2014•07•01     Guimarães

The predecessor to UNU-EGOV – the Center for Electronic Governance at the former United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST-EGOV) concluded shortly before the start of the UNU-EGOV operations on 1 July 2014 the project “Developing M-Governance Strategy for Vanuatu and Commonwealth m-Governance Toolkit” co-funded by the Commonwealth Secretariat and UNU-IIST-EGOV, coordinated by the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization (CTO), and conducted by UNU-IIST-EGOV in cooperation with the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, Government of the Republic of Vanuatu.

The outcomes constitute important knowledge resources transferred from UNU-IIST to UNU-EGOV:

1. “Mobile Governance for Small Island Developing States – Strategy Knowledge Base” – the state of research on Mobile Governance (MGOV) and research findings, e.g. conceptualizations, evolution, impact, drivers, barriers, user adoption, applications and policies; the state of practice in the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and MGOV to contribute to national development through country experiences by India, Mauritius, Micronesia, Singapore and Malta; and the MGOV for Development (MGOV4D) strategy knowledge base containing a set of strategies adopted by India, Mauritius, Micronesia, Singapore and Malta as broadly representative of the goals and conditions for MGOV4D implementation present in the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) country group. The report was written by Florian Henning and Tomasz Janowski.
2. “Mobile Governance for Vanuatu – Strategy and Implementation Plan” – the policy and implementation contexts for MGOV4D development in Vanuatu including a detailed review of the five national policy instruments as well as challenges, solutions, approaches, capabilities and achievements of Vanuatu in ICT and MGOV development; the localized version of the SIDS MGOV4D strategy knowledge base for Vanuatu, extended with strategies obtained as a result of the field visits and interviews with major MGOV4D stakeholders from Vanuatu; the content of the proposed national MGOV4D strategy for Vanuatu comprising the selection of strategies from the localized MGOV4D strategy knowledge base, depending on their contributions to various ICT and national development goals of the country; and an approach to MGOV4D strategy implementation. The report was written by Florian Henning, Tomasz Janowski, Saleem Zoughbi and Elsa Estevez.
3. “Mobile Governance for Small Island Developing States – Toolkit” – step by step process to assist countries in developing their own national Mobile Governance for Development (MGOV4D) policy instruments, and through such instruments to pursue the countries’ development and public policy goals. The toolkit is systematic and precise – it prescribes a series of steps to be carried out under precise specifications; comprehensive – it describes analysis of local conditions, and the development of the policy instrument based on such analysis; replicable – the steps are well-documented and can be repeated under different parameters to produce different outcomes; and generic – the knowledge base underpinning the methodology could be rebuilt for a different set of countries resulting in the instrument that matches different national circumstance and conditions. The reports was written by Elsa Estevez and Tomasz Janowski.