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"Evaluating GIS in local government in developing countries"

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1. Objectives and study approach
The aim of the internship was defined as:
"Build up the knowledge base on the most relevant research and development activities in the field of the application, use and impact of GIS, particularly in local government administrations in developing countries".

The motive for studying the use of GIS in local government in developing countries originated from one of the focus areas of the Social Sciences Division, i.e. "Institutional Dimensions of Geo-Information Technology". This program is potentially wide ranging, to encompass such aspects as the role of GIS in decentralized government; GIS and governance; market structure in connection with the "electronic highway" and particularly the GIS side of it; interaction between the choice of IT and organizational structure and competencies (source: http://www.itc.nl/soc/Research/ID-GIT/frames-ID-GIT.html). The subject of this study links to the role of GIS in decentralized (local) government. Within this program, Emile Dopheide and Erik de Man conducted a survey on GIS use in Local Government Units (LGUs) in the Philippines, which is still in progress. They have sent surveys to 41 LGUs to obtain insight in their use of GIS. Follow-up on this survey is in progress.

One of the objectives of this study was to make a structured overview of the actual experiences on the use of GIT in public organizations. During the first period of the internship it appeared to be very difficult to find useful case studies on the Internet or in directly available literature. One condition that restricted the number of useful case studies was that an evaluation had to be a significant element in these cases. Several articles have been published that report on lessons that can be learnt from the use of GIS in local government but the 'real' cases behind these articles are hard to find (Suwarnarat et al. 1998; Burke 1995). On the one hand I expect that this is because little has been done in this field and on the other hand I think that a part of the required information is available in the 'grey-literature'. This problem of 'grey literature' will get attention at the end of this section in the part about methodology. Given this limited availability of case material, the question of the relevance of evaluation studies was added to the original aim and received relevant attention in this study. Besides this question, emphasis was given to an overview of (potential) sources (organizations; internet sites; journals etc.) of evaluation and case studies on GIS in LGUs in developing countries.

So eventually, the objectives were formulated as follows:
  1. Identify whether there is a need for evaluating the use of GIS in local government units.
  2. Identify the organizations that are active in the field of researching and executing projects on "GIS in local government in developing countries" as well as other potential sources for evaluation and case studies
  3. Identify lessons -in terms of success and failure factors- from the adoption of GIS in local government in developing countries.
  4. Formulate recommendations for follow-up actions and further study.
Structure of the report
Section 2 discusses the need for the evaluation of GIS use in local government in developing countries. This section will be based partly on communication with key persons, either by email or (oral) conversation. Section 3 will investigate the second aim by given an overview of all the information that was found. Only the names of the organizations will be mentioned in this section. More detailed information can be found in the Access database. This database is included in the appendix of this report and will also become digitally available. The third aim will get attention in section 4. Based on the limited available case studies and some general articles a number of lessons -that can be drawn from the adoption of GIS in LGUs in developing countries- will be briefly described. In the last section some recommendations will be given about the possible need for further study on this subject and the maintaining of the database. The list with literature, as included in the appendix, is a collection of literature that deals with the subject of this study in some way.

Focal area of the study
Figure 1 visualizes the focal area of this study. As can be seen from the figure, the intersection of the following three fields defines the focus of this study:
  • GIS
  • Local Government Units (LGUs)
  • Developing Countries
Each of these three fields will be briefly commented upon below. Of course, information that does not fit within this (grey) focal area but that does fit within one of the ellipses, can still have some relevance for this study. For example a study on the adoption and use of GIS in local government in Europe (the work of Masser, Campbell and Craglia, 1996) doesn't fit in the focal area but might still be highly relevant for this study.


Figure 1 Focal area

Each of the three fields will be briefly clarified in what follows.
  1. GIS
    As mentioned earlier, I expect that the reader knows something about GIS. Nevertheless, there are two remarks that I want make here.
    • The first remark is that a distinction can be made between the so-called 'project GIS' and 'institutional GIS'. A 'Project GIS' will be a single purpose system, customized and optimized for the specific project requirements and for a limited range of applications tasks. An 'institutional GIS' is more process-oriented and the prime objective is to improve the general operation efficiency of an organization, rather than producing specific outputs (Christiansen, 1995, p. 153). In this study the focus will be on 'institutional GIS'. Although it should be emphasized that a project GIS can eventually become an institutional GIS.
    • The second remark is about a common discussion about the unique characteristics of GIS compared to other Information Systems (IS). Some people plead for the thought that GIS is just slightly different than IS and conclude that both should be treated the same when talking about their implementation and use. Others give special attention to the geographic component and plead for making a distinction between these two different systems. In this study the second view is followed. A large part of the information that is important for (local) government units has geographical relevance. Geographical data, and especially good access to these data, is very important for local governments to be able to maintain and plan their area. The term GIS is comprehensive, including terms as Municipal Information System and Urban Information System.

  2. Local Government Units (LGUs)
    The second term that has to be clarified is 'local government unit'. In this study the term local government unit refers to a province, municipality or city. In this report mainly the abbreviation 'LGUs' will be used. The justification to focus on local government is that decentralization is (and has been) taking place rapidly in developing countries. This shift has occurred partly in response to political pressure for local autonomy, but also to deliver public services more efficiently. GIS can play an important role as a tool in increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of planning and decision-making. It is important to note that in this study GIS should be seen as part of the information management within the organizational context of the local government. GIS should not be restricted to a department where maps are made but should function as supportive information systems both within the organization as to the citizens. Also according to Masser et al. (1996) local government is a particularly interesting field for research because it covers a wide range of applications in a great diversity of settings.

  3. Developing countries
    The last term that I will briefly discuss is 'developing countries'. The term 'developing countries' can lead to a discussion about which countries do and which countries don't fall under this definition. This will not be a subject of discussion here. In this study "developing countries" will refer to the origin countries of the ITC students. However, I am aware of the big differences that exist between the individual countries.

    There are a few arguments for focusing on developing countries in this report. The first argument is that not a lot has been written about the use of GIS on this local level in these countries while this field has been growing fast recently. Besides it is expected that the adoption process and the value added of this technology is different from that in the developed countries (also for IT field in general, a number of specific initiatives towards developing countries exist: e.g. Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries (EJISDC) and IFIP Working Group: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries). The final reason is that organizations in developing countries are still the main target group for ITC.
Methodology
In the first two months of the internship the main source of information was the Internet. By means of several "compilation Internet sites" as http://www.itc.nl/lib/index.html, http://gis.pagina.nl and http://ontwikkelingssamenwerking.pagina.nl and "search engine" like 'Copernic' the WWW has been searched. In the beginning, simply search terms like 'GIS' and 'local government' were used. Later, I combined these search terms to specify the search results. Parallel to this activity, the available literature on the subject was searched and reviewed.

Besides Internet search and literature review some information has been gathered through conversation with 'ITC-ers' and email contact with some key informants. Names and other information can be found in the appendix. Therefore, this report is partly based on personal opinions of the contacted persons. But given the fact that this report is more a discussion paper than a scientific document, these personal opinions are very valuable.

One problem, as also Christiansen (1996) pointed out, is the existence of 'grey literature'. 'Grey literature' is for instance unpublished project documents and reports of donor organizations. Also evaluation reports of GIS projects, which could be of interest for this study, sometimes belong to this 'grey literature'.

All the collected information is stored in an Access Database. In this database a distinction is made between the different types of information. There are tables with information on organizations, articles, journals and books and (contacted) persons.

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