M-Government
This component aims to provide government services using mobile telephony to increase their
efficiency and effectiveness. The following sub-components will be taken under this component:
1. Enabling Mobile Government
2. Innovations Grant Program
1. Enabling Mobile Government
MCIT will initiate this activity to support the mainstreaming of mobile applications
across Government for public service delivery and for program management. The
reach of mobile telephony—more than half of Afghan households have at least one
mobile telephone among its members—creates a widely available platform for
public service delivery and Government program management. The nationwide use
of mobile telephones creates new opportunities for the Government to reach and
communicate with its citizens. Experiences from other conflict and post-conflict
countries suggest that the time is right for Afghanistan to begin thinking about
mGov and its associated applications.
These mGov applications will offer an opportunity for “anytime, anywhere” service
delivery in social sectors in support of the range of programs implemented by
various ministries (e.g. in health, education, agriculture, rural development). These
mGov applications will also support management of geographically distributed staff
and resources across the country, improving monitoring and evaluation, and
strengthening delivery systems.
In order to support mGov, the Government is interested in creating the SDP
(Standard Development Platform), a technical architecture to permit rapid and lowcost development, testing, deployment, provisioning, and maintenance of various
mGov applications. The objective of developing the SDP is to create governmentwide shared infrastructure and services to enable the rapid and inexpensive
development and deployment of mGov services. The mGov SDP is an integral
component of the ICT Sector Development Project’s objective to support the
mainstreaming of mobile applications across Government.
Apart from setting up the SDP, the ICT sector development project will also fund
three related activities: (1) Creation of an Expert Group—consisting of members
with wide ranging experience and knowledge of ICT innovations and mobile
applications—that will work with ministries and agencies to identify possible mGov
services; (2) Set up and operation of an Innovation Support Program that will
reward innovation in mobile applications and support the development and rapid
deployment of applications that address specific challenges identified by the
Government; and (3) Set up and support to an Incubator with a possible focus on
supporting early-stage firms that work in the area of mobile applications. While
these activities are separate from the set up of the SDP, they will be closely linked to
it.
In order to support mGov in Afghanistan, the Government is interested in setting up
an SDP that will provide the necessary hardware and software tools for rapid and
low-cost development, testing, deployment, provisioning, and maintenance of
various mGov applications.
The SDP will support mainstreaming of mGov applications across Afghanistan. First,
the SDP will offer common platforms and services that can be used across
Government to reduce duplication of mGov systems in various ministries or
agencies that might otherwise develop stand-alone systems. Such duplication would
lead to duplication of infrastructure and services, fragment demand, raise costs to
use m-apps and waste resources, and increase coordination costs with multiple
mobile networks. The SDP will thus reduce the costs of mGov applications setup and
use.
Enabling mGov in a coordinated manner across Government through the SDP will
reduce the total cost of operation of mGov services by providing a common pool of
resources, aggregating demand for communication and IT services, and providing a
platform for various ministries and agencies to test, rapidly deploy, and easily
maintain mGov services across the country.
Furthermore, the SDP will also support rapid design, development, testing,
deployment, and maintenance of mGov applications. Because the SDP will be
readily available for any interested Government user to access and use, it will speed
up the “time-to-market” for all mGov applications. This also reduces the costs of
mGov applications. In a related benefit, the Platform will create opportunities for
the nascent local IT industry to grow through the development of mGov applications
over the SDP and, possibly, use the SDP for their own service provision for a fee.
The SDP should:
 Serve as the technical architecture to support mGov applications across
the Government in Afghanistan. It should include resources such as
hardware and software needed to provide mGov applications, and the
communication services to connect with users through the telephone
networks (e.g. text messages, voice minutes, data services).
 Be a shared infrastructure set up and operated in Kabul and be available
for use to any Government ministry, department, agency, or program to
provide mGov applications on a for fee-basis. It should allow any
Government ministry, department, or agency to design, test, and deploy
many applications rapidly and at a lower cost than if they had to each
deploy their own mGov architectures. Private non-profit, firms
incubated through the ICT Sector Development Project, and civil society
organizations may also be permitted to use the SDP in the future.
 Support the delivery of voice and data services and content in a
network- and device-independent manner, reaching the largest number
of potential users across Afghanistan. The Platform should offer unified
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connectivity with Afghanistan’s telephone networks (primarily wireless
but also wireline) and possibly Internet service providers (ISPs), enabling
unified content delivery to users on various mobile networks.
Allow efficient management of government-related numbers and short
codes, IVRs, SMS, and easier development of mobile applications
through shared tools (e.g. for surveys, data collection, hotline
management).
Include some commonly used tools to enable the simplified
development and deployment of m-apps (e.g. survey tools, peer-to-peer
communication tools).
Have capabilities for secure service provision, controlled access,
modularity, scalability, addition and subtraction of services, and testing
that do not disturb the overall functioning of the SDP. The SDP should
also allow metered access to enable charging of the users for the
services demanded and used.
Connect with existing IT systems (e.g. databases, MIS) of the various
users, and have transparent interfaces to permit connection with users’
IT systems in the future.
Be managed by a qualified and experienced Firm, hosted by MCIT using
existing infrastructure such as the national data center and other
databases and registries, and could be structured as a PPP arrangement
to ensure long term sustainability.
A block diagram, which indicates the position of the SDP as a means to simplify and
unify provision of mGov applications between various ministries and users is
provided below.
