Financing the NGDI
Michael Blakemore Professor of Geography, Department of Geography University of Durham, Durham Dhi 3le, UK Telephone: +44-191-374 4705 Email: michael.blakemore@durham.ac.uk Introduction What is needed to finance an NGDI?
Citizen rights and access to information The demand for robust, reliable and timely data for development (whether it be social, economic, or whatever) is widely accepted. For example, the UK Minister for Overseas Development, Clare Short, argues that the statistical (and we can also read ‘geospatial’ here as well) capacity building is an essential component of the overall development process, and she warns that poor data lead to poor decisions: Thirdly, the immediate need for key statistics, for instance for poverty monitoring, has led in some cases to ad-hoc, uncoordinated donor funding for data collection activities which lack critical mass. These have often failed to address effectively institutional and systemic problems and can distort priorities. This can fuel the vicious circle with donor-funded statistics and guestimates discouraging countries from investing in creating sustainable statistical systems. Much capacity has been built in the past which has been allowed to erode. (Short 1999) To date much of the policy attention about ICT (Information Communication Technologies) in development has tended to concentrate more on the technologies than the information. IT donation projects have worked on an assumption that providing the IT ‘infrastructure’ may underwrite a process of technological improvement which in turn contributes to development. Commentators such as Atkinson note the very real infrastructure problems: While ICT is spreading rapidly through developing countries - in 1995-98 developing countries connected more than 155m telephone lines, 105m mobile subscribers and 4m leased lines - the figures disguise a wide disparity between them and also with the north, where growth is even faster, opening up a huge and expanding digital divide between rich and poor nations. (Atkinson 2000) and the IT focus is put into a wider context by Udombana who identifies organisational requirements such as an efficient public service. Such a service is best underpinned by an effective information strategy: Development, in the economic sense, also consists of a list of services and amenities that many take for granted. These include an adequate public transportation system, good communications - radio, television, telephone, and, with the information revolution, internet services. The list also includes efficient public administration with a trained civil service. These are the elementary components of a developed society; they make its smooth running possible. (Udombana 2000, p.756) Therefore an information infrastructure needs to be positioned within a wider strategy that understands how information will be used, what physical infrastructure is needed for effective access and use of data, and what information, knowledge and analytical skills are needed within the user communities. The extent too which information underpins both social and economic development, and public participation in the democracy of development, is the subject of studies that concentrate on the information rather then the technology. Sheppard et al (Sheppard, Coucelis et al. 1999), in a review of spatial information infrastructures, take the view that data and information are essential ‘fuel’ for the research process: Negative social consequences may also emerge from inequalities to access in spatial data. Data are the raw material to which intellect may be applied in order to create and learn, from which answers may be sought, and from which new intellectual work may arise. (Sheppard, Coucelis et al. 1999, p.808) And the importance of good information in the health field is stated in a recent editorial in the British Medical Journal: Might information flow be one of the most important factors for improving health and development in resource poor settings? Development organisations have not thought so. They have concentrated on infrastructural projects, increasing the number of health workers and clinics, and programmes to eradicate infections. But now we are at the start of the information age, and we understand better the importance of information. (Editorial 2000) A criticism that is responded to in part by the World Health Organisation initiative, launched in December 1999, ‘to provide access to high quality scientific information, via the Internet, to research centres in countries in Africa, Central Asia and Eastern Europe’. (WHO 2000) A challenge to any infrastructure development is to determine how it will encourage economic activity. If information is made available will economic and social improvements necessarily follow? In a 1995 presentation to TURBITAK, the Turkish IT development agency, Linda Garcia (Garcia 1995) reviewed the way that the Internet had developed in the USA. In 1995 the government of Turkey was developing a strategy for Internet and e-commerce development in Turkey. Garcia argued that the USA had a critical mass at the education level before the business model started, and much of this education and research development was founded on the existence of widely accessible federal data. Furthermore, the data were available at no cost and without copyright limitation. Garcia further argued that countries that try to go directly to the business model might forego the educational benefits. Such a path may result in the flow line from academia of trained knowledge workers not being available, with the inevitable skill shortages and dependency on overseas ‘imported’ staff. The academic flow line itself is best underwritten by widespread availability of data, particularly data that are for their own country. There can be few things more demoralising than providing researchers with access to IT facilities, software and the Internet in a developing country, only to have those researchers trained on US federal statistical and geographic data that are available free on the Internet because national data are not available. The provision of data therefore requires a clear strategy, with regulatory decisions regarding access, cost, and copyright. Stiglitz talks of ‘concept of global goods’ … global public goods provide a central rationale for international collective action. But today, governance at the international level entails voluntary, cooperative actions. These include agreements to support an international property regime which facilitates the private production of certain kinds of knowledge. (Stiglitz undated) And more specifically Starr (Starr 2000) argues for the creation and maintenance of a ‘public commons’ for data, being concerned in particular at the potential loss to the public commons of data and information being viewed more in terms of commercial commodities: The debate about intellectual property today is dominated by companies that fear that the new digital environment will prevent them from enjoying the full return on their investments … The new public domain is one of the most valuable, if almost accidental, consequences of the digital revolution. It needs its champions. I suggested earlier that the new technology can improve the transparency of government, but the pursuit of transparency should be seen as a more general goal. (Starr 2000) So information is an essential component in the development of knowledge workers that then provide the national skill base for commercial and other sectors. At a macro level, information skills seem increasingly essential for any country, and their absence (or relative lack compared to more developed countries), along with inequalities in access to technology (Kiggen 2001) is a contributory factor to the ‘digital divide’. In a report from the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) conference on information technology in July 2000, World Bank President James Wolfensohn is quoted as saying: “The globalisation of trade, finance, and information flows is intensifying competition, raising the possibility that the poorest countries and communities will fall behind even more rapidly than before.” (Olster 2000) The NSDI for India therefore sits in the wider context of government policy on access to technology (India 1998) (India 2000) (anon 2000b), in the policy and commercial context of increasing Internet use (anon 2000c) (anon 2000a) (Cheung 2001), in the context of user needs for geospatial information (ISG 2000), commercial developments (Mapsofindia 2000) (Sender 2000), in the context of Global Information Infrastructure proposals (Global 1997) and in the construction of knowledge skills (Burman 2000). As Borgman notes An information infrastructure is only one of several infrastructures that are essential to a well-functioning society. Others include energy, transportation, telecommunications, banking and finance, transportation, water systems, and emergency services. Because each of these infrastructures is increasingly reliant on information technologies, they are more interconnected and interdependent. Their interdependence means that more and more aspects of daily life depend on the emerging global information infrastructure. (Borgman 2000) Financing ‘religions’ The debate regarding the funding of data collection and dissemination is best, as Jessica Litman has written, viewed in the context of debates about fundamentalist religion So far, the debate has seemed to be fueled by some combination of almost religious faith (that privatization, or nationalization, or commercialization, or liberation is good; that markets are best; that facts should be free; that commons are tragic; and so forth) with self interest: those who have invested in data-collection argue that the public interest is best served by the enforcement of strong property rights in collected data, while those with an interest in mounting competing products incorporating the data assert that the public interest lies in unfettered movement of information. (Litman 1994) Whatever the adopted funding religion there is general agreement that government information is most effective when its use is maximised, a view strongly stated by the US Office for Management and Budget (OMB): Government information is a valuable national resource ... the expected public and private benefits derived from government information should exceed the public and private costs of the information ... Agencies shall disseminate information in a manner that achieves the best balance among the goals of maximising the usefulness of the information and minimising the costs to the government and the public. (OMB 1992) OMB argue that economic growth has been maximised in the USA through this policy: The open and unrestricted availability of Government information has also assisted in the growth of a number of vibrant new industries. These industries contribute to the economic health of the nation by creating jobs and generating tax revenue. Here are a few examples: A number of firms take Government-produced weather data and package it into various products, including commercial weather broadcasts. Indeed, there is now a nationwide cable weather television station bringing weather information to homes 24 hours a day. There is even a specific trade association in