The Libya Information Infrastructure (LII) is conceived as a national initiative to harmonize, integrate and optimize the development and sharing of fundamental geographical and statistical information across all government agencies and institutions.
The development of this program is being carried out through a step-by-step, practical process that will establish a strategic and evolving framework for a long term LII, and provide coordination and support to the development of its various components through a carefully conceived and guided incremental process. It is recognized that this infrastructure can only be as strong as the community of agency stakeholders that comprise it, thus each component of the program will seek to build on and leverage the many good works being carried out in many of the more progressive agencies in Libya, across all sectors. This initiative is being sponsored in Libya by the General Authority for Information and Telecommunications (GAIT).
The GAIT has conceived the LII initiative as a basis for building towards a societal system that combines both the NII and Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) concepts. The LII is to build on the good work that is being done in many organizations in Libya, and to provide further empowerment for their individual and collective development and synergy through the facilitation of horizontal and vertical integration through the LII Initiative.
Libya recognizes that there are many models and best practices around the world that span the spectrum of National Information Infrastructure (NII), e- Government, e-Service and other such versions of societal information infrastructure, but has come to the conclusion that while these provide good reference and lessons learned, an LII must be crafted around the special circumstances, needs and priorities of the country today. GAIT is therefore embarking on parallel development tracks that are specifically targeted to build on existing efforts in the country and to help leverage and channel information investments and capacity building in many agencies towards a common benefit.
The Libya Spatial Data Infrastructure (LSDI) was initiated in 2005 as a matter of significant national priority. This is seen as a critical building block in the more broadly conceived LII, and there are several large, national projects that are already underway that will generate much of the fundamental geographic data sets (FGDS) that are needed in common across most agencies, including the Third Generation Planning Program, National Infrastructure Plan, and National Census.
Libya is undertaking the development of a multiple-level physical land use master planning effort for the entire country with the Third Generation Planning Program. This program will update the Second Generation Planning Program that was carried out in the late 1970's through the early 1980's. The results of this Program are intended to guide physical development in Libya through 2025. The project includes the generation of imagery, basemapping and over 20 basic data topical layers at Regional, Sub-Regional, and detailed Local levels.
A comprehensive program called the National Infrastructure Plan is also underway to assess the current extent and condition of potable water and sanitary sewer services in the country, and to prepare detailed designs for the upgrade and extension of such systems. This project will also require urban scale basemapping and existing condition mapping, including the location of existing water, sewer and other underground and overhead utility networks.
Outputs of this program will include detailed designs for priority service upgrade and extension projects. Libya carried out a new National Census in 2006. This program collected and synthesized population census and demographic data for an estimated 1 million households and 6 million people across the country. This provided a valuable reference that will be used by decision makers and agencies at many levels and among many sectors to better plan public facilities and services, among other uses.
