a knowledge repository on PPP and enable sharing of the success stories & lessons learnt to different PPP practitioners. This could provide vital improvements in enhancing the sustainability of the PPP initiatives in their respective organizations. The existence of a strong and mature legal framework is necessary for the successful PPP expectation that shall ensure simplicity, speed and reduce the bureaucracy. Efforts should be undertaken to utilize private sector capabilities in the commercial delivery of services to customers of the eGovernment system. Identify the areas where the Capacity Building is required in Government entities for partnering (e.g., identify, evaluate, select, execute, exit) with the private sector. For example, build capacity of Government entities in identifying & selecting the partners especially in the field of Information & Communication Technology.

Time Frame: August 2014 - December 2014

Funding:Development Account (DA)
Proposed Budget: US$442,451
Division: DPIDG
Focus Countries: Kazakhstan
Comment: the project was concluded

PAN15X01: Competence on e-Government Development in Panama

Summary to be Added as a concluded project. It has generated at least two Capacity Development publications to be attached to the DPIDG website for global dissemination.

UAE13X01: E-Government Initiative for Emirates ID Authority

Objective/Purpose of Project: Objective to be achieved through set of advisory and capacity building activities that target various levels of Emirates ID Authority and other related entities of UAE government: providing expertise , in open government and social media to offer advisory assistance on successful practices in managing open data portals and social media tools; prepare foundation for marketing plan to be implemented and build capacity with Emirates ID Authority.

Main Expectations:

EIDA will be a main player in open government data in the U.A.E. and will leverage its wealth of data to develop future online tools and services.

Specific Products/Outputs Delivered:

- Two books to be published: enhancing capacity on e-government and Smart Government
- Emirates ID Authority to have a corporate strategy on Open data and Social Media
- Emirates ID Authority to implement a marketing plan promoting its services and online tools
- Delivery of Open Data Forum

Key Accomplishments (to date):

National Workshop was delivered with the following key activities - Open data: government offers more open data on its national portal and website of various government entities. - E-Participation: online channels available for citizens through the government portal and website to communicate and interact with government officials and participate in the design of government policy and services, and to have a role in the decision making process. - E-ID National Program: to be fully implemented and promoted throughout the region.

Time Frame: September 2013 – September 2014
Funding: United Arab Emirates
Proposed Budget: US$ 175,000
Division: DPIDG
Focus Countries: United Arab Emirates
Comment: project concluded

INT14X27: United Nations Public Service Day 2015, Colombia

Objective/Purpose of Project: The United Nations Public Service Day celebrates the value and virtue of public service to the community; highlights the contribution of public service in the development process; recognizes the work of public servants, and encourages young people to pursue careers in the public sector. The overall purpose of the United Nations Public Service Awards is to recognize the institutional contribution made by public servants to enhance the role, professionalism, image and visibility of the public service.

Main Expectations:

- Enhanced knowledge of challenges and trends, best practices and tools in innovating governance and public administration and the delivery of services, which will be further shared with all UN Member States through the United Nations Public Administration Network (UNPAN) - Shared possibilities and plans of adapting good practices in the delivery of public services through peer-to-peer learning and transfer of innovations; - Shared innovative capacity development tools and approaches, manuals, and guidelines to build national and local capacity of governance and public administration and service delivery for implementing the post 2015 development agenda effectively. - Network with government officials, experts, academics and practitioners from around the world during and beyond the event; - Renewed public sector leadership commitment and inspiration to engage in promoting creativity and innovations in public sector institutions for effective, efficient, responsive, equitable, and accountable delivery of public services to implement the post 2015 development agenda.

Specific Products/Outputs Delivered:

- 22 public organizations from 18 countries were awarded with the most prestigious award of Excellence in Public Service on 26 June 2015. 14 were first place winners, whereas 8 were second place winners.

Key Accomplishments (to date):

848 nominations have been received for the 2015 UNPSA, marking an increase from the 2014 Public Service Awards nominations at 704 and an impressive increase from the 2003, the first year of the program.

Feedback

The event drew over 937 participants from 69 countries and included world leaders, ministers, senior government officials, mayors, representatives from civil society, academia, and the private sector, as well as representatives from international and regional organizations. In addition, digital participation played a significant role this year as the ‘‘Hash-tags’ (#UNPSA2015) reached 158 million people around the world during the UNPS Forum, Day, and Awards Ceremony.

