Sumary of the case study
This project by the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) seeks to address vulnerability reduction in the Pacific Island Countries through the development of an integrated planning and management system. ICT development and related capacity building are very important to the project. A key component of the project is GeoCMS which facilitates the collection and sharing of geographical data among the stakeholders in the project. The creation of this GeoCMS is a key innovative outcome of the project. As there was no suitable software available for a GeoCMS at the time the project started, a new GeoCMS application was developed from two existing FOSS applications, MapServer and Tikiwiki. The GeoCMS system has made it possible for the Pacific Island Countries to publish their geographical data for access and sharing over the Internet and open to contributions from all over the world. All this helps in the development and vulnerability reduction of these nations as important information can now be made available more easily as and when needed.
The mapping and GeoCMS parts of the project have benefited from FOSS as they were built by enhancing and modifying existing FOSS applications. The use of FOSS makes it affordable and practical to build and deploy the GeoCMS application in every participating country. This in itself leads to local capacity building in ICT and the local recipients are able to learn and understand the technology. The development of local content is facilitated as people contribute towards the information in the maps which are made available to all. The GeoCMS software application is currently still being enhanced and new features are being added. The main project is at its midpoint stage currently, with deployment actively taking place in the participating countries.