4.6 Technical readiness for implementing an OSS

Generalization

Although decentralization issupported by the highest political will and it is a part of the Government Programme, which states that government must providepublic services to all citizensand delegate this to municipalities, the OSS implementation regulation is missing.

The existinglegislationdoes not explicitly mention an OSS butmakesa clear reference to the need to provide services to the citizens at the closest possible level and refers to the municipalities’right to provide such services.

The legal framework concerningtheimplementation of decentralization does not revoke any of the currently effective legal actsafter decentralization.

Government entities have notdelegated their powers of service provision to municipalities (neitheras decision makers nor as mediators)and continue providing public services through regional officesor are planning to open additional regional offices.

The legal framework for data protection, cybersecurity, data exchange and other key areasrelated to digital governance and service provisionis missing.

It is necessary to define a regulatory framework emphasizingsimplification, security, and the development of efficient, rational electronic services that complywith the highest international standardsand covering areas such as the legal regime for cyberspace security, personal data protection and payment services, together with an electronic currency.

The Decree-Law on decentralization has already been subject to some amendments, so adoption of a consolidated and preferably annotated version is recommended, to facilitate a more general understanding by non-lawyersand the stakeholders.

4.6 Technical readiness for implementing an OSS

Looking into Timor-Leste’s infrastructure and considering the perspective of an OSS, there are specific concerns and aspects that require more focus. As the OSS is about delivering services to citizens and residents, the infrastructure related to physical communication (transportation) and information communication becomes important.

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To understand the situation with the technical infrastructure, the physical environment must be considered – climate and geographical location create extremely wet conditions resulting in frequent flooding during the wet season. This has a heavy impact on the transport infrastructure. As a result, significant seasonal obstacles for transportation of humans and goods exist – from the perspective of providing public services, there are also issues with physical access to services, which will exist and must be considered.

Cable based infrastructure, such as power and data networks, are a target for heavy criticism by the local population, specifically in rural areas. In general, the maturity of service providers – how the service is provided and ensuring the quality of services – is improving but is currently far from what could be called a reliable. Furthermore, just as with physical transportation, the environment plays a significant role – telecommunication service providers have acknowledged that physical cable failures are hard to handle during the wet season and this might lead to service interruptions that last for extended periods of days. The Government of Timor-Leste has built a network-overpower-lines solution as the governmental network, and the impact and usability for consumers has been declared as good as a service from the private sector. As long as this approach is sustainable, it is reasonable to continue, but the economical effectiveness should be measured and assessed if the resources spent on building a dedicated government network (with direct benefit for the public sector) would be better spent on improving private operator services, as in that case the beneficiary would be the society as a whole. The computerization of organizations is ongoing, but the focus is on the regular desktop and office application usage - ability to use e-mail, world wide web and productivity applications such as word processors and spreadsheets. Most backend processes are based on paper and the pace of introducing digital information systems for providing public services is low due to lack of ICT-related skills.

In Timor-Leste, the Public Institute of Information and Communication Technology (TIC TIMOR I.P.) has been established to lead the digitalization process. While the organization has done a good job on establishing different domains and programmes to improve digital capabilities, the sustainability of such an approach is questionable. The problem of sustainability is related to two factors:

• TIC TIMOR I.P. is consolidating activities and functions related to ICT: infrastructure acquisition, network construction, software development, (C)OTS (Commercial Off-theShelf product procurement and software maintenance. Centralization is good for the early phases of digitalization but can lead into problems in later phases. • The financing system relies heavily on external financial sources since the state budget does not have sufficient resources to contribute. It has been noted from experience with other countries that external financing sources are not good for activities that must be sustainable. The last and possibly most critical perspective of infrastructure – and specifically ICT related infrastructure – is related to the human capital. This issue has been identified by many stakeholders – both in the ICT field and other fields where ICT competences are low. The problem is even deeper, as it was discovered during the interviews that there is also a very limited ability of ICT competences in the private sector. This significantly limits the possible development of an OSS solution and there is a risk that dependency on foreign resources becomes even deeper.

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The considerations exposed here must be kept in mind when planning the OSS solution. Any solution must be fit for the social context that the society can provide and is ready to accept. When looking only for possible OSS models, the situation is quite limiting. Instead, the OSS should be envisioned as an approach that helps Timor-Leste to improve its services and the capabilities of the whole government and the whole society.

Key findings

Access to services in physical and ICT terms is problematic due to environmental constraints.

Utilityservices (such as electricity and broadband or mobile connectivity)arein achallenging status. Governance of baseline services requires time toimprove maturity.

Practical and ICT managementskillsin the public sector are poor. Private sector capability is also limited.

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