Time Frame: August 2014 – July 2015
Funding:Colombia
Proposed Budget: US$ 605,153.00
Division: DPIDG
Focus Countries: All Member States
Comment: project concluded

RAF08X01: Africa i-Parliaments Action Plan

Main Expectations: This project envisages empowering African Parliaments with skills, information services and applications that will allow them to become open, participatory, knowledge-based learning and participatory organizations and provide tools to support inter-parliamentary collaboration, shared services and capacity building activities.

Objective/Purpose of Project: This is a follow-up to the pilot project on “Strengthening Parliaments’ Information Systems in Africa” which was implemented from 2004 to 2008. The project aims to foster transparency and access to legislative and parliamentary documents and strengthen inter-parliamentary cooperation and capacity building activities in the Parliaments of Africa, in order to sustain good governance in Africa and allow African Parliaments to better fulfill their democratic functions.

Key Accomplishments (to-date):
- AKOMA NTOSO - "Architecture for Knowledge-Oriented Management of African Normative Texts using Open Standards and Ontologies" a set of simple, technology-neutral representations of parliamentary, legislative and judiciary documents such as legislation, debate record, minutes, judgments, etc.
- Bungeni – Parliamentary Information System is an end-to-end suite of applications that provides a world-leading solution for drafting, managing, consolidating and publishing legislative and other parliamentary documents.
- Legislative Drafting Guidelines for Africa - Given the variety of legislative traditions and languages present in Africa, the project promoted the development of common legislative drafting guidelines to support the harmonization of legislation throughout the Continent.
- Africa Parliamentary Knowledge Network (APKN) – APKN is a parliamentary network meant to support capacity building activities, common services, sharing experiences and best practices among African countries.

Time Frame: May 2005 - June 2013
Funding: XBTC
Proposed Budget: US$6,144,831
Division: DPIDG
Focus Countries: Africa
Comment: project concluded

TOG09002: Projet d’appui à la réforme et à la modernisation de l’Administration publique (Support to Public Sector Reform and Modernization Project)

Main Expectations:
- Capacities to coordinate governmental work as well as reforms implementation are to be reinforced
- Institutional Analysis and organizational strategic auditing with regard to Ministries and other major public institutions are to be performed
- Sorting out and organizing administrative Records with regard to public sector staff are to be completed including a strategy for developing national competence;
- Tapping to Diaspora competence including Trusting and making good use of local nationals competence;
- Civil Service legal framework to be reviewed and adopted;
- E-government to be functional throughout public sector organizations.

Objective/Purpose of Project:
i) Coordination of governmental work
ii) Strengthening capacities of main institutions in charge of conducting reform processes in Togo;
iii) Increasing the performance of Ministries and public institutions through a sound alignment of Missions to organizational structures, and appropriate human resources;
iv) Getting right figures and being in good command of staff strength (number and capacities) including civil service salaries volume;
v) Sound management of governmental information including classification of archives and administrative documentation;
vi) Revising the civil service legal framework including the fundamental texts deemed necessary for the proper running of public sector organizations;
vii) Setting up Electronic Government;
vii) Public Administration Human Resource Capacity Building (through Diaspora expertise, capacity needs assessment, training and refreshment activities).

Key Accomplishments (to-date):
-Support to governmental work coordination as it relates to: monthly meetings between Secretaries Generals (permanent secretaries), Chiefs of cabinet of Ministries and the Secretary General of Government; CTRAP and CONCRAP Meetings ; Monitoring mechanism for mission statements with regard to Ministries ; Public Administration Reform focal point network
- Strategic and Organizational Audits have been organized for six key ministries and public institutions
- Reports for civil service legal framework review has been completed: They are about (i) the civil service general Statutes or Code, (ii) the pension code, and (iii) the social security system for public Administration Staff
- Capacity Building and Skills Development outputs have been completed such as : Togolese Diaspora Strategy; refreshing courses (secretaries and direction assistants, close collaborators of SGs and DCs), and newly recruited staff around 1500 as of December 2009
- E-government and governmental Intranet are ongoing. The achievements are so far: A master Plan for E-government and the main routers and drivers are available; Six (6) web-sites with regard to six ministries and public institutions have been designed and the data provision is ongoing .
- A strategy for public communication is operational: Information and Sensitization Days for Public Administration Reform have been organized on December 2009.

