GIS for the public sector: Experiences from the city of ...heim.ifi.uio.no/~sundeeps/Publicationsnew/sundeepwebpage 2... · GIS for the public sector: Experiences from the city of

Information Infrastructure and Policy 6 (2000) 139–155 139IOS Press

GIS for the public sector: Experiences fromthe city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Karla Albuquerque de V. Borgesa and Sundeep Sahayb

aPRODABEL, Belo Horizonte, Brazilb University of Alberta, Canada

Abstract. Belo Horizonte was one of the first Brazilian municipal administrations to develop an urban Geographic Informa-tion System. Situated within the local government tradition of local government, the development and implementation of theGeographic Information System (GIS) commenced in 1989 and has proceeded significantly to the extent that it has become themost complete experience of its kind throughout Brazil, with applications covering areas such as education, health, sanitation,urban planning, transportation and traffic, among others. This article reflects on the experiences of this GIS project, from thetechnology acquisition and team formation phases, through the creation of the geographic database, to the development ofapplications and dissemination among users. Current perspectives for the continuing expansion of GIS technology usage inBelo Horizonte are also presented. This “successful” experience of GIS implementation is contrasted with some GIS projectsin India to highlight probable areas of emphasis in future GIS projects in developing countries.

1. Introduction

Up until 1988, Brazilian municipal administrations had a limited scope of action: the public resourceswere primarily the responsibility of the state and federal governments and the processes were largelycentralized. After 1988, through the Constitution a decision was taken to curtail this centralization, andnew responsibilities and powers were transferred to the municipal governments. The municipalization ofvarious public services, such as health, basic sanitation, energy, transportation, and traffic were tasks forwhich the municipal administrations were not prepared for, and which also placed additional pressure onthem to be more responsive towards the larger population.

All the new functions of the municipal administration, including the traditional functions, such asinspection of urban activities, tax collection, urban development, and urban infrastructure, challenge themayors with a clear demand for professionalization of the city’s human resources. Decisions relatedto the provision of services to the general public and the application of public funds were to be basedon transparent criteria, relying on the best available information concerning the municipality. It wasalso indispensable to make available to the public sufficient information for them to be able to activelyexercise their rights of democratic participation in the affairs of municipal administration.

For the municipal administrations to be able to fulfill these new demands, there was the need to in-crease the level of efficiency through the adoption of new approaches, and the use of non-conventionalmethods of integration and analysis.

It is within this broad context that Belo Horizonte municipal administration’s geoprocessing projectwas conceived. Belo Horizonte, the fourth largest Brazilian city, has a population of more than two mil-lion people spread over 335 square kilometers, and is the center of a metropolitan area that houses around3.5 million people. The project of introducing the technology of geoprocessing in the Belo Horizonte

1383-7605/00/$8.00 2000 – IOS Press. All rights reserved

140 K.A. de V. Borges and S. Sahay / GIS for the public sector

municipal administration is widely recognized at the national level, for its pioneering nature and its inno-vative proposals, which gave priority to social applications, including education, health, transportation,traffic, environmental control, taxation, infrastructure, and fiscalization.

This article presents the project of the introduction and spread of geoprocessing technology into themunicipal administration of Belo Horizonte, describing the steps taken to form a complete, comprehen-sive geographical database of the city. The benefits resulting from the work developed are also described,based on the set of georeferenced information, which offers practical solutions to various real problemsof the municipal administration, and perspectives and challenges for the future.

2. The setting up of the geographical database

In the first work of its kind in Brazil, Belo Horizonte began in 1989 striving towards greater eco-nomic and administrative efficiency. A key objective of their efforts was to integrate the most significantdatabases on the city, through the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) based tools. This wouldallow public administrators to visualize and control urban dynamics, thereby providing the citizens withhigher-quality public services and democratic access to information.

Belo Horizonte was the first Brazilian city to implement a full-scale GIS, instead of beginning with apilot project. In 1992, a very large geographic database was assembled in vector format from stereopho-togrammetry, comprising around 95 different themes, and covering subjects such as street network, build-ings, hydrography, relief, infrastructure and urban facilities. A complete set of information on street ad-dresses for the entire city, comprising around 380,000 individual georeferenced addresses, was also built.On the whole, the initial database included around 3.5 million geographic objects.

