“Our collaboration with Estonia in implementing the Nam-X system has revolutionised our e-Government capabilities, enabling efficient and secure digital services for our citizens.”
- Country: Namibia
- Population: 2.7 million
- Customer: Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) in Namibia, Department of Public Service e-Government Management (DPSeGM)
Background on Cooperation between Cybernetica and Namibia
Cybernetica has a long history of cooperation with Namibia, on a number of different projects related to digitalisation and capacity building. Cooperation started in 2014, and is still ongoing.
- 2014
Namibia is one of the first countries with which Estonia established digital co-operation. In 2014, Cybernetica and the e-Governance Academy introduced an interoperability platform and a corresponding framework. This platform, based on Cybernetica’s Unified eXchange Platform (UXP) technology, is known locally as Nam-X. Nam-X connects databases of different entities in an efficient and secure way and acts as the foundation on which e-services can be built for government and citizens.
- 2021 - Namibia E-Governance Capacity Building Project
Starting in 2021, Cybernetica and the OPM in Namibia began working together again on a number of different digitalisation projects. The first project was an e-governance capacity building project that took place from 2021-2022, funded by the Estonian Centre for International Development (ESTDEV).
This advisory-focused project aimed to increase core competencies among public sector leaders and technical experts on how to develop sustainable e-governance strategies, govern e-governance building blocks (digital identity and interoperability) and support inter-agency cooperation.
During the course of this project, Cybernetica delivered an e-government maturity assessment report, helped Namibia update its interoperability framework document, developed e-government roadmaps and delivered training sessions on a range of digital government-related topics. These topics included e-governance, cybersecurity, interoperability, digital identity and data protection and privacy. As a result of the project, a wide range of local stakeholders in Namibia have a better understanding of different e-governance domains and the value they can generate.
- 2021 – Namibia Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Initiative
Another project that took place in 2021 was funded by German development agency, GIZ, to support the monitoring of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in Namibia. The goal was to improve data exchange within Namibia and have that in turn support better SDG monitoring.
Over the course of this project, Cybernetica worked with the OPM and the Namibian Statistics Agency to conduct business process and systems analysis of the current situation and to provide capacity building and technical support to the IT departments so that technical staff could adequately support, administer, and manage Nam-X.
- 2023 – E-Governance Capacity Building
The cooperation with OPM continued in 2023, when work began on another ESTDEV-funded project to support further capacity building. The goal of this project was to enhance onboarding and cooperation of Nam-X member organisations for both the scaling of the Nam-X data exchange platform, and the activities supporting it.
Over the course of this project, Cybernetica interviewed a number of different stakeholders to understand the current status of the Nam-X platform, and provided both technical and non-technical training onsite in Windhoek to support improved administration of the Nam-X platform.
- 2024- Nam-X Service Development
The most recent collaboration with Namibia started in 2024, as OPM and Cybernetica started working on an ESTDEV-funded project to continue scaling the Nam-X platform.
This project is currently ongoing and focuses on developing two digital services for the Nam-X platform including identifying use cases, conducting stakeholder sessions, providing training, and testing services. The project is anticipated to end in March 2025.
Impact
- Namibia has implemented an interoperability platform which supports secure data exchange between organisations. Like Estonia, Namibia also has a low population density and needs to find effective ways to provide services to all its citizens. An interoperability platform like Nam-X provides the foundation for building digital services, which is one way to deliver services effectively across a sparsely populated country.
“Our collaboration with Estonia in implementing the Nam-X system has revolutionised our e-Government capabilities, enabling efficient and secure digital services for our citizens,” says Emma Theofelus, Deputy Minister of Information, Communication and Technology of Namibia.
- Capacity building and knowledge transfer has been provided to Namibian government officials through training on e-governance related topics such as cybersecurity, digital identity and data privacy, as well as technical training on system administration and web service development.
Want to know more?
For more information about Cybernetica’s past and present work in Namibia, see the following or get in touch!
- ESTDEV information page on its ongoing collaboration and work in Namibia
- e-Estonia press release from 2023: Estonia's thriving digital partnership with Africa
- e-Governance Academy information on Nam-X from 2016: Governmental Interoperability in Namibia