Time Frame: January 2009 - December 2010
Funding: XBTC
Proposed Budget: US$351,818
Division: DPIDG
Focus Countries: Togo
Comment: project concluded

INT/13/001: Centre for Innovation on e-Government Development

Main Expectations: The project aims at the establishment of a Regional centre for e-Government innovation and various related activities, to be developed in close cooperation with the Colombian Government (MINTIC - ICT Ministry) and UNDP, with the following objectives:
1. To generate and share knowledge about research, trends and good e-Government practices at national, regional and international levels, including a methodology for the identification and management of innovative e-Government knowledge.
2. To support e-Government innovation exercises in public administration institutions.
3. To outline a sustainable model for the systematization of e-Government innovations in the short and médium term. To provide an incentive for the development of an e-Government culture of innovation in Colombia and other countries.
The Centre of Innovation on e-Government Development will have a national, regional and international nature in disseminating all these trends from a Latin American perspective. The Project has been signed in September 2013 until December 2013. The annual budget of US$ 800,000 follows a calendar year but in all likelihood will extended until 2014 and beyond.

Objective/Purpose of Project: To ensure maximum use of Information Technology and Communication in the context of Open Government, in order to contribute to building a more efficient, more transparent and participatory provision of services in collaboration with all levels of society.

Key Accomplishments: Updates on Colombia Project (INT/001/13)
1. Event E-xperience held in Manizales, Colombia, from 12-13 November 2015 counting on over 300 national and international e-government experts.
2. DPADM / UNDESA made a presentation on e-Government as a catalyst to address the Sustainable Development Goals at E-xperience 2015
3. DPADM coordinated the preparation of four state-of-the-art papers on: 1) Institutional frameworks for e-government innovation; 2) Legal frameworks to roll-out the potential of e-Government; 3) e-Government in Caribbean SIDS and 4) e-Government for Sustainable Develolpment. Key regional actors such as IDB and AGESIC (Uruguay, e-Government leader), already praised this initiative.
4. The Colombia ICT Ministry (MINTIC) signed the continuation of the Project until 2018 investing US$ 3.5 M, in cooperation with UNDESA and UNDP.
5. The website of the Centre for Innovation on e-Government was populated with more than 100 cases of e-government innovations and is addressing a new emphasis on e-government in LDCs to address the SDGs.
6. Discussions with MINTIC agreed on new areas to be addressed by the Centre for Innovation on e-Government including: m-Government for poverty reduction in LDCs, lessons learned on e-Government implementation in LDCs to address the SDGs, definition of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to address the SDGs - towards an incremental implementation methodology.
7. According to Colombia Vice-Minister Mejía: "The contributions of the United Nations to the Project are collected and disseminated through the Ministry's Plan Vive Digital, thus allowing us to advance in democratic prosperity through the adoption and use of technology and ICTs".

Cooperation Partners: UNDESA / Colombian Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications (MINTIC) / UNDP-Colombia
Time Frame: September 2013 – November 2015
Funding: XBTC
Proposed Budget: US$ 164,189
Division: EGB

QAT13X01: E-Government Research and Insights Initiative for Qatar

Main Expectations: 1: Increased knowledge of senior e-Government Practitioners and Decision-makers on strengthening e-government policies and legislations

To meet this expected accomplishment, operational modality (a) above will be utilized

Indicators of achievement (IA):

IA1.1 Number of senior e-government practitioners and decision-makers with greater understanding, knowledge in order to support future e-government initiative;

In support of EA1,
Activity 1.1: The “Government ICT Market Research 2012” project will track developments in ICT Landscape on a national level and provide an objective basis on which ictQATAR will measure progress. The research will contain a more in-depth analysis of Qatar’s ICT environment, readiness and usage and growth estimates in government sectors.

Indicators of Achievement:

IA2.1 The e-government decision-makers of the Government of QATAR have acquired a greater understanding of national e-strategies, content development and management, whole of government approach (one-stop shop) and citizen-friendly portals, as evidenced by the feedback from the respective Government agencies, and based on replies to questionnaires upon the completion of the four activities as per below.

IA2.2 The e-government decision-makers of the Government of QATAR have acquired better knowledge about the latest trends in e-government, e-service life cycle, data standards, data sharing, e-services assurance level, citizen surveys and feedback mechanism. These officials are enabled to facilitate the introduction and marketing of new e-services.