Over the last seven years, the database has evolved significantly, including a large amount of informa-tion related to the comprehensive set of GIS applications. In general, there are applications on education,health, transportation and traffic, urban planning, socio-economic indicators, water and sewage networks,urban cadastre, land use, and parceling. Also, other applications, such as leisure, social development, theenvironment and economic activities have been set up. Applications on sanitation, taxation and emer-gency dispatch are currently under way, as well as improvements to several of the initial sections, espe-cially related to the management of the city’s bus system. Presently, the database includes about 5 milliongeographical items, divided into more than 250 different classes.

This set of geographical applications, which are either already operational, or under various stages ofdesign and development, represent the most wide-ranging set of applications among local governmentsthroughout Brazil, and help to serve as a role model for several other efforts countrywide.

PRODABEL, a municipal level information technology company, has been responsible for the designand development of these urban GIS-based applications for the last 7 years, and it is also responsible formanaging the city’s digital geographic database. In 1992, at an early stage of its development, Belo Hor-izonte’s geoprocessing project was awarded theGreen Action Diplomaby the Society for EnvironmentalManagement and Crefisul Bank, in an event which ran parallel to the Rio-92 international environmen-tal meeting. We now discuss the manner in which PRODABEL has been managing this project of GISimplementation in the city.

2.1. Acquisition of computer resources

The geoprocessing project started to take shape in 1992, with the acquisition of equipment and soft-ware based on the initial definition of resources for a GIS. These initial resources were obtained through

K.A. de V. Borges and S. Sahay / GIS for the public sector 141

public tender, including RISC technology workstations, connected to a local network, under a Unix-likeoperational system with a graphic user interface based on the X-Windows/Motif standard. Additionally,the necessary peripheral equipment, such as digitizer tables and plotters, was detailed and acquired aftera similar tendering process.

The software was chosen based on its potential for integration of data coming from several differentsources, as well as for its level of technological sophistication. The software selected (which is in useeven now) is based on an object-oriented database management system, which stores geographical dataorganized on a continuous geographical base. Over time, this was supplemented by the adoption ofan intermediary, lower cost solution, based on micro-computers and on the MS-Windows operationalsystem.

To provide some details of the software selection process, PRODABEL chose the software through acompetitive bid process wherein ARC/INFO (ESRI), MGE (Intergraph), GFIS (now extinct) and APIC,all of which RISC workstation-based (IBM’s GFIS server ran on the mainframe), were comparativelyevaluated. They could not find any PC solutions that were compatible with their needs. A major concernin the evaluation was about the capabilities for the integration of GIS with the city’s mainframe-basedlegacy databases (most on ADABAS). At that point, none of the software offered much in that respect.Of course, now the situation is completely different, with relational database integration alternativesbeing offered by all major vendors. APIC was selected based on its more advanced internal architectureand an object-oriented proprietary database. APIC also provided a very good programming language forapplications development and interactive querying.

2.2. Basic mapping

Unlike many other traditional information systems, it is not possible to conceive of GIS technologywithout a comprehensive plan for a basic set of data being obtained and systematized.

In October 1992, with the arrival of the final set of photogrammetric data in digital form, the processof setting up the permanent geographical database began. In 1993, Belo Horizonte had a continuousgeographical base in place, covering all the municipal territory, where around 3,500,000 geographicalitems were distributed among 97 different classes of information [3]. Table 1 shows a list of the mainclasses of items.

Despite being rich and very detailed, the database set up from the stereorestitution did not yet containany of the necessary elements for users to be able to locate specific places in the city in a quick and

Table 1

Main components of geographical base

Elevation Road networkUrban environment Urban planningGreen areas Reference pointsUrban cadastre Tourist attractionsCensus Basic sanitationAdministrative regions HealthEnergy TelecommunicationsSocial facilities Public transportationSchools TaxationHydrography Land useLand parceling Villages and slums


simple way. The solution to this problem was to localize geographically the addresses in the city, andto accompany this with a network of centerlines, dividing the city into census sectors, neighborhoods,regional administrations, and other spatial reference units.

2.2.1. AddressesThe correspondence address is the spatial reference form most often found in information systems,

even in the non-automated systems. This is also the form of spatial localization used most often by thegeneral public. The use of the address as a key to accessing information makes the GIS much more user-friendly, making access easier and more popular. Economic activity records, property records and data

Fig. 1. Georeferencing addresses and other forms of identification using raster/vector integration.


about incidents in the urban environment generally have address as the principal reference. The creationof an address base was a fundamental step towards the successful implementation of the GIS. To be morespecific, it was necessary to establish ways of transforming addresses (in the form they are given by thegeneral public, or in the form they are stored in the available information systems) into geographicalcoordinates, and vice versa.

