E-Government Development in Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Congolese e-Government has seen significant progress over the last few years. Yet, the low level of Internet penetration (17.6%), other infrastructure constraints and armed conflicts in part of the country's territory complicate the development of digital services in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In 2019, the first National Digital Plan Horizon-2025 was adopted.

Assistance programmes of international organisations (such as the UN and the World Bank) as well as private Congolese companies (predominantly startups) play an important role in the development of e-Government platforms. The World Bank assists in the development of the Public Procurement Platform (SIGMAP) together with the African Development Bank, COMESA (regional integration association), as well as provides support to the Congolese National Institute of Statistics (INS).

The DRC’s internet penetration rate stood at 17.6% at the beginning of 2022. The public services are not integrated into a single system yet, and there are noticeable problems regarding the realisation of the announced functionality.

A number of government sites have just been set up (like the Integrated Public Procurement Management System (SIGMAP) launched February 2022). A lack of information along with blank pages remains a noticeable problem. For instance, on the website of the General Administration of Customs, the "import-export" section, like many others, is empty as well as the section of the General Labor Inspectorate on the website of the Ministry of Employment, Labor and Social Security. The website of the Labor Inspectorate does not function. There is also a visible lack of an information system in the field of veterinary medicine.

Among the promising avenues for cooperation with the DR Congo in the field of digitalisation public services are healthcare, education, legislation and justice.

Rankings

The DR Congo ranked 175th in the UN e-Government Survey of 2022 with an EGDI of 0.3 rising from 184th place in 2020. According to the 2022 World Bank’s GovTech Maturity report, DRC moved up to the group C (countries with some focus on GovTech). 

Integration of Public Services

E-GOV is intended to provide citizens with access to electronic government services. The platform so far consists of one page on the official website of the Republic with only 2 external links: E-Visa and E-Finance both available on the separate websites of departments only.

Source: Republic.cd

e-Taxes

E-Finance allows for downloading declaration forms as well as for leaving a mistreatment complaint, while downloading or filling out tax returns takes place on a stand-alone website of the General Directorate of Taxes (Diréction Générale des Impôts) of the Ministry of Finance – I-IMPOTS: the services are not integrated yet. I-IMPOTS allows access to personal accounts by the tax identification number. The service helps to correctly calculate taxes and enables users to send tax returns.

Source: I-IMPOTS

A link to the Government Finance Statistics Portal (Portail de Condensé des Statistiques des Finances Publiques) is also provided, but the information is not available yet.

Education

Public services in the field of education are currently limited to the opportunity to check the results of state exams and access some digitised workbooks on the website of the Ministry of Education of the Republic. The Vodaeduc platform is supported by the Ministry of Education and Fondation Vodafone. With the assistance of Vodafone Corporation, not only content, but also traffic when using the platform remains free for citizens.

Since 2005, in close cooperation with UNICEF and with funding from the World Bank ($2.66 mln), the Congolese Ministry of Primary, Secondary and Technical Education worked on the implementation of an education management information system – SIGE (Système d’Information pour la Gestion de l’Education). Launched in 2015, the system was designed for collection, storage, processing, and dissemination of reliable data and information on the education sector of the country. The SIGE can be accessed via an application.

Under the project, the application was planned to include the Logithèque Portal (for downloading tools and installation manuals for the application), the SIGE RDC Responsive Portal (workspace in which OPS users access data entry masks), the Synchronisation Client Portal (for sending data to the central server), the Digital & Thematic School Map Portal (with geo-referential or school location maps), and the Reporting Portal.

The SIGE Reporting Portal is declared to provide statistical data on selected provinces for 2015-2016 and statistics on all 26 provinces for 2017-2018 and 2019-2020. Whilst the platform requires registration, it allows free access to PDF files of statistical yearbooks. However, some pages of the site are empty (e.g. Annuaires Provinciaux and Portail de Reporting Dynamique). 

Other declared portals are not available without the application and authorisation.

