Companies around the world have spent heavily on business continuity plans while many governments are still struggling to set up similar solutions in order to continue providing e-services during emergency situations.
E-services, and in government terms, E-government, are essentially digital technologies, notably the internet and mobile, that help facilitate interactions between government agencies and the public. Examples of government e-services, amongst many others, include business formation, registration and reporting; payment of licenses and taxes; and application for social security benefits.
Government digital projects are commonly complex to plan and execute and many of them are destined to fail. According to research, almost one in three such projects will fail while 50-60% will partially fail. Only 1 in 5 will be considered a success over time. Interestingly, one of the major contributors to failure of e-service initiatives in developing countries is what is referred to as the “technical approach” to implementation while government policies and processes, which should work hand-in-hand with the technology, are overlooked.
History has proven that one of the challenges of successful government e-service projects is continuity during emergency situations. Known as Continuity of Operations Planning (COOP), its main purpose is to establish procedures that allow governments to continue providing essential services during catastrophic events such as war or natural disasters.
Recent events in Europe and countless other conflicts around the globe have also highlighted the problem of population displacement and the ability, or inability, of governments to monitor their movements while continuing to provide them crucial social and economic services. Case in point, since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, close to 3 million Ukrainians have fled the country while the UN estimates that an additional 1.85 million are internally displaced.
When it comes to the establishment and continuity of government services during emergency situations, Andrius Kaikaris, COO of NRD Companies, an expert in IT project management and a former Lithuanian Navy officer, has some unique insights, not only into the provision of crucial services, but also the occasional need to adjust functionalities and duties of government agencies and their staff.
“When government agencies’ IT systems and data pools are connected and coordinated during peaceful times, it allows for the distribution of responsibilities between the agencies when some systems fail during a crisis. For example, when a social security IT system collapses, its duties could be taken over relatively easily by a tax authority’s systems, on condition that they share much of the same data” says Kaikaris.
To deal with such crisis situations, NRD Companies, a global IT and consulting group of companies specializing in e-governance, has developed GxP, an innovative and customer-centric e-service platform. One of its most important features is its ability to act both as a standalone platform or as an integral part of a cross-institutional solution.
“GxP is also low-code, meaning that you are not required to have programming skills in order to operate it. The simplified system management enables government employees to launch new e-services themselves, while the existing services can be easily adapted to match evolving needs. With the GxP platform, there is no need to contact another institution to get additional information—the majority of data is readily available,” says Mindaugas Glodas, CEO of NRD Companies.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security insists that Continuity of Operations Planning (COOP) is the effort within individual agencies to ensure they can continue to perform their mission essential functions during a wide range of emergencies. It’s the initiative that ensures that governments, departments, businesses and agencies are able to continue their essential daily functions. COOP requires planning for any event – natural, human-caused, technological threats and national security emergency – causing an agency to relocate its operations to an alternate or other continuity site to assure continuance of its essential functions.
”Smoother cooperation between institutions would not only help to optimize and manage the processes more efficiently but will also provide citizens with e-services that match their expectations even during emergency situations including the movement of populations within and outside of the country’s boundaries . We believe citizens should not carry the bureaucratic burden and GxP can help with that.” concludes Glodas.