In the urban environment, between 80 and 90% of the data used by the municipal administrationis geographically locatable, dealing both with people and places. The usefulness of the GIS is, thus,multiplied, as the user has at his disposal a great volume of information distributed spatially, and whichcan make use of the traditional resources of the GIS to carry out analyses and research. At the time thatthe addresses were codified, the same routines were used to locate and to code parcels and blocks, asmaintained by the municipal cadastre [1].

2.2.2. CenterlinesIn traditional urban basic mapping, no graphic element is used to represent the actual streets. Only

items that define it visually, such as curbs square boundaries, are represented in the maps.To make up for this omission, a network of centerlines were created, the fundamental elements of

which are nodes, at the crossings, and arcs, each corresponding to the stretch of the street betweencrossings.

The network of centerlines makes it possible, using simple and efficient algorithms, to trace the bestroute between any two points of the city, embodying accessibility numerically, an indispensable conceptin urban planning.

2.2.3. Census sectorsThe greatest difficulty in developing social applications is usually in getting hold of trustworthy and

precise indicators. In the case of indicators from a demographic census, the use of the GIS offers twoimportant advantages:

– the option of georeferencing the indicators, i.e. associating them to individual different regionsof the city, in order to understand better the intra-urban inequality and the influence of the urbaninfrastructure on the standard of living of the inhabitants;

– the option of collecting the data from a demographic census according to different spatial units ofreference to those used in the Census.

In order to make this type of analysis viable, the first step was thus to georeference all the census sectorsof the city, which are the basic work units used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics(IBGE). This work was carried out at one of the earliest stages of the project, so that this demographicinformation could be put to use by geographic applications as soon as possible.

The geographical database available today in Belo Horizonte is without doubt the largest urban geo-graphical database in the country.

3. Main applications

Once in possession of a basic set of information on localities in the municipality, along with informa-tion from census sectors, it was possible to plan and implement a vast range of applications.

The initial geoprocessing team consisted of professionals from PRODABEL, qualified in the areasof database and data administration, applications development, computer graphics, image processing,


urban cadastre, operational systems, and computer networks. According to the type of application to bedeveloped, the users involved were incorporated to the team.

Several different geographic applications have already come up and have been implemented, and oth-ers are being presently developed. The most important are the following:

3.1. Education: The school registration system

For six years, Belo Horizonte has had a geographical application software which makes it possible todetermine the most suitable state or municipal school for each student. Using this resource, the parentsregister their children at a post office, and are informed about which school to enroll at by mail [4].

Until 1992, school registration in Belo Horizonte was done at the schools themselves with each schooladministering its own enrollment requests. When the number of students exceeded the number of places,the parents were obliged to find another school. In order to avoid this problem, they usually enrolledtheir children at more than one school, causing more problems to the already confused network ofstate/municipal education.

In mid 1992, when the Belo Horizonte’s geoprocessing began to show its benefits, the committee incharge of enrollment at the Municipal Secretary of Education decided to create a new system of schoolregistration using a GIS. The objective was to distribute the students in the best possible way, and toavoid spending public money on new classrooms and schools.

In the new system, the parents did not need to go to the school to enroll their children. They would goto a post office and fill in an enrollment form. With this information, the enrollment committee was ableto place the child in the most suitable school.

Fig. 2. Schools and jurisdictions areas in Belo Horizonte.


Fig. 3. Schools, students, centerlines and jurisdictions areas.

Each registration request has an address, which is automatically localized geographically. From thegeographic location of the student’s home, it is decided which is the most suitable school for him/her,according to a division of the city in school jurisdictions, and physical proximity. The jurisdictions aredefined by the Education Secretary and by the Regional Administrations, bearing in mind physical ob-stacles (dual carriageways and geographic obstacles), and the size of each school.

The development of this procedure of school registration made it possible to distribute the schools’capacity in a more democratic way. Unlike other cities, where long queues and a lottery for places oftenoccur, in Belo Horizonte the process is totally resolved by one visit to the Post Office, and the postingout of the results. In 1993, the school enrollment system in Belo Horizonte was featured on nationaltelevision, and was presented as a model of local management of state/municipal education.