Healthcare

The digitalisation of the healthcare sector is driven by private companies with the support of external donors, whilst public e-services are often absent or inconspicuous. For example, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) funds the OpenIMIS (Insurance Management Information System) service; Startup WapiMED provides an opportunity to select a doctor (including a geographic information system) and pre-pay for an appointment.

Source: Disrupt Africa

Legislation

In the field of legislation and justice, provision of digital services has much room for further development. The private startup E-Mobeko was designed to provide the functionality of viewing existing laws, discussing them and explaining the laws by experts. In December 2021, the project won the LEX RDC hackathon, organised with the support of Meta, but there is no information about its successful implementation yet. A number of sites allow for accessing scanned copies of laws and regulations (Leganet.CD and DroitCongolais.info), but they do not contain by-laws, bills and draft regulations, and registering documents in the system is not mandatory. There are also no systems that would provide information support for legal proceedings and online arbitration.

Statistics

The collection of statistical data is carried out independently by various departments and the National Statistical Institute (INS), whilst the unified national information and statistical system is not yet in place. The Institute publishes a Statistical Handbook every few years . However, the functionality of the department's website and the information in the handbooks are often incomplete and outdated.

Data Management and Infrastructure

In the first quarter of 2024, the country's first data centre is to be launched, governed by the South African Raxio Group with the options of data storage and management. Raxio Group data centres are already operational in Angola, Ethiopia, Côte d'Ivoire, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda.

e-Elections

Attempts to test e-voting in 2018 caused public protests (the votes were also counted manually, and then the results were compared). However, testing will continue in the 2023 elections. Considering the vast area of the country (~4 Frances) as well as the low level of transport infrastructure development and local conflicts, the implementation of an online voting platform remains an important task.

Transport and Customs

The DR Congo does not have platforms that provide traffic control or vehicle tracking yet, whilst car accidents resulting in multiple deaths remain a significant problem. In 2021, the Uniplaque consortium proposed a project for an automatic licence plate recognition system but there is no information on the stage of its implementation.

Digitalisation of customs control is becoming an urgent need. Now digitalisation in the field is limited to the SYDONIA World platform, available at most customs points in the country (it allows filling in data: dates of departure and arrival, place of departure, goods, weight, etc.). Also, a one-stop system for customs clearance of goods e-GUICE (Guichet Unique Integral du Commerce Extérieur) is being introduced. In 2013, the concession to build the system was awarded to the Bureau Veritas BIVAC/Soget consortium. The operating company is SEGUCE (Société d'Exploitation du Guichet Unique du Commerce Extérieur).

In May 2022, at the Conference of General Directors of Customs Services of West and Central Africa (with the involvement of the DR Congo), a need for increasing the digitalisation of customs services was discussed in order to intensify regional integration as earlier in 2022 DR Congo joined EAC as its 7th Member.

Citizens Participation

In 2012, with the support of the World Bank, the Participatory Budgeting Network (Réseaux du budget participatif) service was developed. The service gave citizens the opportunity to take part in the formation of local budgets via SMS. However, most of the time, pressing issues are discussed at face-to-face meetings. In addition, many citizens are unaware of this possibility and, therefore, do not use the service; its development remains a promising direction.

National Payment System

Among other projects implemented with the assistance of the World Bank, the development of the National Payment System is to be mentioned. The system was implemented in 2014-2020, its cost amounted to about $27 million. According to the results of the project, 16 banks and other financial institutions were connected to the system (with the goal of 22 banks).

Public Procurement

The Public Procurement Platform (SIGMAP) was launched in 2022 with the aim of cutting government expenditures as well as improving transparency of public procurement and guaranteeing proper funds allocation given that, according to the DRC’s Budget Minister, public procurement contracts account for more than 60% of government spendings. The service offers search by category of the document, responsible agency, type of the procurement, time period. It provides information in PDF format including tender announcements, tender plans, final award notices, notices of interest, laws and regulations. However, the information is available only since 2022 and some sections have not been updated yet. The platform also allows users to register a personal account, yet there is no identity verification and users cannot apply for participation in a tender. 

Source: SIGMAP

Authors:
Olesya Kalashnik, research fellow
Paul Marie Mweni