FOSS project:
Support to e-government initiatives at local (municipality) level through Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in South-Eastern Europe The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Internet Society of Bulgaria (ISOC-Bulgaria) have launched a project to help municipal governments in Southeastern Europe use the Internet to better respond to citizens’ needs. This is the first e-government project in the region to use Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) applications to enhance government transparency and people’s access to municipal services. Initially launched in Bulgaria, the project will soon expand to include Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro.
Under this project, which will last 18 months in its first phase, several Balkan cities will benefit from the creation of e-municipalities. In the city of Kurdjali, which serves as a pilot, the local Mayor Hasan Azis has requested the support of UNDP and ISOC–Bulgaria to help enhance citizens’ access to services and information resources and reduce the cost of the access tools that are required to be part of the global networked economy. The pilot will be replicated in Southeastern European countries.
“We see the implementation of this project as a continuation of the work we do in Kurdjali with the nongovernmental sector – the municipality has developed a fund to the city budget for co-financing of common projects”, says Mr. Azis, Mayor of Kurdjali. “In the last 6 months we have managed to upgrade our existing computer network and have changed fully about 40% of old computers with new ones. They will fit precisely with the project, and we hope to see results relatively fast.”
Kardjali is one of the 28 regional cities in Bulgaria. Located in the south of the country, and close to the border with Turkey and Greece, it has around 69,000 citizens, a mixture of Bulgarian and ethnic Turks. Its economic and social situation has been in recess since the changes towards market economy in 1989. But recent activities show the city is poised to develop as a leading IT center in the southeastern part of Bulgaria.
“Bulgarian municipalities are going through many rapid changes, as they become increasingly responsive to citizen's needs. To do this they need to use Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to both improve services as well as to foster citizen participation,” says Neil Buhne, Resident Representative of UNDP Bulgaria. “I believe that this project will develop a model to use free and open source software (FOSS) that could be replicated in similar Bulgarian municipalities and give them a greater choice for the future,” added Mr. Buhne.
By starting this program, UNDP hopes to show local and national governments that the involvement of citizens in the Information Society is critical for strengthening democratic governance. “By widening choice, enhancing competition and increasing the affordability of ICT access tools, larger social inclusion and citizen participation can be secured, ” said Raul Zambrano, ICT for Development Policy Advisor, UNDP New York.
The UNDP project also aims at building local public-private-partnerships (PPP), where local communities and the private sector join efforts to support software development and capacity building.
“We are extremely proud that Bulgaria has been chosen as the project pilot center, and we are certain that FOSS will be well accepted at all levels of the government in the region. This project wouldn't have been possible without the support by Mr. Yunal Tasim, Member of Parliament from Kurdjali,” says Veni Markovski, Chairman of ISOC-Bulgaria. Until now, the Bulgarian government has used FOSS for servers — for large mail and database programs — but not for desktop applications. The project will now change this. Using openly published source codes, FOSS will bring new opportunities to complement the use of commercial desktop applications. Since open source solutions are available for free or at little cost, local governments will be able to minimize the cost of buying and maintaining software.
The project is part of a larger UNDP Global Programme focused on developing national capacities by establishing a series of regional centers using FOSS.  home
|
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