3.2. Transportation and traffic

On the geographical database, a large amount of information is available concerning the transportationsystem and traffic in Belo Horizonte, including: the localization of each traffic sign and each set of trafficlights; all one-way streets; legal turns, bus-stops, and bus routes.

The georeferenced information on the transportation system is of fundamental importance for a seriesof activities currently being carried out at Belo Horizonte’s transportation and traffic company, centeredon a computer-based public transportation management system [12]. Other projects, such as the restruc-turing of the public transportation system and the plan for restructuring the road traffic in the central areaof Belo Horizonte, have been able to use this powerful instrument, as a database, in their analysis andgeneration of scenarios, or as a base for simulations.


Fig. 4. Bus route.

The use of geoprocessing technology in the creation of the transportation and traffic system of BeloHorizonte has been fundamental in the achievement of the aims of the municipal administration in thearea. The growth of a geoprocessing culture at Belo Horizonte’s transportation and traffic company hasenabled the development of several other applications which will benefit from the quality of the originaldatabase and the previous efforts to produce new alternatives and solutions.

3.3. Urban planning: master plan, urban life quality index, regional master plan, mapping associatedto the land parceling, occupation, and use law

In December 1996, Belo Horizonte’s legislative has approved a new Master Plan Law. All of thestudies done for the elaboration of this plan and for the development of the Urban Life Quality Index(ULQI), a fundamental instrument in the monitoring the impacts of public intervention and actions, wereassisted by using GIS and specialized information. ULQI benefited particularly from GIS usage, as itprovides the measurement of the citizen’s quality of life based upon the availability and accessibilityof public services. Developing the sophisticated indicators that compose the index would not have beenpossible without the geoprocessing system [6]. It was necessary not only to determine the distribution, byregions, of service providers and urban real estate, but also to determine how difficult it is for the citizento reach services that are not available in their respective neighborhoods. Going beyond a simple supplyanalysis regarding urban services and infrastructure, GIS tools made it possible to analyze accessibilityan to make it possible to combine specialized information from various sources in the development ofthe index.

The Regional Master Plans are local specializations of the city’s Master Plan, and are the fundamentalreferences for public sector interventions, mainly to foresee large urban infrastructure structuring efforts


Fig. 5. 1 : 10, 000-Scale map of Belo Horizonte’s Land Parceling, Occupation and Use Law.

(such as in housing, roadway and traffic systems, or sanitation). The use of GIS has been a fundamentalaid in the formulation of regional plans for Belo Horizonte.

The geoprocessing system was also utilized for the production of maps in the new Law of Land Par-celling, Occupation and Use (1996), allowing them to be published in large volumes. The municipaladministration is responsible for publishing these maps, along with all materials necessary to understandthe law, including map keys and summary tables. Therefore, the municipal administration was requiredto adequately publish the information regarding the new law, disseminating information, hence informinginterested citizens and supporting the work of professionals in the fields of architecture, urban develop-ment, real estate market, civil construction and others. The following information needed to be preparedfor publication: land use zoning, presented in the form of thematic maps in color; Special Guideline Ar-eas (SGA), regions in which zoning has additional restrictions due to local characteristics; street networkhierarchy (arterial, collector, regional link and local thoroughfares); indication of roadway expansionpriority areas as defined by the Master Plan; and a table containing the width of all thoroughfares in thecity.

The information on the new law was incorporated into a geographic base, already available, showingnot only data necessary for the compilation of maps, but mainly the information required by the com-puter applications that were used to provide operational support to the municipal administration in theexecution of the plan. All architectural design approvals, as well as economic activities operation per-mits, started to be readily issued considering the requirements of the new law. All of the georeferencedinformation was transformed into alphanumeric information and incorporated to the city’s conventionaldatabase systems.


3.4. Health: surveillance of infant mortality

With the address base, the centerlines, and all of the socio-economic information available, the Mu-nicipal Secretary of Health is using geoprocessing and desktop mapping to fight infant mortality in thecity [9].

The Health Department of the city of Belo Horizonte, with PRODABEL’s support, has implementeda system for infant mortality surveillance in high-risk areas. The system, based on GIS techniques, pro-cesses social and demographic data generated by many institutions, using geography as a common frameof reference. The importance of the system is to provide help in the decision-making process, favoringthe discussion and evaluation of specific public policies. The goal is to reduce infant mortality ratios.Belo Horizonte, which has a population of more than two million, has about 345,000 (17.2%) peopleliving in high-risk neighborhoods, which corresponds to only 3% of the city’s total area. In a typicalmonth, about 450 infants die, many from avoidable causes; and of those deaths, more than half live inpoor neighborhoods.

