ISSUE 4

COMNET-IT Review on Member States - Mauritius

	Introduction
	Standards & Practices
	Human Resource
	Organisation Incentives
	IT Industry Development
	National Applications
	Conclusion

The charter of the National Information Technology Strategy Plan (NITSP) is to accelerate Mauritius' transformation into a nation where IT is fully engaged for business competitiveness, civil service efficiency and effectiveness as well as to encourage IT diffusion at national level so as to help achieve an information-based economy. Approved by government in November 1998, this plan is designed to make Mauritius an IT exploiter as well as an IT exporter. The vision of the NITSP is an integral part of the overall national vision of social and economic development for Mauritius.

Currently, Mauritius has various organisational frameworks to support its existing IT initiatives. However, this is a fragmented arrangement with different agencies tackling separate segments and can be better integrated through the NITSP. The NITSP is the comprehensive dynamic roadmap that aims to drive Mauritius into an Information Based Economy and position our country as a regional IT hub. The vision, objectives and action plans of the NITSP is a guide for everyone with a stake in IT to follow in furthering the development of Information Technology in Mauritius.

Our shared vision is to develop Mauritius into a modern nation and to enhance the nation's competitiveness in the global market place so as to improve the quality of life of the people.

An integrated IT strategy, the SHOCKING strategy, was elaborated with a crucial set of building blocks which are further detailed below.

The Standards and Practices are identified in recognition that a system of self-renewal is needed for Mauritius to leapfrog in the exploitation of Information Technology (IT). Organisational knowledge must be retained within the organisation and not reside only in its people. Thus it is important to set up quality systems and practices covering both the business functions and IT deployment process.

The scope is limited to identifying the Standards and Practices relating to IT deployment process within Civil Service computerisation.

The approach adopted in this project consisted of a quick review of the current state situation about the computerisation process in the civil service achieved by interviewing the major players to gather their feedback on areas of improvement.

A presentation to the IT suppliers about the objectives of the project was also made; this brainstorming session allowed the team to share ideas with the private sector.

Thereafter, a brief study of the Standards developed by the International Bureau of Standards and a survey of Standards and Practices developed by a selected list of countries was carried out.

As part of the review, the effectiveness of the existing organisation framework to support Civil Service Computerisation was also examined; three presentations were made to the key players including one to the Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology.

These activities allowed the team to find the gap which exists between current Standards and Practices and the institutional framework necessary to support Civil Service Computerisation.

The team recognised that the Standards and Practices identified do not exist in isolation and need to go hand in hand with a supporting organisational framework. Thus the team also put forth a recommendation of an organisational structure within which Standards and Practices identified will be developed, maintained and used to facilitate Civil Service Computerisation.

The Human Resource component was tackled by the IT Manpower development working team. The team focused on the development of IT professionals, the essential ingredient for a flourishing IT industry. The objective of the team was to elaborate a strategic plan for the supply of skilled and trained IT manpower with a view to meeting the projected demand as Mauritius develops its IT industry and promotes the widespread use of IT.

The team activities in developing the strategic plan involved data gathering through interviews of heads of IT training institutions and other stakeholders in IT human resource development, a small survey of IT users and suppliers and active search of reports and books. Apart from regular team meetings, working sessions were carried out with the visiting consultant from NCS and findings and forecasts were presented to stakeholders.

The team prepared four intermediate reports namely Country Analysis & Mauritius IT Model Definition which elaborated on the IT human resource status and development initiatives of other countries as well as that of Mauritius; Supply & Demand Projections where the IT professionals available and required from 1998 to 2005 were forecasted; Education & Training Development where the gap between supply and demand were analysed and initiatives to bridge the gap were crafted; Supporting Initiatives where other recommendations that will indirectly boost the quantity and quality of IT manpower development were elaborated. A final report, the National IT Manpower Plan 1998-2005, which integrates all the other reports was then submitted on 20th July 1998.