Washington, D.C. made up of commercial weather services firms. (OMB 1999) But does that statement necessarily infer that you can only have such development if the government makes data available at no cost? The UK Meteorological Office runs commercial services along similar lines: Engage, a limited-access internet site … reveals secrets such as the specific temperature at which shoppers stop swigging mineral water and start sipping tonic water (15 C) and the inexplicable taste Britons develop for lemonade around Christmas time when sales soar by more than 200 per cent. Engage, the first programme of its kind, has already won the approval of four of the five main food retailers in Britain. Safeway, which has been working with the Met Office on the system’s prototype, claims it saves the company around £3,000 a week at each outlet by letting store managers fine-tune stock levels, promotions and product placement. (Hill 2000) And Marwick would seem to provide some evidence that there is no clear link between putting a price of information, and an unwillingness to purchase information. The major trend is towards increasingly home-based leisure activities; more than other Europeans the British were video addicts ... The neat twist was that sales of the old-fashioned printed book rose (by 5.2% in 1993). On average the British were spending £43.73 per head on adult books, compared with £39.98 in France, £30.80 in the Netherlands, £49.98 in Germany, and £53.43 in the United States. Against these latter figures it has to be added that the British make far greater use of public libraries than anyone else - loans run at eleven per person per year, compared with under two in France and Germany, and less in the USA. (Marwick 1996, p.474) The US position, however, is the most fundamental along religious spectrum by arguing that free data should be available to all, and that such a position strengthens democracy as well as encouraging economic activity. Americans take for granted the maps they buy and use, whether for travel or for work. U.S. maps are largely derived from Government-produced geographic data bases. Indeed, one can now buy a privately manufactured CD-ROM product showing all the roads in the country, including the dirt roads in national parks and forests. (OMB 1999) Nevertheless, there are very real costs involved in disseminating information. There is a substantial difference between making information available free (perhaps in its original, but partially useable formats), and making information freely available. The OMB statement in the mid 1990s, at the early stages of Web dissemination, noted that: Users of government data are asking for more data, more quickly, in a more user-friendly form. Electronic dissemination affords a method - in some instances, the only method - of meeting these increased demands. … Adopting an electronic dissemination strategy requires an agency to be willing and able to invest the resources to create and disseminate data in this new way. Capacity, of course, may encompass many things, including: Personnel, Equipment, Contracts, Dissemination Service, Customer Support. (OMB 1995, p.11-12) A view supported by Danner and Taylor who states simply that ‘There is no such thing as “free” electronic access.’ (Danner and Taylor 1997, p.352) The economics of data are changing dramatically in an era of electronic distribution, and these changes have been impacting on charging and dissemination policies. Nevertheless, it is the initial production of the information, or in the case of the NSDI the sunk costs of integrating data (Rhind 1996, p.8), that are the major cost considerations. In the language of economics, the fixed costs of production are large, but the variable costs of reproduction are small. This costs structure leads to substantial economies of scale: the more you produce, the lower your average cost of production. ... The dominant component of the fixed costs of producing information are the sunk costs, costs that are not recoverable if production is halted. ... Sunk costs generally have to be paid for up front, before commencing production. (Shapiro and Varian 1999, p.21) Financing - some historical perspectives To what extent do financing policies from the past indicate that any one model may be more successful than another? In a study during 1992 (Blakemore and Singh 1992) we looked at various data financing and charging policies around the world and even then could come to no clear conclusion that one was better than another. That is even more so in an economic climate of globalisation with rapid flows of information, products and people across borders. Back in 1979, for example, the Serpell Committee reviewed the future of the Ordnance Survey and argued against charging users for information (cost recovery) In the first place such a policy would discourage and reduce the use of the national topographic and geodetic archive, for OS would need to increase prices very substantially ... Secondly, some benefits from OS services accrue to the nation as a whole over and above their value to individual users. (Environment 1979, p.118) But such arguments held little weight with the UK government, and cost-recovery policies were followed for national mapping, with tradeable information initiatives being promoted for wider government information (DTI 1986) (DTI 1990). See for example Saxby (Saxby 1996) , and Openshaw (Openshaw and Goddard 1987) for a broader discussion of events in the 1980s. Early in the 1980s some commentators on cost-recovers were concerned that the policy, sometimes described as ‘If you need it you can pay for it. If you cannot pay for it you cannot