2. Evaluating the use of GIS in LGUs in developing countries?
This section discusses the first aim described in section 1 which was formulated as:
1. Identify whether there is a need for evaluating the use of GIS in local government units.
This section is the core of this report. It discusses the rationale behind evaluating the use of GIS in LGUs in developing countries. This discussion can be a basis for further discussion within the ITC on this subject. This section is based on both contacts with key persons and literature. During the internship several key persons have been consulted about this issue by e-mail (see the list in the appendix for the contacted key persons). Also reactions from some 'ITC-ers' on a draft version of this report added some interesting views. Although already stated in the first section of this report, I want to emphasize that this section is mainly based on personal opinions of the contacted persons. As (mostly) not quoted literally, there are no personal references.
The issue on relevance of evaluating came up when, after extensive Internet search, I found out that little has been done in a structural way on evaluation of GIS use in local government in developing countries. There is a considerable amount of information about the implementation process of GIS both in developed countries (Ferrari & Onsrud, 1995) and in developing countries (Ramasubramanian, 1999; Sahay & Walsham, 1996). There are methodologies and strategies developed for the implementation process. However, the use and institutionalization of GIS in organizations, like LGUs, has received much less attention. Also information on different ways of executing evaluations studies can be found. Nedovic-Budic (1998) distinguish 7 categories in the field of evaluation studies on Information Systems. Also Calkins and Obermeyer (1991) have made classification for surveying the use and value of geographical information. But these theoretical frameworks will not get any attention in this study.
There are a number of individual case studies and relevant organizations found (see section 3) but none of these paid adequate attention to an evaluation study. A similar experience was reported by Masser et al. (1996) about the situation in Europe. He stated that few systematic studies have been carried out on the diffusion of GIS and the field was largely characterized by personal accounts of individual experiences or by partial studies with no comparable methodology.
The two questions that result from this are:
- Why so few evaluation studies have been done on GIS in LGUs in developing countries?
- What is the relevance of evaluation studies? What are reasons to do evaluation studies?
A. Reasons why little has been done on evaluating GIS in LGUs
These reasons can be classified in two categories:
- Lack of interest in evaluation studies
- Feasibility of evaluation studies
- Lack of interest in evaluation studies:
- When the output of a project is something concrete (maps in the case of 'GIS projects') the people involved have confidence that the project is worth continuing. So no evaluation is requested as they feel that the final goal has been reached.
- Most of the applications have been developed by technically minded people who don't see the need for a non-technical evaluation. There is a 'gap' between the technicians who know how to work with computers and programs like GIS but do not know anything about planning or don't have the power to make decisions and the persons who make the decisions but have no GIS-knowledge.
- The 'decision-makers' and end-users of GIS outputs are not used to consult maps for their day-to-day work and therefore they will not appreciate whatever GIS. So also from this end no real interest exists in evaluating studies of this kind.
- "GIS in LGUs" is not a priority issue for development organizations. Hence:
- They will not give funding for evaluation studies of this kind.
- Evaluation is only useful when there is money to solve the possible problems.
- Donor agencies are not interested because they do not want to shed light on another white elephant they had been helping to build.
- It is not common to evaluate the use of 'just a computer application'. One doesn't evaluate the use of a word processor either.
- There is no tradition in doing evaluations in the public organization in developing countries.
- Some people feel that there is no need to focus on evaluating the use of GIS in LGUs in developing countries as:
- One can take lessons from application of IT instead
- LGUs do not have so much responsibility so there is no need to detach it from other GIS applications
- One can take lessons from the experiences of GIS use from developed countries
- Feasibility of evaluation studies
- Most of the projects on implementation of GIS in LGUs have just started so it is too early for evaluation studies. Although the first GIS application was introduced in the developing world in the late eighties it is still no common use everywhere. It is only recently that the LGUs in developing countries got more responsibility and power by the process of decentralization. Because of this the need for spatial information is growing and more LGUs are introducing GIS. To evaluate the use of GIS, a certain period should pass by in order to build up experiences.
- Benefits on the use of GIS in LGUs are difficult to measure. This hampers the use of concrete measurable indicators for executing an evaluation. Unlike the costs of GIS (hard- and software) the benefits are more difficult to measure in terms of money. GIS is too much seen in isolation of organizational performance. There is not enough vision for this overall performance.
- If you want to measure the impact of the GIS you should know what would have happened if GIS would not have been implemented (with-without comparison). Otherwise it is hard to make a distinction between the impact caused by GIS and that caused by other adjustments. This is practically impossible to find out.
- There is a limited capacity to do evaluation studies in developing countries. There is a lack of "humanware" and "orgware".
- No general statement can be made on the use of GIS in LGUs in developing countries as the application of GIS is:
- Too country specific. The African continent lags behind the Latin American countries and the Asian continent as far as the application of GIS is concerned and more general the use of IT (Information Technology). Even within countries the differences can be large (e.g. South Africa, India).
