Digital Leaders Spotlight: Somalia

Despite being an emerging State with a relatively low ranking on the global e-government development index, Somalia has exhibited commitment toward the digitalization of government services. The country has made great strides in the development of ICT laws, regulations and policies, broadband expansion, universal access and plans to build a National Data Centre. However, a holistic Government Enterprise Architecture and interoperability platform has not yet been developed – currently, all agencies have their own systems and guidelines. Moreover, there is no enabling legislation for data sharing and data analysis yet.

GovStack Approach  

GovStack in Somalia 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 Somalia 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 building block approach to the digitization of government services.
• Capacity Development: Capacity development measures on digital government and change management, including on- and offline training and workshops, for civil servants for the digitization of government services; regional and global communities of practice for peer-to-peer learning.

The implementation is done together with GovStack core 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. The Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) and the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP) support the work around capacity strengthening by setting up Communities of Practice and by developing capacity development measures.

Where we stand 

Jointly with the relevant government authorities two national priority use cases have already been selected for prototyping, including the digitalization of high school certificates and the development of a content management system (CMS) mapping all current administrative services in the country to manage and centralize information as well as to increase access. The work around the service design of these two use cases is ongoing.  In parallel, several interviews with the Somali partners have been conducted, and data collected to support the development of a Digital Readiness Study for Somalia.

Next Steps

• The main next step is to finalize the service design for the high school certificates, including, for example, validation of the user journeys.
• At the same time the country team will develop a prototype for the content management system, i.e. the government service catalog.
• In addition to the continuation of the service design for the e-government use cases, the initiative will provide needs-based capacity development measures for Somali government staff, (both online and offline) and support the development of regional communities of practice for peer-to-peer learning and best practice exchange.
• Moreover, the Digital Readiness Study will be finalized and published, and  based on the Digital Readiness Study, the Initiative will develop a national Digital Government Roadmap as a guiding document and a strategic plan for the government’s digital transformation journey.