The team found that currently there are around 1,100 IT professionals in Mauritius and that to support the IT industry's objectives, 4,500 more IT professionals are required by year 2005. The quality of IT courses, the importance of continuous education & training, and the abnormally high dropout rates within the educational cycle were some of the issues identified by the team in their reports.

Other aspects of Human Resource namely end user training, IT culture promotion and IT education at all levels need to be addressed in the next phase of NITSP action planning.

The Organisation Incentives found that there was a general lack of understanding of the potential benefits IT can bring to a business and there was a definite need to develop and offer appropriate incentive schemes to boost the local exploitation of IT and also encourage the export of IT services. To address these issues various incentive packages have been devised and recommended.

The current assessment of incentives in the other countries using as case study three nations namely: Malaysia, India and Singapore. These countries were chosen because of their successful schemes to attract foreign investors who develop the IT industry for domestic as well as for the export markets. Then an assessment of existing incentives in Mauritius was carried out followed by interviews with key persons from the parastatal bodies plus the public and private sectors of Mauritius. Finally, an assessment of the necessary incentives for the IT industry development and the IT Human Resource was carried out. The information gathered and the gap analysis helped to set out an organisation incentive framework for Mauritius.

The Organisation Incentives Framework established takes into consideration the overall National Vision of Mauritius and more specifically the IT objectives which are to enable service sector to grow and develop into a business hub, improve efficiency and effectiveness of the public services, create a fully IT literate nation and finally use IT to enhance education system and services in general.

The objective of the IT industry development workgroup was to develop a framework and an action agenda for the development of the IT Industry in order to achieve an efficient IT exploitation in Mauritius and to develop an export-oriented IT Industry

The approach adopted for this study is described below.

• An analysis of the current situation was made based on reports and interviews of key players in the various industries of the economy.
• The political, economic, social and technological (PEST) environment of Mauritius was analysed.
• The strategy for the development of the IT industry of nations which have been successful in the industry were also studied.
• A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis was performed and a strategy was formulated for the development of the industry.

Following the above studies the framework and an action agenda were prepared. A Strategic Action Programme has been proposed which contains specific actions to be initiated immediately or in the near term to move towards the desired state of development of the IT Industry. It was felt that the IT Industry has the potential to be a future economic driver within the services sector of Mauritius, especially with the positioning of Mauritius as a business hub for the region. Nevertheless, it was felt that although we may have the ambition of exporting IT services, we must consolidate our IT Industry through the domestic market in the short term. Meanwhile, action programmes should be initiated to bridge the gap in capacity (IT manpower, infrastructure, etc.) and to market Mauritius as a venue for IT services.

Mauritius National Identity Card (MNIC)

The MNIC project sets the approach for enhancing the national identification infrastructure and implementing a flagship application to support the Government's goals of improving the public sector effectiveness and efficiency, bringing the government closer to the people. Smart card technology will be adopted for the implementation of the new national identity cards in line with a cabinet decision dated November 1997.

With a reliable identification infrastructure, the following benefits are expected:

• Harnessing population information for long-term planning to support nation building.
• Provision of timely services to the rightful recipients of such services.

A three-stage approach has been employed to derive the MNIC master plan. A current state assessment inaugurated this approach and was specifically aimed at assessing the existing people identification infrastructure to determine its shortfalls and usage within the public sector agencies. This was followed by the architecture design defining the key components required to bridge the gaps identified in the current state assessment. Finally, a deployment plan has been conceived to formulate a long-range implementation plan of the MNIC project.

The current state assessment has highlighted several shortcomings and flaws of the current people identification administration process including:

• Multiple re-capturing of identification information by different agencies is needed, with the public having to produce several identification documents to these agencies before it can benefit from Government services.
• There are multiple updates of the same information by different agencies onto different databases, resulting in duplication of work and data inconsistencies within Government.
• Key information such as personal identifier and address are not standardised and accurately maintained across the lifecycle.
• The functions involved in the identification administration process are scattered between different ministries and departments, hindering the setting up of a reliable identification infrastructure.
• Finally, the time taken to verify the identity of the members of the public for most services is long, resulting in poor efficiency of Government services.

