The GIF Workshop and Study Group Meeting brought together governments from 15 countries and was a unique opportunity to share worldwide experiences on GIF formulation, implementation and revision. It provided an informal and collegial venue for countries to collaborate and learn from each other. This GIF Workshop is a component of the UNDP-APDIP GIF Project. The GIF Project is a research initiative to help Asia-Pacific countries share and create strategies, blueprints and policies for adopting the right blend of open standards and technology services.

The importance of the GIF project is underscored by Madame Chen Xiaozhu, Director General of SCITO, in her opening remarks: “In current government administration environment, there are many isolated e-government information islands. These islands are owned and controlled by each individual government sector. In order to successfully promote cross agency information exchange, we need to have a set of feasible solutions and implementation methods.”

The GIF Workshop was divided into sessions that examined issues such as GIF development, standards selection, architectural approach to interoperability and GIF governance. The Study Group Meeting was seen by participants who are revising their national government's interoperability framework as useful. According to Norhamimah Ibrahim of the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit: “It sheds a lot of light to our work on Malaysia’s GIF. There are many things that we did not do. In the review which I am going to implement, we will include a section for the policy makers. I am looking forward to see the documents we are coming up with.” This view was echoed by Leandro Corte, Brazil: “There was a lot of new knowledge and exchange of experiences. For us in Brazil, it will be very useful because we are always evaluating our GIF. We will be using a lot of these ideas in our process. We will have to turn our vision more widely.”

Aside from national interoperability frameworks, the Study Group Meeting also discussed the European Interoperability Framework. Serge Novaretti of the European Union declared: “It was very motivating to see that all around the world governments share common needs in delivering public services to citizens and businesses; these needs lead to enhanced interoperability especially by using open standards. As we are revising the European Interoperability Framework this workshop was very opportune in learning about other government experiences and having the opportunity to present the European vision.”

A key insight during the event is that even as the GIF is a technical document, its success depends largely on the ability to link it to the overall goals of government. The GIF should be a part of the overall effort to achieve the vision of better public service and empowered citizens.

The GIF Study Group members are government officials from Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Also represented are the European Commission and a private law organization from the United States. Dr. Emmanuel C. Lallana, GIF Advisor of UNDP-APDIP convened the meeting.

The GIF Study Group would conduct its activities online and expects to issue its final report by September 2007.

Further information will be announced on http://www.apdip.net/projects/gif as and when it becomes available.