2. Innovation Grants Program
World Bank through this component will support an innovation grants program to
(a) encourage various Government ministries and agencies to identify specific
challenges that can be addressed through the use of mobile applications, and (b)
have a competitive process to award the best ideas grants (up to US$100K, for
instance) to support creation and deployment.
The IS (Innovation Support) Program will take the form of a grants competition that
will fund the most innovative tools that address specific development ‘innovation
challenges’ in priority areas identified by various ministries and agencies of the
Government. The IS Program will fund the best ideas that address these innovation
challenges.
The IS Program is envisaged to consist of two phases. In Phase 1, which could last
for about two years, the focus will be on providing grants to address innovation
challenges. The scope of Phase 1 will be wide to include the largest number of
thematic areas and sectors (e.g. health, education, rural development, agriculture,
livelihoods, and urban development). Phase 2, which could last another two years,
could either focus on providing larger size grants to scale m-Government
applications that have been successful, or could reduce the scope to cover only a
specific theme or sector.
Through Phases 1 and 2, the IS Program will also support the growth of the local IT
industry through competitive processes that encourage participation of competent
local IT firms, individuals, or non-government organizations that respond to the
innovation challenges and to scale m-Government applications. The IS Program will
also encourage cooperation among partners across disciplines to develop effective
and comprehensive solutions to the innovation challenges.
The Program could be designed to include one or many types of awards, e.g.
exposition award, market stimulation, point solution, etc. and various means of
structuring the competitions (hybrid, multistage, exhibitions). For example, one
possibility is for the Program to include two streams of awards: one addresses a
large group of stakeholders and constituents and mainly aims to educate
participants and generate excitement about the field, while the other stream seeks
to reward those who design innovative solutions to specific problems.
The budget to support all activities will be about US$5 million over the period of the
Program. This includes the costs of program administration, the grants itself, and
possible second stage activities. The design of the Program should minimize
administrative costs. The program as a whole could be implemented in
collaboration with appropriate local stakeholders such as the National ICT Alliance
of Afghanistan (NICTAA), the National ICT Council of the Government, and other
industry, civil society, or educational institutions and agencies.
Program management
Given that the IS Program requires competitive selection of winners based on
innovation challenges, and the management of a significant fund (up to US$5
million), it is essential that the Program should have a transparent, well defined,
efficient, and effective program management structure.
In order to secure buy-in, visibility, and high-level political support, the program
management should include a mechanism to have representatives from MCIT and
from the Ministries of Finance, Economy, and other members of the National ICT
Council of Afghanistan. This could be in the form of an Executive Board that has
broad strategic oversight and guidance functions, but whose members are not
directly involved in the definition of innovation challenges or in their selection, or in
the day-to-day program management.
Program management functions including day-to-day management, the selection of
the winners in cooperation with the Expert Group, and fund management should be
with a qualified IS Program Manager (ISPM). The ISPM will handle the grants
competition and related auditing, financial management, and competitive selection.
Overall fiduciary management of the IS Program will remain with the Project
Management Office of the ICT Sector Development Project, which will be following
World Bank procedures in its work. An operations manual that establishes the
operational procedures will guide the ISPM and detailed principles that govern
program implementation.
Phase 1 activity: Grant competition
The Committee will issue calls for proposals—about every six months—over a
period of at least two years. The Committee will evaluate proposals and identify
winners through a competitive selection process. Winners will receive seed funding
in the form of a one-time grant to implement their proposal.
The following provides an indicative workflow of how the Program could work
during this Phase:
1. Any interested social or economic ministry or agency of the
Government will work with the Expert Group to define an innovation
challenge to address some specific public service delivery or program
management problem;
2. The Expert Group will forward the innovation challenge to the ISPM.
The ISPM will release the call for proposals to address the innovation
challenge, run a competitive selection process, and select the winner of
the innovation challenge along with the Expert Group;
3. The winner—an individual, a consortium, a company or a nongovernmental organization—will implement the solution. The proposed
solutions could include new, planned, or in-pilot-stage solutions and
could use as possible and needed, the shared infrastructure and services
set up through the larger project;
4. The Expert Group and ISPM will work with the winners and concerned
ministries to create the enabling environment for the implementation
of the solutions;
5. The ISPM will evaluate the performance of the solution on a regular
basis and provides support—in conjunction with the Expert Group—to
the winner to support their work.
The ISPM will also be expected to manage some mechanisms to enable discussions
and exchanges among potential innovators, technical experts, non-government
organizations, academic institutions, public and private sector agencies, and the
public that encourage discussions about possible ideas and innovations. The
participations in this discussion should focus on Afghanistan, although it might be
possible that the overall mechanism is part of a global effort.
The ISPM’s working and approach should consider the potential for political,
financial, coordination, and security risks to disrupt implementation of winning
proposals. The ISPM should ensure that appropriate risk mitigation measures are in
place to reduce or counter these risks.
Phase 2 activities: Scale up of successful activities, focused activities
Following the completion of Phase 1 activities, the ISPM should design a follow up
phase that will either scale up activities that were successful in Phase 1 or that will
focus the scope of the Program to cover a selection of themes or sectors. Phase 2
activities could also include targeted investments in delivery mechanisms, the
development of public-private partnership models, mainstreaming of some
successful program management technique, application of ICT focused on some
specific theme (e.g. maternal health, primary education, developing labor markets).
The ISPM should design proposals for Phase 2, and MCIT, the Executive Board, or
some combination of strategic actors could take the decision on the way forward.
The World Bank task team will also provide support and clearance for the design of
Phase 2 activities when it takes place (in the second half of year two of the
Program).