Mauritius and neighbours

Among the recommendations formulated by the MNIC Team, the following main ones can be noted:

• A streamlined identification administration process is required. All information should be captured once at source and be retained for storage and updates at a single point. This will result in the consistency of people information across all Government agencies thereby ensuring that a citizen can be uniquely identified.
• A single form of identification would be required, thereby reducing the need for multiple identification documents for the purpose of authentication.
• The NIC unit of the Ministry of Social Security will have to be merged with the Civil Status Division in order to have one organisation to oversee the people identification administration process.

With the establishment of a good smart card infrastructure, the use of smart card for the new Identity Card would also trigger off new applications to modernise Government services; e.g. pension payment and driving license could be considered as flagship applications.

With the implementation of the MNIC Master Plan, it can be expected that public waiting and service processing time should be shortened with the ultimate objective of creating one-stop and eventually one-stop/non-stop services.

GII aims at improving communications within the government agencies. The ultimate goal is to interconnect all the Civil Service organisations to facilitate communication, and information sharing, among the public sector agencies and to bring government closer to the people.

The GII project involves the formulation of a masterplan for the information infrastructure design and a deployment plan for both long term (2-3 years) and short term (1 year). Three pilot ministries (Ministry of Telecommunication & IT, Ministry of Industry & Commerce and Ministry of Youth & Sports) were selected for the short term GII implementation.

The GII project will help to achieve the following:

• It will provide an electronic communication environment for electronic mail with integrated fax, messaging and intranet capabilities.
• It will also make available the infrastructure to foster closer interaction between the Government and the people of Mauritius, thereby meeting the national objective of bringing government closer to the people. GII will provide government information and other related online services to the general public round the clock via the Internet.
• GII will create an opportunity for establishing a service-wide network infrastructure standard to be adopted in civil service computerisation.

A three-phased approach was adopted:

Phase 1: Current State Assessment

Phase 2: GII Design

Phase 3: GII Planning

Phase 1: Current State Assessment

A study of the existing infrastructure setup of the pilot ministries shortlisted and the parastatal organisations operating under their aegis was carried out in the first phase of the project.

The objectives of the study were:

• Obtain information about current IT infrastructure facilities available (e.g. number of computers, number of printers, IT usage, existing applications, and network infrastructure) and IT proficiency level of the staff to assess the readiness of the ministries to join the GII.
• Obtain information about the departments and their respective functions within the ministry and communication with the parastatal bodies and other organisations.
• Find information about future IT plans of the ministries and parastatals.
• Obtain information about policies concerning security, e-mail and Internet.

Phase 2: GII Design

In this phase the architecture design, standards and policies to be adopted for the GII implementation were developed. The report was the deliverable at the end of this phase and it defines standards and policies of network infrastructure to be adopted in Civil Service Computerisation:

• The network topology and security infrastructure of the GII
• The standards and policies that organisations forming part of the GII will have to adhere to ensure interoperability,
• Basic services offered to GII users (e.g. Internet, Intranet and E-mail)
• How the infrastructure will be managed and operated to ensure quality of service.

Phase 3: GII Planning

This phase addresses the activities that need to be undertaken to implement the Government Information Infrastructure (GII) in the short term and link the pilot sites to the GII. This plan will also serve as a roadmap for the long term evolution of the GII ultimately to National Information Infrastructure (NII).

Given the dynamic nature of development in IT and in the economy, the NITSP is a plan which is constantly reviewed and updated as new strategic action programmes are elaborated and implemented. The NITSP is here to provide a vision of IT development for specific objectives which can and will be achieved through a variety of constantly evolving actions. These actions are greatly influenced by changes in the economy and technology breakthroughs.