need it’ was limiting the widest possible access to data (Mercer 1983, p.28). Some studies indicated that putting a direct price on information did indeed suppress usage In September 1981, the USGS increased its prices for digital data production in order to recover more of the primary costs of production of digital data. As a result, demand dropped so precipitously that the Survey shortly thereafter readjusted prices so as to recapture demand for its digital products. (Donato 1985, p.48) To counteract the decline in sales a decision was taken to reduce charges to 50% of increased price. The result was a growth in sales, although it took three years to recover to the previous levels of sales. A similar finding was reported for New Zealand during the 1980s The impact of significantly increased costs in New Zealand has been documented and shown to be a highly restrictive factor. In 1989 the number of sales was only 60% of 1984, although income was 25% greater in real terms, indicating that a smaller number of users higher prices. … The effect for street maps is more severe; the 1989 income is the same as that in 1984 and the decline in sales shows no sign of stabilisation. This is probably related to the existence of competing products in the market place. (Rhind 1992, p.26) However, even these findings cannot be taken as unequivocal evidence that charging end-users is economically unsound. It concentrates only on absolute numbers accessing data, a metric useful mainly for measuring the ‘citizen rights’ to access data. An analogy to this debate exists in recent developments in measures for Internet access. A commentary in ‘The Lancet’, looking at access to health information, noted Remember the little website counters that stated, “you are visitor 12345 since Jan 1, 1996”? Well, tallying up web page “hits” and gathering demographics on users is now big business; such statistics are used by advertisers, e-commerce marketers, technology companies, and the media to gauge websites’ popularity and assess where and how money should be spent. (anon 1999) And another similarly critical comment by the Economist when looking at e-commerce statistics: Worse, the numbers themselves are open to interpretation. Most research firms track not sales, but traffic—more than 98% of which is window shopping rather than spending. The few that track sales do so through customer surveys, not retailer reports. As for the retailers themselves, aside from occasional hand-wringing by struggling firms such as eToys, all that market trackers have to go on is Amazon’s “Delight-o-meter”, which lists the number of items sold, but not, sadly, their nature or price. (anon 2000e) For e-commerce the key metric is whether or not a company is profitable. You may have millions of accesses to a site, but it is sales that matter. Perhaps then, access to geospatial data is better measured not on whether everyone possible has access to it, but whether the information is used to develop better products and services for citizens? Dramatic changes to charging policy can occur when technology and organisational create the right conditions. In 1995 the Department of Survey and Land Information (DOSLI) in New Zealand was to pursue a commercialisation strategy. In a presentation in a Toronto conference the Director, Bill Robertson, used the phrase ‘alignment is the issue in turbulent times’. In a discussion of the impact of market forces on DOSLI he noted that much of the commercialisation emphasis was precipitated by an economic crisis driving the search for economic solutions, whereby data selling had become a device to build capacity, not necessarily to generate a long term business (Robertson 1995). The commercial focus of DOSLI was articulated by Caroline Gartner, who in response to questions following her presentation, argued that a direct commercial focus was better. The “enemy” of effective business was the Treasury, and indeed all civil servants who impose frequent changing of ground rules (Gartner 1995). Some five years later the situation was again changed dramatically, when the Minister in charge of Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), John Luxton, announced fee reductions: “Under the new pricing regime, all copyright fees for the reproduction of LINZ-held digital data, topographic maps and aerial photographs will be abolished. Previously a large map producer could have paid copyright fees of around $100,000 per year. Now the fee for digital data will only reflect the cost of its dissemination,” Mr Luxton said. (LINZ 1999) And in 2000 a further development was announced A Labour-Alliance Coalition focused beyond profit is opening up high-tech business opportunities in geographic information, says Minister for Land Information Matt Robson. A new low fee will apply to the bulk survey data becoming available as Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) rolls out the Landonline system across the country. The data is priced to recover only the costs of dissemination and will carry no copyright fees. This fits with policy aimed at making Government-held information more available to New Zealanders. (Robson 2000) Policy changes regarding charging are not unique to geospatial information. In 1981 a review of the UK Government Statistical Service (HMSO 1981), chaired by Sir Derek Rayner, stated that ‘Information should not be collected primarily for publication. It should be collected primarily because the government needs it for its own business’. Out of this emerged what came to be known as the ‘Rayner Doctrine’, which led to a general policy of charging for data, even between government agencies in some