With the Infant Mortality Surveillance Program, the children that run the highest risk in the first yearof life, due to low birth weight, children born to adolescent or illiterate mothers, or newborns infavela(slum) regions receive individualized care from health centers. Geoprocessing is used to produce thisdistribution, through geographic localization of a newborn’s residence, therefore assigning the follow-upresponsibility to the more geographically adequate health care unit. Counting only on the simple presenceand orientation provided by health care professionals, the program is expected to reduce many avoidabledeaths (pneumonia, diarrhea, malnutrition) among children less than one year of age. Since the beginningof the program, the infant mortality rate has been reduced by 35%.

Figure 6 represents the spatial distribution of births in a region of Belo Horizonte in 1993 and thelocation of the nearest health centers.

3.5. Sanitation: water and sewer networks

From a partnership of the municipal administration with the local water and sewage company(COPASA-MG) applications were developed to improve the data entry processes for the water and sewernetworks. All of Belo Horizonte’s water and sewer networks have been mapped with a GIS, which in-corporates functions that allow connectivity analyses and expansion studies. It highlights, as well, all thedischarge points of sewers in the city, wherever they occur in water bodies or, irregularly, in the stormdrainage network. Also, all areas with deficient water and sewage infrastructure can be delineated.

Figure 7 represents details of water and sewer networks of Belo Horizonte, respectively, visualizedusing a GIS.

Aside from the following applications listed, it is worth restating that practically all of the munici-pal administration departments could benefit from the use of GIS, by the specific demands of servicesfrom PRODABEL. Being as such, various areas have already been attended, including as sports, leisure,culture, social development, environment, industry and business.

4. Perspectives and challenges

Concerns about the quality of urban life become more and more clear when we turn our attention tothe problems of misuse of land and of the environment, in general. The necessity to manage the cityin an integrated fashion, and the concern with quality of life have brought the municipal administration


Fig. 6. Births and health centers in one of Belo Horizonte’s regional administrations (above) and details of localization over arepresentation of the street network (below).


Fig. 7. Sewer networks.

to become increasingly interested in the capability of GIS to address these issues [5]. And it is forthis reason that Belo Horizonte’s geoprocessing project has always kept its objectives on focussing onpotential applications that have an impact on social areas and urban control. The improvement in lifequality of citizens has always explicitly and implicitly been the main guideline for the application of thistechnology in Belo Horizonte.

Since 1992, PRODABEL has been meeting the geoprocessing needs of the various departments ofBelo Horizonte’s municipal administration, and a good part of their demands have consisted of demandsfor mapping and the creation of reports – not necessarily constituting geographic applications as gener-ally understood, but involving information that takes part in a process of technological transformationthat effects the municipal administration as a whole.

We know that new applications will come from the continued use of this technology, and its benefitswill be much greater when the current demand for the dissemination and the incorporation of GIS func-tions to the services traditionally provided to the municipal administration are met. As is usual in theintroduction of any new element in information and computer-related technology, the implementation ofGIS technology has the potential to enable transformation within the basic structure of the institution’swork processes.

Associated with these attempts at transformations are significant challenges. Today there are a fewmunicipal administration departments that incorporate the use of this technology in their day-to-dayroutine without the help of a PRODABEL professional. This has been made possible by desktop mappingsoftware, that have a friendly interface and are easy to use. However, the use of these systems is onlylocal and limited to specific applications. The data used in desktop mapping are a replica of part of thegeographic database housed at PRODABEL.

In order to have a real effect in the dissemination and decentralization of geoprocessing, corporatesystems of the departments must make direct use of this technology, transforming the conventional infor-mation systems into georeferenced systems. Only then will the public administrator be able to effectively


perform integrated city management in so far as all available information on a determined subject willbe within reach in a fundamentally common base – geography.

To make this integrated management system possible, we have decided to exchange the current pro-prietary GIS solution for a relational, or object-relational, database that allows direct integration betweenalphanumeric and geographic data. The software solution adopted up to this point has limited integrationfeatures, which makes this integration difficult. A friendly interface and platform-independent imple-mentation are relevant factors in the software that is to be disseminated, since existing microcomputerscan be used as GIS platforms. Many GIS products today have PC versions, which can help to reducecosts.

