Both the public and private sectors rely on intensive data use in the 21 st century. If used effectively - ie. supported by appropriate information management arrangements - and according to data protection and privacy requirements, data can simplify the delivery of public services (including social protection), reduce fraud, corruption, and the risks of human error, and catalyze operational synergies. Despite these potential benefits, governments worldwide are slow to catch on and leverage this opportunity to benefit their citizens.

While data is everywhere, accessing that data is difficult. Data are typically dispersed across fragmented registers, stored in various formats, and often managed in organizational silos.

Even in cases where technology investments have been made, data availability still seems remote because agencies are developing and deploying new information and communications technology (ICT) systems with specifications and solutions relevant to their particular needs but without adequate attention to the need to connect, exchange, share and re-use data with other ICT systems (UNDP 2007). As a result, data are not always available where needed for the purposes of effective service provision or transparency.

Even when data are useful to servicing citizens, data were likely collected for other reasons and usually as a byproduct of other activities. Data owners are often not sufficiently motivated or resourced to facilitate open access to the data. Accessing that data then requires permission, the ability to access and receive the data, and finally, the ability to use that data to produce useful information for citizen servicing (Deng, et al. 2019). The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges of using government data 2 . Accessing and merging data collected by different government agencies has proven to be extremely challenging.

Interoperability aims to resolve these challenges by ensuring coordination across different systems. Interoperability in e-Governance is defined as “the ability of different systems from various stakeholders to work together, by communicating, interpreting and exchanging the information in a meaningful way” (Government of India 2015) (Figure 1). The interactions between all stakeholders are achieved by sharing information and knowledge through the business processes they support. Inter/Intra organizational sharing of information is a fundamental requirement of e-Services delivery in a Governance structure (federated or not).