circumstances. By 1992 the policy relating to official statistics was softened, as announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont: The 1981 White Paper, which contained the so-called Rayner doctrine on government statistics, has been much misunderstood. I hope that the CSO’s (Central Statistical Office) new framework document will dispel any remaining confusion. It states that the CSO will consider requests to collect a wider range of data than that simply needed for the conduct of government business ... Official statistics are produced not just for the Government, but for the benefit of business and for the public at large. (Treasury 1992) And in 2000, with the Internet providing radically different cost benefits for information dissemination, the new head of UK National Statistics, Len Cook, wrote The internet is transforming almost every aspect of the way we live and work today. It’s central to the development of our economy and our society. That ‘s why I announced at the launch of National Statistics that the most important government facts and figures will now be available to the public free of charge on the new National Statistics website. (Cook 2000) Cost recovery, and a move to a trading fund status, brought new challenges for the Ordnance Survey in 2000. To 1999 they had placed no asset value on the National Digital Topographic Database. But the 1999-2000 Annual Report had the accounts qualified by the National Audit Office, and the head of the NAO, Sir John Bourne At the time that the database management system came fully into use in 1994, Ordnance Survey’s accounting policy was to charge the costs of software development as an expense to the operating statement. On becoming a Trading Fund on 1 April 1999, Ordnance Survey changed its accounting policy to recognise the database management system as a tangible fixed asset in accordance with current accounting standards and Treasury guidance. The database management system was brought to account within fixed assets at its depreciated net book value of £2.2 million, based on an original estimated cost of £4.8 million. However, no accounting records have been retained to support the original estimated cost of £4.8 million. The scope of my audit was therefore limited and I have qualified my opinion on the financial statements in this respect. (Survey 2000, p.47) and furthermore In my opinion the database is more appropriately accounted for as a tangible fixed asset and should be capitalised in accordance with Treasury guidance and Financial Reporting Standard 15. Unlike intangible fixed assets, such as trademarks, brands or patents, the database is an accurate representation of a physical reality that is not affected by opinion, taste, judgement, reputation or belief. (Survey 2000, p.48) In a commentary on the issue, Christopher Roper noted that this clear commodification of a national resource as a tangible financial asset was at the opposite spectrum to the US OMB intangible valuations noted earlier Perhaps the controversy started by the NAO will have the unintended but beneficial effect of bringing this debate out into the open. However, no useful purpose is served by putting Ordnance Survey into the dock and making wild and unsubstantiated accusations against its management. (Roper 2000) Therefore quantum shifts in policy can occur not so much through an evaluation of economic principles, as much as they do through policy initiatives that are, to paraphrase Litman’s terms, ‘statements of faith’. There are no definitive answers to financing, and Brady sums up the dilemma of policy-making in the context of the Internet The Internet has created levels and permutations of “freedom” that may seem strange to those of us who are pioneering the new world, but our human capacity for adaptation seems to be allowing us to absorb changes as quickly as technology can deliver them. The cost-benefit equation of “free” things on the Net will undoubtedly flummox the mathematical wizards who are still trying to solve the riddle of something for nothing. (Brady 2000) For those involved in the third party redissemination of data the lessons are clear: be flexible, be innovative, and look to work in partnership with data owners. Pricing If part or all of the costs of building and maintaining an NSDI were to be from user fees what charging regimes could be adopted? The earlier section of this paper has noted that no particular funding or charging strategy seems to be stable, and even the UK Ordnance Survey has refined its charging over recent years. Referring back to the 1979 statement by the Serpell Committee (Environment 1979) the implication there was that if a commercial cost-recovery strategy was to be imposed then there was a commensurate risk that non-profitable areas of mapping may suffer reduced priority. The clear implication here is that the historical 100% national coverage may be imperilled. The answer to this, within the context of cost-recovery and trading fund status, has been for the Ordnance Survey and the Government (through the Department for Environment Transport and the Regions - DETR) to formalise the National Interest Mapping Service Agreement (NIMSA) The Department has entered into an agreement with Ordnance Survey to ensure the provision of agreed mapping services required in the national interest, such as the maintenance of mapping in rural areas. (DETR 1999) And the ‘uncommercial’ areas of activity were noted by the Ordnance Survey This embraces the public interest arising from the mapping of areas which would not otherwise be mapped if the judgement was made solely in terms of revenue generated by sales of that