Another important factor in the dissemination of use is data base maintenance. Traditionally, PROD-ABEL, being responsible for cartography and urban cadastre of the city, performed jobs in surveyingof field data and traditional cartography edition. With the arrival of geoprocessing, these cartographicmaintenance processes are being reviewed, to reflect the new technological reality [11]. PRODABEL, inthis new area, will maintain the legacy information in the form of maps in an image database, since theseolder cartographic documents are the basis of current conventional applications for many departmentsoperating within the city.

However, the geographic database is not made up of cartographic information, exclusively. The restof the information must also be maintained and updated in order to serve its purpose. Therefore, thedistribution of duties for maintenance of the geographic base is currently being discussed. Each depart-ment must maintain its respective share of the geographic base with its own resources, not only for usewithin its particular area, but also for the benefit of the other departments. In exchange, the access tothe information will be made available to all other departments for use on projects, through the Mu-nicipal Information Network, PRODABEL’s MAN (metropolitan area network) [2]. This philosophy oftask distribution coincides fundamentally with the origin of each piece of geographic information, wherethe department responsible for the generation of the information then assumes its maintenance. In or-der to be implemented, a distributed geographic database and the preparation of human resources andcomputational infrastructure in each department are required, so that access to the system and propermaintenance of data are possible. In a complex environment such as the urban environment, data quality,integrity, and security are of fundamental importance for the project’s survival. However, the evolutionof geoprocessing has been systematically hampered by municipal budget limitations. The administratoris under intense pressure to cut costs, and simultaneously improve the quantity and quality of serviceprovided to the population. Therefore, the investment conditions at the time the project was initiatedhave completely disappeared, but not the demand for new applications, technological advancement, ordatabase updating.

5. What can we learn from the PRODABEL experience?

Many developing country government organizations have been attempting since the late eighties andearly nineties to implement GIS technology to support their socio-economic development processes. In1991, [10] noted that despite the rhetoric which exists around the potential of GIS, there is very littleevidence to show that this potential has really been converted into applications of substance that havemade a difference to their socio-economic development processes. And recently, Sahay and Walsham [7]based on an extensive empirical study of GIS use reinforced Taylor’s inference within the context ofIndia and Malaysia. They reported while a lot of hardware and software has been acquired by various


organizations, there is little in terms of “real” use wherein the outputs of the GIS have been integrated tosupport their organizational decision making processes.

Seen within this broader (and rather dismal) context of GIS experiences in developing countries, thePRODABEL experience in Belo Horizonte is indeed a very refreshing and positive contrast. There ispositive evidence that GIS technology is being used quite meaningfully by a number of different de-partments involved in the municipal administration of Belo Horizonte, including health, education andtransportation. It becomes becomes important for us to reflect on the reasons why we think the PROD-ABEL experience has been positive, and draw some broader lessons for similar GIS projects in devel-oping countries. Sahay and Walsham [7] have pointed out a number of important issues which impedethe effective implementation of GIS technology in developing countries. We will look at some of thoseissues to see how they have been addressed in the PRODABEL case. Specifically, we will focus on issuesof: institutional arrangements; sustainability; data management and manpower related issues.

Many GIS projects fail in developing countries come as a package of international aid, with agencieslike UNIDO, UNESCO, USAID and CIDA being very active in this regard. Often what is found in suchinternationally funded projects is that typically these projects are 2–3 years long, and when the aid moneydries up the GIS projects also die away. As a result, what we often find is a number of pilot projects, andother kinds of experimentations but little in terms of full blown use. Another issue related to internationalaid projects is that they are typically accompanied by consultants from the donor country. So, while theyare present in the recipient nation, there is some activity, but with their departure, the activity also diesout because there have been very limited attempts to develop local sustenance mechanisms. Specifically,there are limitations in terms of manpower, technical support and hardware and software resources. Also,often in these technology transfer projects, the international consultants have limited understanding ofthe local context, and they try to implant Western processes which have little to no applicability in thedeveloping country context [8].

