Digital Leaders Spotlight: Somalia

Despite being an emerging State with a relatively low ranking on the global e-government development index, Somalia has exhibited commitment toward the digitalization of government services. The country has made great strides in the development of ICT laws, regulations and policies, broadband expansion, universal access and plans to build a National Data Centre. However, a holistic Government Enterprise Architecture and interoperability platform has not yet been developed – currently, all agencies have their own systems and guidelines. Moreover, there is no enabling legislation for data sharing and data analysis yet. 

GovStack Approach   

GovStack in Somalia is implemented through the Multi-Donor Action “Initiative for Digital Government and Cybersecurity” (IDGC) in the Horn of Africa, a Team Europe Approach together with Germany, France, and Spain, and co-financed by the European Union and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). 

GovStack in Somalia focuses on:   

• Digital Government Strategy and Roadmap:  Evaluation of the strategic, technical, and regulatory prerequisites to introduce government e-services, through the implementation of a digital readiness study and roadmap development for the introduction of government e-services. 

• Service Design of e-government Use Case: Use case selection and design of priority digital public services based on the GovStack building block approach to the digitization of government services. 

• Capacity Development: Capacity development measures on digital government and change management, including on- and offline training and workshops, for civil servants for the digitization of government services; regional and global communities of practice for peer-to-peer learning. 

The implementation is done together with GovStack core partners. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) supports the technical service design of priority use cases. The Estonian Centre for International Development (EstDev) supports the development of Digital Readiness Studies and Digital Government Roadmaps. 

Use Case Development 

In Somalia two use cases were jointly selected for prototyping, using the ICT building blocks. GovStack is supporting the the digitalization of high school records and the development of a content management system mapping all current administrative services in the country to manage and centralize information as well as to increase access. 

• High School Records (HSR): A high school certificate service allows students and graduates to access their high school certificates digitally. It eliminates the need for physical copies of certificates and provides a convenient and efficient way for students to access and share their educational qualifications digitally. 

• Content Management System (CMS): A government-wide Content Management System (CMS) – functioning as a standardised and harmonised service catalogue – increases access to government services by providing a one-stop-shop based on the GovStack approach. 

Where we stand  

The joint co-design of the two use cases is completed and consisted of a series of consultative meetings and co-design sessions with the Ministry of Communication and Technology (MoCT) for the CMS and the Ministry of Education for the HSR use case. In Q1 and Q2 2024 two applications were chosen for the implementation of the use cases. While the CMS will be built on the Open-Source Software Typo3 the digitisation of the High School Records will be based on Joget, an efficient low code platform. Both implementations are in full swing and are accompanied by several trainings, both offline and online, for the digital teams involved in the roll-out and maintenance of the services, with the most recent being done in Kigali, Rwanda in June 2024. The official launch of the services is foreseen for Q4 2024. Moreover, based on the Digital Readiness Study, the Initiative has developed a national Digital Government Roadmap as a guiding document and a strategic plan for the government’s digital transformation journey. 

Next Steps 

• The main next step is the completion of additional training sessions for the two use cases, CMS and HSR, scheduled for Q4 2024 to prepare both applications for their official launch.