Objective/Purpose of Project: This specific project’s objective primarily aims to provide international best practices for appropriate assessment of current levels of ICT infrastructure, usage and status of online services within core government organizations in Qatar through the “Government ICT Market Research 2012” project; and lead development of actionable insights based on research findings. It will lay down solid foundation for tracking developments in ICT Landscape on a national level and provide an objective basis on which ictQATAR will measure progress. The study will contain a more in-depth analysis of Qatar’s ICT environment, readiness and usage and growth estimates of ICT resources in core government sector.

Outputs from the market research may also be used to provide relevant information on emerging indicators that maybe due to be submitted to international organizations.

Key Accomplishments (to-date): • Align ictQATAR’s research on e-government sector with key established and emerging international indicators
• Increased knowledge of senior e-Government Practitioners and Decision-makers on strengthening e-government policies and legislations;
• Enhanced technical capacity of the Government of Qatar to improve on e-content and e-service delivery;
• Key Government 2.0 trends and practices effectively introduced
• Identify improvement areas for continually improving rankings in the UN e-Government Survey

Cooperation Partners: Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology (ictQATAR)
Time Frame: January 2013 - April 2013

Funding: XBTC
Proposed Budget: US$16,950
Division: EGB

GLO/13/X01: 8th Internet Governance Forum, Bali, Indonesia (8th IGF)

Discuss public policy issues related to key elements of Internet governance, facilitate discourse between stakeholders, interface with appropriate inter-governmental organizations and other institutions, facilitate the exchange of information and best practices, advise all stakeholders in proposing ways and means to accelerate the availability and affordability of the Internet in the developing world, strengthen and enhance the engagement of stakeholders in existing and/or future Internet governance mechanisms, identify emerging issues, contribute to capacity building, promote and assess, on an ongoing basis, the embodiment of WSIS principles in Internet governance processes, discuss issues relating to critical Internet resources, help to find solutions to the issues arising from the use and misuse of the Internet. All this in order to foster the sustainability, robustness, security, stability and development of the Internet.

Cooperation Partners: The IGF cooperates with all stakeholders with an interest in the Internet public policy discourse. These include governments; intergovernmental organizations and UN sister organizations such as UNESCO, ITU, WTO and the EU, Council of Europe, League of Arab States, OECD; the private sector; civil society, academia and the Internet community.
Time Frame: October 2012 – November 2013
Funding: XBTC
Proposed Budget: US$ 156,055
Division: DMB

GLO/12/X02: 7th Internet Governance Forum, Azerbaijan, Baku (7th IGF)

Main Expectations: Pursuant to the Tunis Agenda, among others: build on the existing structures of Internet governance, with special emphasis on the complementarity between all stakeholders involved in this process, meet periodically in order to facilitate and foster discourse on Internet Governance issues.

Objective/Purpose of Project: The IGF mandate is described in paragraph 72 of the Tunis Agenda as a meeting of a new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue. The mandate of the Forum includes, among others:
Discuss public policy issues related to key elements of Internet governance, facilitate discourse between stakeholders, interface with appropriate inter-governmental organizations and other institutions, facilitate the exchange of information and best practices, advise all stakeholders in proposing ways and means to accelerate the availability and affordability of the Internet in the developing world, strengthen and enhance the engagement of stakeholders in existing and/or future Internet governance mechanisms, identify emerging issues, contribute to capacity building, promote and assess, on an ongoing basis, the embodiment of WSIS principles in Internet governance processes, discuss issues relating to critical Internet resources, help to find solutions to the issues arising from the use and misuse of the Internet. All this in order to foster the sustainability, robustness, security, stability and development of the Internet.

Cooperation Partners: The IGF cooperates with all stakeholders with an interest in the Internet public policy discourse. These include governments; intergovernmental organizations and UN sister organizations such as UNESCO, ITU, WTO and the EU, Council of Europe, League of Arab States, OECD; the private sector; civil society, academia and the Internet community.
Time Frame: October 2011 – October 2012
Funding: XBTC
Proposed Budget: US$ 238,732
Division: DMB

GLO/11/X02: 6th Internet Governance Forum, Nairobi, Kenya (6th IGF)

Cooperation Partners:The IGF cooperates with all stakeholders with an interest in the Internet public policy discourse. These include governments; intergovernmental organizations and UN sister organizations such as UNESCO, ITU, WTO and the EU, Council of Europe, League of Arab States, OECD; the private sector; civil society, academia and the Internet community.
Time Frame: September 2011 - July 2012

Funding: XBTC
Proposed Budget: US$671,989
Division: DMB