International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B6. Istanbul 2004 
  
Challenges concerning the management of information: 
e Lack of ‘well structured’ Information System, based 
on database technology, as no financial/human 
capacity to build. 
e No mechanism (and associate standards and 
regulations) to provide direct access to geo- 
information available in other related organizations. 
Challenges concerning the management 
operations and quality of services: 
e Lack of flexible production methodologies for the 
production of up-to-date | maps/information and 
diverse products, just-on-time, and tailored to 
customer needs. 
e Lack of skills in the effective use of digital technology 
and modern concepts for technical operations 
management. 
eo Lack of sound methodology and the supporting 
systems to manage quality of services, performance 
of technical operations and workflows, costs and 
resources. 
of technical 
3. THE MODERNIZATION PROGRAM IN ESA 
3.1. Modernization activities: 
The Government of Egypt and a number of international donors 
invested more than US$ 50 million in the past 15 years for the 
technical modernization of ESA. Examples of such 
international aid projects are: 
e The Finnish Projects in the 80" and the 90", with the 
objective to complete the map coverage in areas 
outside the Nile Valley. 
o The German Project in the early 90", with the 
objective to develop a cadastre System in the 
Province of Aswan. 
e The USAID technical Aids Project in the early 90". 
with the objective to modernize the topographic & 
cadastral mapping systems in ESA, including the 
upgrading and modernization of resources and the 
establishment of production procedures, conducted in 
several pilot projects for mapping and cadastre land 
registration. 
e The French Project in the year 2000, with the 
objective to introduce remote sensing techniques for 
topographic mapping in desert areas. 
e The Finish Project in the year 2002, with the 
objective to develop | methodology for the 
establishment of cadastre information system in the 
Province of El-Behara. 
e The Dutch Project in the years 2000 — 2004, with the 
objective to support capacity building in ESA. This 
project is the main topic of this paper. 
This modernization is now entering its tenth year and has 
provided up-to-date equipment, technical training and 
production support in a number of pilot areas. The 
modernization program is supported by the development of 
Strategic Plan in 1994 for the completion of map coverage and 
the land registers. Several projects were initiated, in the framework 
of the implementation of the Strategic Plan, to finalize the 
registration of ownership and cadastre maps in rural areas (first 
priority), to be followed by similar projects in urban areas in 
cooperation with the Local Authorities in the various cities in Egypt. 
Since then, ESA is now focusing on key improvement actions to 
speed up the implementation of the Strategic Plain. In the following, 
we mention only those actions, which will have impact on capacity 
building and the required staff training: 
3.2. Areas of focus for improvement 
ESA is on the process of change to operate on economic 
bases, without violating its national commitment. ESA 
will continue to support map coverage and the registration 
of land and the provision of basic land information as 
required for good governance in all administrative levels 
in Egypt. Such change is part of the Egyptian Government 
policy to change most of government organizations 
offering (almost) free services to operate on 'cost- 
recovery' bases, as a step toward complete privatization. 
Of some of these organizations. 
ESA is revising its management style and the way of 
conducting business. The objective is to optimize the use 
of resources, improve the quality of services and 
maximize revenue. Several options will be setup to 
maximize the role of information technology in improving 
the responsiveness of ESA to market change. This needs 
the diversity of products and services according to market 
demands, the re-engineering of its production workflow to 
improve operations management, the establishment of 
Land Information System and introduction of a quality 
management system in all sectors and management levels. 
An “activity based costing ABC’ models will be 
developed for the various services and products in order to 
help ESA to link the ‘spending’ with the ‘achievement’ of 
the various sectors, as well as to set its ‘pricing policy’ 
and the bases for achieving ‘cost-recovery’. 
ESA will establish its Land Information System, to 
support cadastre services and topographic mapping as well 
as the generation of value-added products. The system is 
composed of several databases, distributed in the various 
locations in ESA, the Head Quarter, the Topographic 
Sector, the Provinces as well as the District Cadastre 
Offices. The system will be integrated, both conceptually 
and physically, to insure data integrity and data sharing. 
The various institutional aspects that are relevant to the 
development of such a system are under investigation, 
such as information policy and copy rights, standards, 
business domains to be supported, costs and prices, 
upgrading of IT resources and human skills, etc. The 
decision on the contents of these databases (type and size 
of data) will be made according to demands. The same 
principle will be applied on the completion of the map 
coverage and publication of the various map scales. As a 
step towards the creation of such a system, several 
projects will be initiated very soon in the Provincial 
Offices to convert existing data sources (cadastre maps 
and documents) into digital form and store them in 
databases; the objective is to complete 'El-Sagel El-