The Bank Mission team met with the National Centre for Information Technology (NCIT) as part of its support and implementation mission from the 15th to the 23rd of September 2024. The meeting was led by Mr. Jerome Bezzina (Task Team Leader, Sr. Digital Development Specialist), and included Ms. Anna Metz (co-Task Team Leader, Sr. Digital Development Specialist) along with Dr. Ibrahim Waheed (Project Manager), Mr Ahmed Haleem (Communications Specialist) and Ms Fathmath Shafa Hussain (Project Officer) from the D’MADD Project Management Unit.

The NCIT team was led by Dr Mohamed Kinaanath (Minister of State for Homeland, Security and Technology), Mr. Abdulla Hussain (Deputy Minister), Mr. Mohamed Mauroof (Deputy Minister), Mr. Munsif Mansoor (Senior Political Director), Mr. Hussain Mohamed (IT Manager, IT Infrastructure), Mr. Hany Naseer (Senior Software Engineer), and Mr. Hussain Naushad (Senior Government Digital Service Specialist).

The D’MADD project provides various technical assistance, including restructuring the organization and establishing it as a Government Digital Service. The work will consist of developing institutional governance frameworks and capacity building. Additionally, the project is funding the development of a business continuity and disaster recovery plan for strategic digital government data assets and services and is supporting the improvements in government network infrastructure across Islands by establishing a software-defined WAN.

The meeting started with Dr. Waheed presenting the current progress of the activities linked to NCIT as a stakeholder. For the subcomponent, strengthening the digital authentication ecosystem, NCIT proposed to invest in hardware and technologies to enhance the system rather than hiring a consultant to do the assessment. Senior Software Developer Mr. Hany Nasyr said the NCIT team already had requirements and design in place. He proposed investing project funds in the tools or development needed to enhance the Digital ID service with components such as notifications, consent approval and data sharing.

The World Bank assured that the project would consider supporting such changes, and NCIT should prepare requirements while being conscious of the allocated funding. Furthermore, the World Bank team acknowledged that the new direction will be beneficial to other complementing works as well. Having a data sharing and consent function within e-Faas will be an advantage for the government in such initiatives.

The World Bank team again stressed the importance of introducing the Data Protection Bill to Parliament to proceed with the requests. Dr. Kinaanath highlighted the Ministry is fully aware of the bill's importance and is working towards the same goal. The meeting concluded with all teams to take action on the items discussed.