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Discover Bahrain
Ministry of Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning
Bahrain

The Problem

Bahrain citizen were lack of spatial information for long time. In order to obtain any services from municipalities, they need to provide spatial information such as title deed, survey certificate etc to municipality in hardcopy. They also suffered due to lack of knowledge about building regulations of their area and future development plans. This made the public to submit applications with wrong details or inappropriate service in that area.
Bahrain citizen also need to visit many ministries to get the information about their land. Information scattered between ministries as Land dimensions and validity should be approved by survey and land registration bureau and building regulations provided by urban planning. Public visited urban planning to know permitted building types and to collect the zone certificate of the land.Commercial road details with Ministry of Municipalities and shop licenses with Ministry of Commerce and utility services with respective ministries.
Investors also had tough time to identify suitable area for their investments as required information such as investment area, existing infrastructure etcwere not available at single point. They visited different ministries or carried out field survey on their own to identify the suitable area.
Ministry staff took more time to process any application due to lack of spatial data digitally. They send lettersto many other ministries to understand the land or area before providing the services.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Bahrain citizen can view all spatial information from one service as www.ma-investment.gov.bh/website/discover_bah
This service is user friendly and available in Arabic which is local language of Bahrain.It helps citizen to view zoning for their land as commercial, industrial and different types of residential. It helps them to design their construction accordingly and get the building permit easily. Citizen also can view commercial road locations in the map which help them to calculate the municipal fees before apply as the fees are differ for lands in the commercial roads. Public can also view Bahrain 2030 land use plan and could understand future developments of their area.
Common people can view all the administrative boundaries and can use search facilities to find addresses, roads, parks, hospitals, health centers, schools and other landmarks. It helps school children to understand administrative boundaries and municipal boundaries of Bahrain.
Investors can view the empty lands, commercial area, Free trade zone in order to find the suitable area. Also they can view all the commercial activities in any area to analyse their business scope. Real estate agents are able to access the latest maps to explain their location to the customers
Municipal staff efficiencies increased as evaluating the application became easy task since they can view all the details by entering the applicant land number. Municipal software are also improved by incorporating the system based decision which made possible by integrating the various format GIS data in single format.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
Information Systems Directorate (ISD), Ministry of Municipalities and Agricultural Affairs proposed the solution to access the municipal spatial database through single application. ISD design the application to allow different format of spatial data could be accessible through user friendly interface. Survey and Land Registration bureau shared their land data which has been converted to GIS format.
ISD has implemented a web service initially and E-government authority has verified the application and launched in Bahrain e-portal for the public.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
Bahrain citizen should be aware of Municipal regulations and developments in their area is the main objective of the service.
Also to educate the public about importance of spatial data and help them to findsolution using spatial technology. The service aims to attract more investors to improve the national economy by providing the information about future developments, existing commercial locations etc. Tourists also benefited to find tourist locations and hotels information using the service.

ISD has initiated as part of National strategy to achiveBarhain 2030 vision. It involves collectionof data from different sources and to format it into single GIS format. Clean the data and to develop municipal spatial database. Develop standards for update of the data. Develop web application for the public to access the information in secured method.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
In 1998, GIS strategy for Municipal Affairs established which contains required spatial data, applications, procedures and infrastructure. In 2000, Municipal affairs developed spatial database which contains seamless spatial data of Bahrain. In 2002, ISD has created national address spatial database which covered all the 140000 addresses as point features. At the same time, MOU signed with SLRB to exchange the spatial data. In 2004, desktop Map Browsing system developed which allowed only municipal staff to view the spatial database. In 2006, first web based GIS application launched for public to make simple address queries. In 2009, First version of current geoexplorer launched with addition of satellite images and landmarks. In 2010, Municipal Geoexplorer launched using new technology and many more information such as landuse 2030, Agricultural land and more landmark with printing facility etc.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
In Kingdom of Bahrain spatial data are scattered with different ministries. Also the stakeholders having their own format and procedure to store the data. The main obstacle is that the data owners are not willing to share the data. Muncipality has initiated the process of sharing data by opening municipal database with other ministries. This made other data owners also to share the data with municipal affairs.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
Based on Municipal GIS strategy, ISD has established GIS section with six people who are specialized on GIS concepts and programming. The team comprised Bahrain Nationals with experts from other countries which helps to transfer expert knowledge to Bahrain citizen.GIS section staff were provided with training on latest technology. Also they improved their knowledge by attending various GIS conferences. All the infrastructure developed by ISD such as high-end servers and network facilities utilized by GIS section. The solution provided based on ESRI technology which cost BD 50000 per year approximately.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
This initiative is sustainable in terms of concept and technology. Jaffaria Awqaf Directorate responsible lands owned by Jaffaria using this service with little customization. Ministry of commerce is using the same service to display commercial locations.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
Using spatial data in Municipal business has changed the process dramatically. It made possible to make applications intelligent and able to make system based decision. For example, any building permit application for land located with in airport buffer area will be automatically transferred to civil aviation without human interface.
It improved the business process and the process duration reduced considerably. Municipal staff, Higher officials, public knowledge on using spatial data increased. Also, this initiative made other ministries also to develop the spatial data and incorporate this technology in their business.
Spatial data are important for government and national wide strategy is required to make it more useful. Country should have clear mandate for data sharing and data owner responsibility. Public more attracted with information combined with spatial data.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Ministry of Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning
Institution Type:   Government Agency  
Contact Person:   Sawsan Hussain Safar
Title:   Director  
Telephone/ Fax:   97317501558
Institution's / Project's Website:   97317212516
E-mail:   ssafar@mun.gov.bh  
Address:   Information Systems Directorate, PO Box53
Postal Code:   53
City:   MAnama
State/Province:  
Country:   Bahrain

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