It is interesting to see how PRODABEL have tried to address these institutional bottlenecks whichare a regular occurrence in many GIS projects in developing countries. Firstly, they have not relied oninternational technology transfer and instead have attempted to build in-house expertise over a longperiod of time (starting in 1989). Secondly, PRODABEL has set up an organization which is dedicatedcompletely to the development of geoprocessing expertise to support municipal administration in BeloHorizonte. Being organizationally within the structure of the municipal administration, they are in abetter position to understand user needs as compared to international consultants. Also, since they arephysically co-located with the other departments, they are always on hand to respond to the queries ofthe users thus providing the much needed technical support which also helps to instill a sense of self-confidence to the users to engage with this new and complex technology.

Another interesting feature of the PRODABEL experience is the systematic and integrated mannerin which they have gone about to build a database for the needs of the city. In many GIS projects indeveloping countries we find that the problem of data is not given the necessary importance, and we findthat different departments go about trying in their own individual and compartmentalized way to developtheir databases. In contrast, at PRODABEL, the first task of the GIS exercise was seen as creating acomprehensive database. After creating an initial framework for the integrated database, they have goneabout systematically and incrementally adding on to the database reflecting the needs of the differentdepartments. This integrated approach has had a number of positive implications. Firstly, it reduces dataredundancy and thus keeps costs in control. Secondly, the responsibility of maintaining the databaseis mostly with PRODABEL which is competent to deal with the various technical issues. Thirdly, an


integrated approach allows new applications to be built on easily with the same dataset, thus satisfyingthe needs of various end user departments.

A very significant feature of the PRODABEL effort was the team of geoprocessing professionals thatwere picked from several departments of the company, in such a way that specialists from the varioustechnological areas involved could adequately assess and develop a technology that was essentially un-known at that point. The team included: systems analysts who were specialized in databases, data mod-eling, and data administration; applications development specialists with an understanding of differentdomain areas; experts in computer graphics and digital image processing; urban cadastre and cartographyspecialists; and operating systems and computer networks experts. That initial team was, at a later time,joined by an applications programmer, another applications development analyst, an operating systemsand network support analyst, a geographer, and eight digitizing technicians (who were formerly cadastretechnicians or draftsmen).

Over the years, the team has achieved the status of national reference in urban GIS, due to the pio-neering character of the project, and the delivered and perceived results. This team has also a very strongresearch orientation, and more than 70 articles have been published by the various team members in na-tional and international conference proceedings, and various Brazilian GIS magazines. A large numberof lectures and presentations at seminars and conferences has been given, and numerous technical visitsfrom all parts of the country have been hosted at PRODABEL. After the first five years of centralizedapplications development, the initial team was dismantled, with some members leaving the company topursue positions in the private sector, and some others were transferred to various end-user departmentsthus helping to initiate GIS projects there. These movements were part of PRODABEL’s corporate pol-icy to decentralize municipal administration information technology resources. Currently, the remainderof the core team is responsible for the maintenance of the existing digital cartographic data, buildingapplications development related to the urban digital basemap and database maintenance procedures.This basemap contains general-use geographic entities, such as street centerlines, addresses, and neigh-borhoods. Decentralized GIS application development teams are currently being structured, through atechnology dissemination and professional requalification program.

An interesting part of the interaction between the core group and the user departments has been infor-mally conceived as the “squadron theory”, which is based on the notion that, depending on the “stunt”required to solve a problem or to overcome a barrier, one of the “aces” took over the command of theteam’s resources. Having people from several different areas, with no forcible hierarchy, has served asa great problem-solving resource. For example, if one of the user departments experiences a probleminvolving the use of raster images, an expert (the “ace”) from the core group (the “squadron”) would leadthe studies and development that would eventually solve the problem. Likewise, if a particular probleminvolved cadastral fieldwork, another “ace” would take over, and solve the problem. This kind of “anar-chical” approach has been very effective because firstly, there was no formal hierarchy to constrain suchan approach, and secondly, it was recognized that different people were specialists in particular domains,which is natural considering the inherently multidisciplinary character of urban GIS. The corporate lead-ers were happy to let things “flow” in such a fashion.

The project also was blessed with champions in the political arena, people with privileged access tothe decision-making process for financial resources allocation at the municipal administration level. Atthe initiation of the project, PRODABEL’s president was the vice-mayor, a former systems analyst, whocould easily perceive the strategic value of such a project. One of his closest staff members was extremelyenthusiastic about the potential impact of the project on municipal administration. Soon after, vice-mayorbecame the mayor, thus making things flow even more easily. By the time a new administration took over,


the project was already consolidated, with a complete and updated database, and with some applicationsalready under development. This way a strong base was established which was further strengthened overtime by the team of dedicated professionals. The following administration grew to like and respect theuse of GIS as a tool for the city, and are currently engaged in a large effort for the expansion of GISusage.