- Too context specific. The application of GIS in a province is different than the application in a municipality or city. So one
cannot make generalizations about a LGU in general.
B. Reasons to do evaluation studies on GIS in LGUs
Evaluation of GIS will contribute to a better understanding on how this technology is adapted and used in planning and decision-making processes (Nedovic-Budic, 1998). Knowledge and insights gained from such evaluation is expected to contribute to:
- More effective implementation and use of the technology;
- Developing and applying applications in target areas where they have the greatest impact;
- Adjusting and adapting the technology to the organization and vice versa;
- Ensuring that the technology becomes institutionalized within the organization and really leads to a better functioning of the organization.
- Increase the overall performance of an organization (in terms of time, cost, human resources and quality)
- Adjusting the core activities of organizations like ITC. It will help getting insight into the impact of the activities (education, research, consultancy)
For LGUs in developing countries this might be even more true as GIS use in this type of organizations in this type of countries is still a field in development and an area with a great scope for future growth. Against this background it can be expected that an interest exists among LGUs to take advantage of each other's experiences. It is useful to know what common problems exist and how this may allow development of a systematic approach to an effective deployment of the technology in the organization.
Besides, the amount of resources (i.e. financial, human), whatever their source, invested and to be invested in GIS projects and development will remain an important load for LGUs in developing countries. In that light issues as efficiency and effectiveness will remain a matter of concern for the organizations involved.
Given these general arguments for undertaking evaluation studies on the use of GIS in LGUs, which organizations will be interested in the lessons that can be learned from these studies?
- Decision-makers within LGUs. The ones who decide on implementing, developing and expanding the use of GIS in their organization might benefit from the experiences from similar organizations, which are in a relatively advanced stage of GIS use.
- Development organizations like CIDA and UNEP can be interested, as the application of GIS in LGUs is part of their broader development programs. Although these organizations don't focus on this specific subject they can use the lessons from these evaluations to enhance their programs.
- Educational and training institutes like ITC, where people get education to back up their practical experience, can be interested out of their educational programs. The lessons that will arise out of the evaluation can be used to adapt the educational programs better to the real life situation of the trainees.
- Consultancy agencies (or organizations with consultancy tasks) like DHV, PADCO and ITC could be interested as consultancy tasks will be on the implementation of GIS in LGUs (e.g. Lilongwe project). The lessons can be used to not only make the implementation better but also to look after an enduring use of GIS in the long-term.
- National mapping organizations and "national GIS coordination associations" like NAMRIA in the Philippines can be interested in evaluating the use of GIS in LGUs. NAMRIA has a coordinating function on the application and use of GIS in the Philippines and could use the lessons to make policy to improve the use of GIS in the LGUs. One can roughly compare its activities with that of the Dutch RAVI. The RAVI initiated an inventory on the use of geo-information and GIS in the Dutch government.
- Associations in the field of capacity building in LGUs in developing countries like IULA. One of their objectives is to be the worldwide source of learning, exchange and capacity building programs for democratic local government. As implementation of GIS can be a part of a capacity building program it is interesting for these associations to make use of the lessons learned through evaluation studies.
Further arguments that stress the special importance and relevance of evaluating GIS in LGUs in developing countries in particular are given below:
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GIS versus IT in general?
Although in a number of aspects lessons from the IT field in general are indispensable and very instructive for GIS use and development, the following arguments support attention for GIS in particular:
- GIS will keep its separate status, as analyzing of spatial data will stay a main part of working with GIS, which makes it different from mainstream IT. Despite its technological, commercial and organizational convergence to Information Technology.
- The function of GIS in terms of visual thinking and visual communication adds a dimension to which no attention is given in the IT field in general.
- LGUs?
The argument that GIS use and application in LGUs are not so different from applications in other fields and organizations, which might not warrant a special attention to GIS evaluations, can be offset by the following arguments:
- GIS has some characteristic features that makes it particularly interesting for the specific functions that a LGU could fulfill: communication; strategic planning; operational planning and management; monitoring and evaluation. Especially in the field of public services LGUs have important tasks to achieve.
- Through the process of decentralization the LGUs will get more responsibility and tasks and as such a need for better access to spatial data.
- Through processes of decentralization, there is a trend that the local government has to become more transparent. Therefore the importance of GIS will grow, as the citizens demand more accessibility to spatial data and insight in the decisions by the LGUs that often have a strong spatial connotation.
- Developing countries?
Finally the special attention for evaluating GIS use in developing countries can be justified by the following arguments:
- Developing countries have more to lose from ineffective and inefficient use of the technology than developed countries generally do.
- Even if there will not be any mutual difference between the developing countries the differences with the developed countries will be too big to learn common lessons. Besides the differences in 'technical and economic level' there are also cultural differences that have to be taken into account.
- In developing countries the implementation of GIS is often done by means of external funding. Hereby it is important to wonder who asked for the implementation of GIS in the LGU. Is it the development organization that wants to implement this tool? Or has the need developed itself within the LGU? This difference maybe bringing on the success or failure of the project.