mapping alone. This will benefit rural, mountain and moorland areas by enabling investment in programmes designed to, ultimately, achieve a consistent currency across all the large-scale mapping of Great Britain. This is particularly crucial in regard to the availability and utility of government’s data to the citizen and for contingencies where there is typically no time to create new mapping: the information must be available ‘off the shelf’. (Survey 1998) Flexible and innovative charging solutions have been developed in other sectors. In the public sector citizen-oriented mapping exists with Web services such as the Environment Flood Maps on-line. (Environment 2000). In the academic arena access to large-scale mapping exists through the EDINA service, centrally negotiated between the Ordnance Survey and the Joint Information Systems Committee (EDINA 2001). In the commercial arena the simplification of Ordnance Survey charging (for example see (Survey 1999)) have helped in the development of free-at-the-point-of-use Web mapping services such as Multimap1. In the wider information market pricing strategies have been similarly dynamic (anon 2000d). Shapiro and Varian (Shapiro and Varian 1999) provide an example of changing pricing strategy with the Encyclopaedia Britannica2 . During the 1990s Britannica had to change its charging policy dramatically to react both to technological opportunities, and competitive threats, in particular from Microsoft’s Encarta3 . At the start of the 1990s the purchase price of Britannica was high, set through a combination of reputation and quality. The information pricing structure was influenced by the maintenance and development costs of the information base, and from the physical publishing and distribution costs of a multi-volume product. The competition from Encarta developed as Microsoft was able to stimulate a mass market for a CD-ROM encyclopaedia. Admittedly, the quality, coverage and consistency of Encarta was nowhere near that of Britannica, but the entry price was orders of magnitude lower. In much the same way that low-fare airlines in Europe have stimulated a new travel community, so Encarta encouraged a new purchasing community that comprised many people who could never previously have afforded Britannica. The revenue stream allowed Encarta to increase quality, and Britannica had to react by reducing prices, until in 1999 the information became available free on the Web. The Britannica example illustrates some of the classic problems of information pricing. One of the fundamental features of information goods is that their cost of production is dominated by the “first-copy costs”. Once the first copy of the book has been printed, the cost of printing another is only a few dollars. The cost of stamping out an additional CD is less than a dollar ... What’s more, with recent advances in information technology, the cost of distributing information is falling, causing first-copy costs to comprise an even greater fraction of total costs than they have historically. (Shapiro and Varian 1999, p.20) A further costing development exists with the Oxford English Dictionary4 , which is available online through a subscription-based service. It’s integrity and quality as yet seems relatively unmatched by a competing ‘free’ Internet source, and perhaps the overhead costs of creating a competing source are too great, at least for the present. Other previously chargeable sources include the Guinness Book of records The Guinness Book of Records5 is to launch its first foray on the internet … The site, Guinnessworldrecords.com, will be aimed mainly at 15- to 25-year-olds … Sadly there is no innovative e-commerce business model to capitalise on this. The site aims to be in the top 10 of entertainment websites, but its main source of revenue will be advertising. (Islam 2000) Pricing, as with funding strategy, is subject to uncertainties and rapid changes influenced both by central policy and by technology. One possible response, as Webster notes, may be to decry what he terms The enthusiasm of the information economists to put a price tag on everything has the unfortunate consequence of failing to let us know the really valuable dimensions of the information sector ... it is obvious that the sales of the New York Post cannot be equated with - still less be regarded as more informational, though doubtless it is of more economic value - the circulation of the Wall Street Journal. (Webster 1999, p.146) But then again The objective of widespread public electronic access to government information does not by itself justify an outright ban on user fees or a fee limit that precludes cost recovery of public electronic information systems. To the contrary, user fees can, in many instances, promote widespread access by subsidizing agencies’ public missions ... Where user fees are not available to agencies as funding alternatives, it is unlikely that public electronic services will ever be provided on a large-scale or meaningful basis, or that the data infrastructure provided will be kept current and useful. (Danner and Taylor 1997, p.357) In the end it seems to come down to a pragmatic response of the markets to whichever funding and pricing policy is implemented. Organisational behaviour and political will Do the previous discussions now support a view that things can work successfully within whatever funding and pricing strategy is selected? The answer here is a very qualified ‘perhaps’. Either can work and both can fail if the organisational environment is inadequate. Projects established with the best of intentions can encounter problems. At one stage a proposed environmental