ISSUE 4

Year 2000 Preparedness Initiative - Strategy Phase Concluded; Work Continues

At their meeting in Ottawa, Canada, last year (CFMM98), The Commonwealth Finance Ministers established a Commonwealth Year 2000 facility in recognition of the importance of early action to deal with the problem of the Millennium Bug. As a contribution to the Facility, the Government of the United Kingdom, through its Department for International Development (DFID), has provided a grant of £250,000 to the Commonwealth Secretariat to assist with the implementation of Millennium Date Change Projects. The Commonwealth Year 2000 Preparedness Initiative is a Commonwealth-wide initiative under the auspices of the Commonwealth Year 2000 Preparedness Facility to provide technical assistance to help Governments and regional organisations deliver a Comprehensive Y2K Strategy. To date comprehensive strategies, which comprise, inter alia, Y2K Problem Scoping, and the Identification of Mitigation and Remediation Options have been completed for 11 member countries of CARICOM in the Caribbean, 12 member countries of SADC in Eastern and Southern Africa and for The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea and The Maldives. The Initiative has had a cascade effect resulting in similar activities being funded by the Caribbean Development Bank and commissioned by the CARICOM through the Regional Technical Co-ordinating Committee, for the The Bahamas, Belize, the Cayman Islands, Grenada, and Jamaica and St Vincent & The Grenadines.

The Context

Each member nation of the Commonwealth, developing, newly-industrialising or developed, has a governmental administrative infrastructure which is critical. The use of information technology and information systems (IT/IS) in all government administrations is prevalent in these countries, albeit at various levels of capability. The overall reliability of governmental administration and financial institutions is essential to maintain investors’ confidence in the countries’ infrastructure. Throughout the Commonwealth, there are the normal critical dependencies and inter-dependencies relating to telecommunications, power, and water, which underly all essential public infrastructure in the national economies.

Throughout the developing Commonwealth, Agriculture and Tourism are dominant primary and tertiary industries, respectively, while for a number of countries Financial Services are a major contributor to the national economy. In the small island states of the Caribbean, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, Agriculture seems to be highly dependent on airport, shipping and dock facilities for exports. Shipping is also critical for the importation of many basic materials. Infrastructure critical to Tourism includes airports, hotels and the local travel and transport facilities. Additionally, mining (mineral oil exploitation, gold and diamond mining, etc) is also a critical industry in many of the member countries.

The Findings

The findings below provide a broad overview of the status of preparedness amongst the countries that participated in the Comprehensive Y2K Strategy phase: (details tabulated)

• The participating countries were found to be at different levels of Y2K preparedness;
• Top level commitment in member governments were found to be commendably high, constrained, however, by a paucity of enabling resources, particularly for the next, immediate phase, of remediation/renovation;
• Organisational arrangements for Y2K preparedness are in place for nearly all the participating countries, albeit with varying levels of pertinent authority and responsibilities;
• Public awareness initiatives are variously on the rise;
• National and/or sector drives for the implementation of comprehensive contingency plans for mission-critical systems are the perceived norm for next steps in the face of the short lead-time to the millennium; and
• Mission-critical systems have been found to include the governmental administrative systems; the utility sector including telecommunication, power and water; the health sector; the national airports and ports; the transport sector; and the financial sector.

It is the widespread feeling amongst the participating member countries that the lessons of experience gained in the course of the Y2K preparedness campaign should not be an end in themselves; rather, they should be a means to:

• articulating the acquisition of a general discipline in value-added governance, in government and organisations alike, which is systematic and systemic;
• in relation to general preparedness and risk management for national disasters;
• upgrading the use of IT and developing information-based:
• organisations throughout government and the private sector; and
• post-Y2K national IT strategies throughout the Commonwealth.

Identified Issues

There is a need for a number of critical due processes, which must be enhanced and intensified for preparing the countries for the millennium bug, including the following:

• Need for co-ordination of all sector initiatives in each of the countries;
• Need for structured reporting and documented progress;
• Need for intensification of public awareness on the potential impacts of the millennium bug;
• Need for continued implementation of audits to update the status of Y2K preparedness in each of the counties;
• It is imperative to pay special attention to the status of preparedness of the mission-critical sectors, and in particular, to the utility sector, which is the basis for dependencies and inter-dependencies across all sectors.

