Historial
Context
The PALOP-TL Project to Support the Improvement in Quality and Proximity of Public Services is part of the PALOP-TL/EU cooperation programme, founded by the 10th EDF (10th European Development Fund).
The PALOP-TL/EU cooperation is justified by the importance of strengthening synergies in the promotion of South-South cooperation, based on a linguistic identity and similarities of cooperation of the participant countries. One of the areas of agreement of cooperation between PALOP-TL/EU is "Government Effectiveness/Provision of Public Services". Within this context of cooperation, the European Union and the National Authorizing Officer of Cabo Verde identified in 2011 the present project, entitled "PALOP-TL Project to Support the Improvement in Quality and Proximity of Public Services", and proposed its implementation by CAMÕES Institute through a delegation agreement with the European Union (indirect centralised management).
The beginning
The structure and implementation of a cooperation project with the PALOP-TL countries date from 2009 and, at the time, it was way off from the current PASP PALOP-TL project.
This first attempt was based on a joint decision between the European Union and the National Authorizing Officer of Cabo Verde in which they have identified this project as a key point in the existing agreement to strengthen PALOP-TL cooperation. They also have established that CAMÕES Institute would be responsible for the financial implementation of the project through a delegation agreement in the form of indirect centralized management considering the European Union and CAMÕES Institute co-financing in the amount of EUR 6 million and EUR 1 million respectively. The total funding is EUR 6.8 million.
2009
The technical and financial implementation of PASP was reinforced by the partner and responsible for technical supervision of the project, AMA, within the scope of a protocol signed by the two entities in September 2009. In this protocol both entities agreed working together for the development of the project.
2011
They established the aim of the cooperation with PALOP –TL: "to support the modernisation of public administration through computerisation - e-Government - of public services." The PASP project as well as all the cooperation with the PALOP-TL was starting to take shape in the e-government context. The National Authorizing Officer Services of Cabo Verde and AMA proposed e-Government as the focus of the project. Subsequently, at the VII Meeting of National Authorizing Officers in Mozambique the other National Authorizing Officer of the PALOP-TL discussed and accepted the proposal and they also decided that the project should be based in Cabo Verde and the Cape Verdean National Authorizing Officer would be the Lead Partner.
Finally, they agreed that they would start the feasibility studies and formulation of the project, and the preparation of the Project Identification Fiche (IF), the Action Fiche (AF) and the Technical and Administrative Provisions (TAPs) according to the existing procedures and models under the 10th European Development Fund.
2012
The project was at a new start-up phase and they started the definition of the ToR (terms of reference). Therefore, there was a need to make the project consistent and to target the priority areas of cooperation with the countries within the major area already defined. It was also necessary to define the intervention logic and strategy with the countries in order to confer and confirm the technical feasibility and sustainability of the project.
A team of consultants designated by CAMÕES Institute and AMA started some missions on the ground in order to formulate the project. For that purpose, they started the collection of data in all the countries of PALOP-TL as well as the identification of key documentation, namely, the IF, AF and TAPs, according to the models in force under the 10th European Development Fund, as referred above.
Two focal point of CAMÕES Institute and AMA was also supporting the formulation of the projects, considering their skills, experience and technical expertise in the formulation, planning, implementation and management of E-Government projects in areas such as Electronic Administration, Networking and Administrative simplification and modernisation.
2013
During April, 4 teams were simultaneously sent to Angola, Mozambique, Cabo Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe and East Timor in order to collect data on the ground. The expected result was to gather sufficient information to confirm the feasibility and sustainability of the project, as well as to define the best intervention to cover the five major thematic areas of the project, namely: improving government technological infrastructure, promoting the interoperability of public bodies, improving legislation and protection of personal data, provision of services to citizens and companies, and training and capacity building.
The missions were organized in order to collect data to identify activities that were integrated into both component 1 (cross-sectorial cooperation) and 2 (national priorities) of the project.
During the stage of data collection, the institutional beneficiaries and focal points identified were strongly encouraged to participate in the definition and specification of the proposed activities.
National Authorizing Officers, focal points, the Delegations from EU, Camões institute and AMA were involved in the collection data.