information system for the European Economic Community (Rhind, Watt et al. 1985) was in the invidious situation whereby it was difficult to agree consistent data standards and geocoding conventions because each National Agency involved wished to maintain as high an individual profile as possible. Big organisations also tend to react slowly and inefficiently, and government represents one of the biggest organisations, and government departments have a reputation for resistance to change (IBM 1997). That is even the case in business The Britannica story contains morals for all businesses. The first is obvious: the most venerable can prove the most vulnerable. ... The second point is a bit less obvious: the history, the myths, the shared values, and the unreflective presuppositions that define a strong corporate culture can blind business leaders to events that do not fit their collective mental framework. (Evans and Wurster 2000, p.4) At the macro level it is political will which drives forward the concept of a ‘national’ information infrastructure in countries such as the USA. It took a presidential decree to establish the NSDI , and President Clinton stated ‘Geographic information is critical to promote economic development, improve our stewardship of natural resources, and protect the environment’ (Clinton 1994). The US Vice-President, Al Gore, articulated the role of government in creating an information infrastructure, setting our five broad principles Encourage private investment; Provide and protect competition; Provide open access to the network; Avoid creating information ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’; Encourage flexible and responsive government action. (Gore 1993) In Australia the Labour Party’s position on information policy was articulated in a discussion document made available after its election in 1993. However, the level of political will seems less strong that the USA A national information policy document did not arise from this paper. The Government’s policy may have been not to have a policy. Several years later, through a bipartisan House of Representatives Committee, an “agenda” for a national information policy was documented as the Jones Report, but this in turn did not lead to policy statements. (Middleton 1997, p.10) Information strategy in the European Union is set within the context of the ‘information society’ (Boes 1998). In India, the Information Technology Minister acknowledged the organisational challenges that exist in the ability of government to respond effectively to new technologies Earlier, responding to criticism on the creation of the IT ministry, Mahajan (Information Technology minister Pramod Mahajan) said, ‘We are here with a red carpet, not red tape’ and tried to stress the facilitation and not the regulatory role of the department. (Burman 2000) In a review of European and Global geospatial data infrastructure developments, Roger Longhorn further reinforces the organisational influences, and warns also of the difficulty of balancing market expectations for fast solutions with the very long lead times are needed to accomplish anything significant. In an endeavor such as the GSDI, where high-level political backing will be needed at national, regional and global level, there is always the fear that lack of demonstrable progress will lead to loss of interest - and more importantly, to loss of much needed funding, however it is offered to those trying to implement GSDI. Therefore, we should focus on a few achievable goals for which practical activities can be identified, funded and completed successfully in as few years as possible. (Longhorn 1998) Conclusion Even if all the necessary funding is made available there is no guarantee that an NGDI will be successful. We have only to look at the long history of institutional failure in IT project implementation to learn that lesson. Indeed organisational behaviour, through inflexible bureaucratic processes (see for example the National Audit Office investigation into UK Government Web sites(Audit 1999)) too often is a major contributor to a project not proceeding satisfactorily, or to project failure. An NGDI much more a process of building a knowledge base for India than constructing a Gantt chart. The people and personalities involved will be critical, and as Peled warns Complex IT projects are not doomed to fail even if public organizations sponsoring them cannot build ‘high-performance teams’. On the other hand, public organizations must acknowledge that critical IT projects require more - much more - in terms of the cohesiveness of the people who plan, design and oversee them than other committee- supervised public projects. Building public IT project workgroups can be the first step in converting this acknowledgement from words to action. (Peled 2000, p.13) In conclusion, the issue of financing is as much an issue of political will as it is economics. There is no certainty that a centrally funded US-type model will work, and neither is it certain that effective and nationally beneficial usage will not occur if user-charging strategies are put in place. Perhaps the key lesson is that an NSDI is not an initiative that takes place in a vacuum. It needs to be linked effectively to skill generation, to the promotion of research and the creation of skilled knowledge workers. The pricing lessons from the Internet show that flexible and innovative solutions can be found, such as NIMSA and DIGIMAP for the UK. Similar public and academic sector initiatives would be important for India if direct charging were to be chosen. References
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