Digital Leaders Spotlight: Djibouti

Djibouti is committed to leveraging digital technology in its public service delivery, including regulatory and policy reforms, as part of its Vision 2035 objectives. In 2022, the country launched its Digital Economy and Innovation Roadmap, which, among other things, seeks to digitalise administration. However, many Djiboutians are yet to enjoy the benefits of the country’s digital government infrastructure 

GovStack Approach   

GovStack in Djibouti is implemented through the Multi-Donor Action Initiative for Digital Government and Cybersecurity (IDGC) in the Horn of Africa, a Team Europe Approach together with Germany, France and Spain and co-financed by the European Union and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). 

GovStack in Djibouti focuses on: 

• Digital Government Strategy and Roadmap: Evaluation of the strategic, technical, and regulatory prerequisites to introduce government e-services, through the implementation of a digital readiness study and roadmap development for the introduction of government e-services. 

• Service Design of e-government Use Case: Use case selection and design of priority digital public services based on the GovStack Approach to the digitization of government services. 

• Capacity Development: Capacity development measures on digital government and change management for civil servants for the digitization of government services; regional and global communities of practice for peer-to-peer learning. 

The project is done by GovStack implementing partners. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) supports the technical service design of priority use cases. The Estonian Centre for International Development (EstDev) supports the development of Digital Readiness Studies and Digital Government Roadmaps.  

Use Case Development 

In Djibouti two use cases were jointly selected for prototyping, using the ICT building blocks. GovStack is supporting the implementation of an eCabinet and the digitisation of construction permits to foster efficient information sharing:  

• eCabinet: An eCabinet improves collaboration between ministries and other government agencies, including decrees, appointment decisions, etc., while reducing government expenditure.  

• eConstruction Permit: An eConstruction Permit service provides citizens and companies a streamlined process for obtaining permits for construction, renovation, or demolition projects from the national Government. A construction permit is an important requirement for countries to ensure buildings and structures are safe, with sound engineering, foundations and construction techniques. 

Where we stand  

The service design process has been completed successfully for both use cases and consisted of a series of consultative meetings and co-design sessions with the focal points from the Department of Land Management, Urban Planning & Housing (DATUH) and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in Djibouti. The products for both services along with the implementation partners were selected through an open call process with a selection committee including the Djibouti government officials. While the eCabinet will be implemented with WebWare, the eConstruction Permits will be implemented with DIGIT. Both implementations are in full swing and are accompanied by several trainings, both offline and online, for the digital teams involved in the roll-out and maintenance of the services. The official launch of the services is foreseen for Q4 2024.  

Furthermore, building on the construction permit use case for Djibouti, GovStack has developed a generic reference construction permit use case designed as a GovStack demo application, i.e., a simulation, on the GovStack Sandbox. Moreover, based on the Digital Readiness Study, the Initiative has developed a national Digital Government Roadmap as a guiding document and a strategic plan for the government’s digital transformation journey. 

Next Steps 

• The main next step is the completion of additional training sessions for the two use cases, eConstruction Permits and eCabinet, scheduled for Q3 and Q4 2024 to prepare both applications for their official launch.