the development of national Open-Source Software policy in Palestine

Result of Service

ULTIMATE RESULT OF SERVICE · The report prepared should be in Arabic in electronic format. · Minimum report submitted should not be less than 30 pages minimum. · The report must be supported by reliable figures and numbers. · A 2 to 4 pages executive summary of the report. · Final National Open-Source Software Policy, with annexes and an implementation roadmap. The completed parts should be edited and saved in MS-Word (*.docx file) or an alternate compatible format. PDF format will not be accepted. It should include a table of contents to be automatically updated followed by a list of all tables and figures. The various parts should be submitted in electronic form and sent to the email address of the designated focal point. Attention is kindly drawn to the need to ensure that the final draft of the outputs be thoroughly reviewed prior to submission and to indicate the sources of tables and diagrams. References to reports and other substantive material should be clearly indicated within the text and noted at the end. It is also essential to send, with the completed output, photocopies or scans of at least the first page of books, reports and bulletins, used as reference material as well as copies of the pages quoted. The content of the generated document shall be the sole property of ESCWA. The content cannot and must not be presented, discussed or published by the consultant without the express authorization of ESCWA and MoTDE. The consultant shall keep in mind that UN-ESCWA routinely checks all deliverables for plagiarism, using readily available electronic tools. All previously published content, even if written by the selected consultant, must be clearly referenced where required within the text and end-noted at the end of the study. The report submitted by the consultant must not contain quoted and/or previously published text equalling more than 20 per cent of the total number of pages. The consultant shall not publish or announce or reveal the content of the report, partly or entirely, on social media or any other public channel, without ESCWA and MoTDE permission.

Work Location

Remote

Expected duration

16 weeks

Duties and Responsibilities

I. GENERAL SCOPE Open-source software policies provide a strategic framework governing how public institutions assess, procure, use, develop, reuse and share software whose source code can be inspected, modified and redistributed under an appropriate open licence. Their importance for sustainable development extends well beyond the possibility of avoiding licence fees. When properly implemented, such policies can reduce the duplication of public investments, facilitate interoperability among government systems, increase transparency and auditability, enable solutions to be adapted to local languages and needs, and reduce excessive dependence on individual technology suppliers. They can also allow governments, universities, local companies and civil society organizations to collaborate on shared digital solutions, thereby strengthening national technological capabilities, creating opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises and supporting local digital employment. Open-source software solutions are particularly relevant to lower- and middle-income and crisis-affected countries because they can be reused and adapted rather than developed repeatedly from the beginning. The United Nations recognizes open-source software as an important category of digital public goods and calls for greater investment in such goods to advance the Sustainable Development Goals1. In this sense, open-source policies can contribute directly to SDG 9 on innovation and resilient infrastructure, SDG 16 on effective, accountable and inclusive institutions, and SDG 17 on partnerships, while also supporting digital services in health, education, social protection, agriculture and local government. Nevertheless, open-source adoption should not be treated as an automatic or purely cost-saving choice. Effective policies should address total cost of ownership, cybersecurity, software maintenance, licensing compliance, accessibility, data protection, documentation, technical support and long-term community governance. Several governments have institutionalized these principles. The European Commission’s Open Source Software Strategy promotes a “Think Open” approach through which European institutions are encouraged to use, share and contribute to open-source solutions, increase software reuse and strengthen technological control and collaboration across administrations. France has established a dedicated government open-source function, the code.gouv.fr platform and the Socle Interministériel de Logiciels Libres, a reference catalogue of open-source software recommended for use across the public administration. Within the Arab region, Saudi Arabia’s Digital Government Authority published a Free and Open-Source Government Software Strategy and an implementation guideline aimed at improving technology leadership, increasing efficiency in government IT spending, encouraging software and source-code reuse, and supporting the growth of the national digital economy. Egypt has also, since several years, adopted a national strategy supporting free and open-source software, while the Software Engineering Competence Center under the Information Technology Industry Development Agency serves as the government’s focal point for this field. For Palestine, an open-source software policy could become an important instrument for building affordable, resilient and nationally sustainable digital government. In a context of severe fiscal constraints and service-delivery arrangements, the systematic reuse of secure and proven software components could help reduce repeated development and licensing expenditure, while improving interoperability among ministries, municipalities and public institutions. Furthermore, requiring donor-funded digital projects to use open standards, provide adequate documentation and consider publication under suitable open-source licences could improve national ownership and prevent isolated systems from being abandoned after project financing ends. These benefits would require a phased implementation model based on an inventory of existing systems, open and interoperable technical standards, procurement rules that evaluate open-source and proprietary options fairly, security and privacy assessments, capacity-building programmes, and a central open-source programme office or coordination unit responsible for governance, licensing, reuse and sustainable maintenance. The United Nations is involved in enhancing the use of emerging technologies for sustainable development. In September 2024 during the Summit of the Future, world leaders adopted the Pact for the Future and its annexes: the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and Declaration on Future Generations. The GDC4 mandates UN Regional Commissions to provide support to Member States to advance digital transformation. Most recently, the Ministry of Telecoms and Digital Economy (MoTDE) in Palestine requested UN-ESCWA’s assistance to develop the national policy for open source software. The provision of this advisory service is the subject of these terms of reference. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES The consultant shall propose to the designated ESCWA focal point a detailed version of the report outline. The proposed report should include the following sections: (1) Review best regional and international practices on Open-Source software policies, strategies and frameworks (at least 2 international and 2 regional practices); (2) Analyse the different existing policies and frameworks related to digital technologies in Palestine; (3) Review and further develop the draft National Open-Source Software Policy, including its technical annexes on Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and Cloud Computing, ensuring consistency between the main policy and its annexes and alignment with relevant national, regional and international good practices (4) Conduct interviews with the various stakeholders and summarize their remarks and observations, including representatives of public and private sectors to better capture the needs of all segments of society; (5) Suggest a draft policy based on international and regional practices, the background doc and the conducted interviews/meetings; (6) Present the draft policy in a consultative workshop/meeting. (7) Update the policy based on received comments from ESCWA, MoTDE and other stakeholders participating in the workshop. ESCWA promotes gender equality and integration of youth through its publications and therefore the consultant should pay attention, with the help of ESCWA staff, to gender considerations and youth dimension throughout the research work and thereby ensure that the narrative language should be gender sensitive.

Qualifications/special skills

An advanced university degree in digital technologies, software engineering or a related field is required; a Ph.D. is desirable. All candidates must submit a copy of the required educational degree. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed. At least 10 years of professional experience and research in digital technologies/software engineering is required Demonstrated professional experience in open-source governance and licensing, digital-government architecture, API governance and interoperability, cloud governance and procurement, cybersecurity and data protection is desirable.

Languages

English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat; and Arabic is a working language of ESCWA. For this position,- Fluency in written and spoken Arabic and English is required. Note: “Fluency” equals a rating of ‘fluent’ in all four areas (speak, read, write, and understand) and “Knowledge of” equals a rating of ‘confident’ in two of the four areas.

Additional Information

Not available.

No Fee

THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.