"Evaluating GIS
in local government in developing countries"
5. Conclusions and recommendations
This section discusses the last aim described in section 1, which was stated as:
4. Formulate recommendations for follow-up actions and further study.
Before coming to the actual recommendations, some concluding remarks are to be made.
One conclusion from this study is that no organization or person is specifically engaged in the subject of evaluating the use of GIS in LGUs in developing countries, at least not deliberately. There are only a few case studies about this subject in which not only a description of the implementation and use of GIS is given, but where also attention is explicitly paid to the evaluation of the use of GIS within its host organization. The term "evaluation" can be interpreted in several ways. In this study no specific attention is given to these different interpretations and different ways on how evaluation can be done. Basically, in this study evaluation is understood as the search for the factors that can stimulate or hamper a successful use of GIS within the organization of the local government unit.
The first objective in this study is to identify whether there is a need for evaluating the use of GIS in local government units. Based on section 2 in this report and the reactions given by some of the contacted key persons, it can be concluded that there is a need for evaluating the use of GIS in local government units in a more structural way. As the field of "GIS in LGUs in developing countries" is a fast growing field, there is a need to gather all the experiences and to take advantage of this by concluding some general "lessons to learn".
So, from these two concluding remarks -'nothing has been done' and 'there is a need for structural study in this field'- the question emerges what can be done for follow-up study.
A good starting point for further action could be to gather more case studies. From this overview of several case studies, already, a more general framework emerges as guidance for successful use of GIS within a (local) governmental organization.
Probably a considerable amount of useful case studies can be found within the so-called 'grey circuit'. This especially refers to the evaluation studies of projects executed by development organizations. Within the scope of this study the time was too limited for this specific search. But with more time available and with the help of key persons it will be possible to have access to these 'grey databases'. The information gathered in the Access database can function as entrance for further searching (this database -added in the appendix- is also digitally available ).
Furthermore, for a proper understanding of the real life situation it is important not to focus on GIS in local government only but rather on how GIS can contribute to make the organization function better. GIS should not be seen as 'just a program with which one can make nice maps' but GIS should be an integral part of the whole information system of an organization. GIS should be seen as supporting 'service' for increasing the accessibility and exchange of information within the organization but surely also to the 'customers' of the organizations (citizens in the case of the LGUs). The success or hampering factors within a local government unit will not differ much from the factors in other organizations in developing countries. Although of course, one should keep the regional differences between the developing countries in mind, when general statements are to be made.
This study produced some general outcomes that are of direct relevance to ITC. The framework that will emerge from case studies, will reflect lessons learned from experiences of the use of GIS within organizations in developing countries. These lessons will contribute to the activities of ITC in several ways. Firstly, many of the students that attend ITC courses are working in governmental organizations at local or regional level. After their stay at ITC they mostly return to their former jobs in order to implement or improve GIS in their organization. So therefore it would be important to give reasonable attention to the learned lessons in the educational program. These (ex) students can benefit from these experiences in their working activities.
Secondly, one of ITC's main activities is consultancy. From this point of view, the outcomes of such a study can contribute to the work of the consultants as well, as they know about experiences in this field.
The last recommendation is the experience that staff has obtained from projects as well as the experience that the students have from their work in the field can contribute to designing an executable research agenda on this topic.