Single Window Systems
In the OIC Member States
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The three OIC Member States also do not follow the same organizational model. Cameroon and
the Kyrgyz Republic have set up a public and Morocco a private enterprise. The size of the
entity varies from 90 employees in Cameroon to 13 in the Kyrgyz Republic and 22 in Morocco.
The IT development has been fully outsourced in Morocco and the Kyrgyz Republic and
partially in Cameroon.
In all three OIC Member States the investment for the first and second-generation Single
Window IT platforms is provided by public sources, including external partners. The
operational expenses of the Cameroon and the Kyrgyz Republic Single Windows are also
funded by the regular government budget. The Moroccan Single Window is financially
sustainable and can cover operational expenses from the fees.
The initial IT architecture varies from a centralized to decentralized architecture, but in all
three cases the architecture lacked flexibility and cost effectiveness to follow the planned
expansion and interoperability of the Single Windows.
Notably only PortNet has a transparent and publicly available performance measurement
covering processing times, user numbers and project achievements.
4.4.2 Challenges
The three case studies reveal typical and common challenges for Single Window projects. One
weakness of all three SW is the lack of in depth business process analysis and data modelling
prior to the development of the Single Window.
 In the Kyrgyz Republic the simplification and re-engineering of the business processes
were pushed to the second phase.
 In Cameroon business process were integrated in an ad hoc manner lacking an overall
strategy and coherent business process view.
 In Morocco the interoperability of the system was limited because of a lack of a
common data and application layer. Such an approach leads to sub-optimal designs
that do not deliver the full advantages of single data entry and simplified processing.
This weakness was aggravated by the IT architecture choices that led to inflexible systems that
were expensive to maintain and update.
 In the Kyrgyz Republic the current IT architecture design as a centralized architecture
is not flexible enough to support additional service developments and data
management. The IT architecture is not efficient and cost-effective as maintaining and
changing applications requires a disproportionate level of technical and human
resources because of hard coded applications.
 The decentralised architecture in Morocco lacks a centralized data layer, which hikes
up infrastructure costs, maintenance costs, and disaster recovery costs.