Where demonstrated public sector information technology (IT) development capability and track record exists, consideration should be given to in-house land information system development and maintenance, to contribute to long term system sustainability. MCC funded Nucleus Operacional da Sociedade de Informação (NOSi), a parastatal enterprise with more than 20 years of domestic and international experience working in the digital governance sector, to develop and implement the Cabo Verde Land Information Management and Transaction System. By agreeing to fund a Cabo Verdean organization that was familiar with the local context, MCC expected greater sustainability of the system. Although there were a variety of challenges during system development, the evaluation found that using NOSi has had long-term, positive impacts on system sustainability. For example, NOSi has local staff whose objective is to support government IT systems, provide technical assistance at lower costs than international IT solution providers, and continually adapt and expand the system to respond to needs of the land administration agencies and users. In future land projects, MCC should consider what approach to land IT systems development and maintenance will best meet project needs and promote system sustainability, for example whether there are existing capable government-wide or agency-level e-governance providers like NOSi that could be relied on for development and longer-term maintenance, customization of off-the-shelf systems or other approaches that are most appropriate. MCC is developing a land IT systems assessment and design toolkit to support these decisions. In all approaches to land IT systems implementation, MCC needs to build into its project the ability of the land administration agencies to generate and retain revenues that can fund system maintenance and expansion to ensure sustainability.
Lesson Learned