School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences (ETDs)

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Browsing School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences (ETDs) by Author "Adam, Elhadi"

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    The Assessment of the Current Geographical Information System (GIS) initiatives in the public enterprises of Swaziland
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Khumalo, Malungisa Blessing; Adam, Elhadi
    There is a growing use of geographic information systems (GIS) within the public sector in many countries. GIS require considerable financial resources and investment in information and communication technology (ICT) and human resources, which are primarily financed by public funds. The growth in adoption is partly influenced by the promising potential of GIS that has been widely discussed in the literature on GIS. The usefulness and application of GIS in aiding decision making and in public policy formulation and implementation have also been widely discussed in the literature on GIS. To examine the effectiveness of GIS in public policy, one has to develop a mechanism for measuring the success achieved by the implementation of GIS in decision making. However, the methodologies for the evaluation of the use of GIS in the public sector are mainly lacking. The aims of this research were to evaluate the effective use of GIS in the public sector in Swaziland. Three organisations were selected, namely the Swaziland Posts and Telecommunications (SPTC), Swaziland Water Services Corporation (SWSC) and Swaziland National Housing Board (SNHB). Like in most developing countries, the lack of GIS evaluation to improve implementation is a challenge for these organisations. The current GIS applications at SPTC, SWSC and SNHB were evaluated using maturity, value and GIS product assessments. Four methods of analysis were used for data analysis: GIS maturity calculation; relative frequency of maturity calculation; gap analysis; and GIS value assessment. The results found that the SPTC, SWSC and SNHB were all in the exploitation stage of maturity. The overall relative frequency of maturity in the dimensions is the following: 35% of indicators are in the exploration stage; 56% are in the exploitation stage; and 9% are in the enterprise stage. The gap analysis shows that the organisations are in the exploitation stage of maturity. Cost prevention, coordination, employee satisfaction, better data management, time saving and better quality of information were regarded as the main ways in which GIS add value to organisations. The GIS product assessment results show that the overall compliance rate with the cartographic standards is 57.09%.