The current philosophy underlying the interaction between PRODABEL and the users is based onthe following principles: PRODABEL’s decentralized unit at the department’s site should be responsiblefor all applications development, customization, installation, support, etc. required by the GIS users atthat site; both PRODABEL’s unit and the users, meaning the department as an institution, should beresponsible for the maintenance of the data pertaining to their organization. In the Education example,the user department would be responsible for updating data on schools, school jurisdictions, studentdata, and so on. And PRODABEL’s central GIS team would be responsible for overall support andstandardization, as well as for the maintenance of general use layers, such as those that compose thecity’s base map.

In summary, the key learning that can be gained from the PRODABEL experience relates to the fol-lowing: the manner in which the institutional arrangements have been organized locally; the integratedand holistic approach taken for database development; the systematic manner in which a team of dedi-cated geoprocessing professionals has been built over time; the long term view of GIS development takenby the city; and the extremely user-sensitive and incremental manner in which the developers and usersinteractions have been initiated and strengthened.

There is a lot of learning which other developing country organizations can take from the PRODABELexperience. PRODABEL recognizes that the project has to be continuously strengthened and improvisedupon, for example, upgrading their technology to reflect current technological trends. We believe thisproject has a very bright future ahead of it, and is one which can serve as an international model for GISimplementation.

Acknowledgments

The author Karla Borges wishes to thank all the GIS professionals and systems analysts of PROD-ABEL, the people of municipal administration departments of Belo Horizonte declaring that this paperis a truly an achievement of the whole team. A special thanks to Clodoveu Davis.

References

[1] C.A. Davis, Jr., Address base creation using raster/vector integration,URISA Annual Conference Proceedings1 (1993),45–54.

[2] C.A. Davis, Jr., Geoprocessing and the decentralization of the municipal information infrastructure (in Portuguese), in:Information Technology in the Public Sector: An Innovative Experience, PRODABEL ed., 1996 (in Portuguese).

[3] F.T. Fonseca, GIS for a two-million-people city in three years, in:URISA Annual Conference ProceedingsIII (1993),146–152.

[4] F.T. Fonseca, C.A. Zuppo, School pre-registration and student allocation,URISA Annual Conference Proceedings1(1994), 30–40.

[5] M.P.G. Oliveira, E.B. Medeiros and C.A. Davis, Jr., Planning the acoustic urban environment: a GIS-centered approach,in: Proc. 7th ACM GIS’99 Advances in Geographic Information Systems1999, pp. 128–133.

[6] S.M. Oliveira, R.P. Sousa, C.A. Davis, Jr. and F.M.P.O. Amaral, Reviewing the boundary definition for census sectorsand other urban spatial reference units (in Portuguese), in:XVII Brazilian Cartographic Conference Proceedings(inPortuguese), 1995, pp. 857–863.


[7] S. Sahay and G. Walsham, Using GIS in developing countries: social and management issues, in:UNIDO Publications,Vienna, 1997.

[8] S. Sahay, Implementing GIS technology in India: some issues of time and space,Accounting Management and InformationTechnologies8 (1998), 147–188.

[9] R.P. Sousa and N.L. Bretas, GIS in the surveillance of infant mortality of poor areas in a two-million people city,URISAAnnual Conference Proceedings2 (1994), 1 (abstract).

[10] D.R.F. Taylor, Preface, GIS in developing nations,International Journal of Geographical Information Systems5 (1991), 3.[11] M.G. Vieira, K.A.V. Borges, J.C.J. Cunha and C.A. Davis, Jr., Updating the urban digital database: Belo Horizonte’s

experience with urban systematic data collection (in Portuguese), in:GIS Brasil’99 Proceedings, 1999.[12] C.A. Zuppo, C.A. Davis, Jr. and A.A.C. Meirelles, Geoprocessing in Belo Horizonte’s transportation and traffic systems

(in Portuguese), in:GIS Brasil’96 Proceedings, 1996, pp. 376–387.

Documents

GIS for the public sector: Experiences from the city of ...heim.ifi.uio.no/~sundeeps/Publicationsnew/sundeepwebpage 2... · GIS for the public sector: Experiences from the city of