2. 3. 4. 5. 6. appropriate laws are in place in Liberia to support electronic transactions and provisions for ensuring data protection and privacy for users, such as updating the general business laws and penal codes; The Ministry of Commerce will develop e-Commerce strategy for the development of e-commerce industry in Liberia; The Ministry of Posts & Telecommunications will provide a unique physical address to homes, institutions and businesses to facilitate the activities of eCommerce; The Ministry of Posts & Telecommunications will facilitate the availability of broadband internet access; The Government of Liberia will encourage investment in National Fiber Backbone as a platform to promote economic services such as e-Commerce programs; GoL will make use of the National Universal Access Program to support the construction of ICT infrastructure in areas partially or wholly inaccessible to communication services to benefit market expansion through e-commerce. 5.15.6.2 Open Data Initiatives and digitization of government information systems Open data is data that is available online in a format that can be easily accessed, used, and shared by anyone at no charge or other restrictions. Open data can be critical for new entrepreneurial opportunities, promoting scientific research, increasing civic engagement with government, and increasing public accountability. As such, the GoL seeks to employ open data initiatives where possible to support its national development goals. 5.15.6.3 Strategies for Implementation 1. The Government of Liberia will promote the design of processes to build government datasets in open data formats and licenses; 2. GoL will support the use of open datasets for data mining; 3. The Government of Liberia will implement an open data platform to share datasets across government and with the public (an objective that is already in the Open Government Partnership action plan lead by the Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs, and Tourism (MICAT); 4. The GoL will design a mechanism to encourage the development of public, private, and civil-society led digital commercial services using these datasets; 5. Based on the above principles, a Land Information System (LIS) would be established with an associated Graphical Information System (GIS) to support government, private sector and public need for information on land ownership/tenure, as well as for more effective and efficient planning for agriculture and natural resource management; 6. Similarly, an integrated information system covering all concessions across the different MACs would be established to avoid overlapping of activities and issues stemming from lack of coordination; 7. Similarly, digitization of the electoral process – voter registration, results reporting etc would take place. 6.0 Sectoral Structure Currently, the mandate for the ICT portfolio is within the Ministry of Posts and 51