The various Comprehensive Y2K Strategies also underscore the need for a number of enablers, which should facilitate a conducive environment for the critical due processes, including the following:

• top-level commitment;
• trained and skilled human resources;
• adequate supporting financial resources ;
• a versatile, highly-empowered Y2K committee structure with authority and responsibility;

Next Steps

While the emphasis of the first phase of funding has focused on the delivery of a Comprehensive Y2K Strategy for each participating member country with the objective of assessing National Action Plans or of providing advice on formulating Plans, recommendations for the next phase will seek to achieve economies of scale of the combined competencies of the member countries in national and/or regional initiatives, to deal with the most critical of the public sectors on a priority basis.

Renovation/Remediation: Technical Assistance (TA) is needed for the implementation of Y2K renovation/remediation programmes, and post-implementation reviews and/or audits on the Y2K methodology employed in upgrading mission-critical systems and, applications in government and the public sector to attain millennium compliance;

Embedded Systems: Technical Assistance is needed for engineering audits of microprocessor-dependent equipment, tools and services used in mission-critical ares of national economies, including the utility sectors of the telecommunications, power and water; public transport and travel, mining, and the health sectors;

Contingency Planning: Technical Assistance is needed for the formulation and/or assessment of National Contingency Plans, particularly for mission critical systems and applications, in the event of unprecedented Y2K non-compliance failures.

For the implementation and delivery of comprehensive remediation/renovation measures, and the engineering audits of embedded systems in the utilities, transport, health sectors, member countries are encouraged to seek funding from donor agencies on a bilateral basis, with their respective Comprehensive Y2K Strategies forming the basis of the proposals.

For the delivery of comprehensive contingency plans for mission critical systems in governmental administration and the public sector, the attention of the CFMM was drawn to the possibility of replenishment of the Commonwealth Year 2000 Preparedness Facility, to provide multilateral support in a manner similar to the first phase.

Text supplied by:
Mr Rogers W'O Okot-Uma of the Commonwealth Secretariat,
Marlborough House, Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5HX England
Tel: +44 171 747 6339
Fax: +44 171 747 6335
Email: r.okot-uma@commonwealth.com

Useful Year 2000 References and Links The International Year 2000 Co-operation Centre at www.iy2kcc.org holds survey results and advice and is a place to find links to other sources, organisations and people. See another collaborative effort at www.Y2K-Status.Org/Notes/Y2K/. Find lists of national Year 2000 web sites at www.itpolicy.gsa.gov/mks/yr2000/y2khome.htm and www.worldbank.org/infodev/y2k/y2kcountrypages.htm American economist Dr. Ed Yardeni has lots of links from his web site. A commercial but dynamic site is www.everything2000.com which includes a recent Reuters report on Year 2000 issues in Africa. The International Telecommunication Union web site has an area reserved for Inter Carrier test results. Visit it at www.itu.int/y2k/ICTWG_public/. The International Air Transport Association is maintaining a dynamic set of information including airline contingency plans at www.iata.org/y2k. Another reputable guide to "The Millennium Problem in Embedded Systems" put up by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) may be found at www.iee.org/2000risk which notes "there seem to be more problems arising as a result of leap year errors than from the move from 1999 to 2000". Find sample telecommunication test plans at www.telcoyear2000.org/project. A 16 page guide by Ian Hugo entitled "Predicting Year 2000 Disruption" may be found under Reports/Surveys at www.fco.gov.uk/travel/. There may yet be a Silver Lining to your Year 2000 projects even if there was no Silver Bullet – see article by Alex Borg on the management gains of Y2K inventories and programme clean-ups. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office has also recently published a set of Y2K status summaries drawn from diplomatic stations worldwide. For their comment on Y2K readiness by sector, visit www.fco.gov.uk/travel/. The American authorities have published travel guidance for their nationals abroad at travel.state.gov/y2kannounce.html and travel.state.gov/travel warnings.html. Whilst the First World begins to relax about its Year 2000 concerns, the rest of the world is coming under scrutiny. To avoid unnecessary interruptions of trade and travel, developing nations would be well advised to keep in touch – both monitoring and updating the various status reports issued online. As emphasised in Ian Hugo’s article, the Year 2000 problem does not stop on 01/01/2000 and so our coverage of this international issue will continue – all being well!