5. Service: Shaping of policies, systems, frameworks and attitudes that facilitate and empower people. 4.3 CORE POLICY OBJECTIVES AND CORRESPONDING POLICY STATEMENTS Analysis of global rankings, comprehensive exchanges with stakeholders, research into the local ICT sector, and uncovering of global best practices have resulted in identification of the seven (7) strategic themes this EGovernment Policy will use to guide E-Government development and implementation in Belize over the course of the next three to five years. The 7 strategic themes are intended to move Belize along the path to an Integrative System of E-Government. As described more fully in Section 5.1 of this Policy, Integrated Government links local systems, systems with similar functionality, and systems across Government agencies horizontally (internally) and vertically (externally) such that more seamless communication, collaboration and exchange of information are possible. This supports several goals outlined in the introduction to this section, namely developing mechanisms to break down existing ministerial and departmental silos and encourage new models that showcase the benefits of crossfunctional internal collaboration. It also supports the adoption of WOG best-practice approaches that enable a holistic view of the enterprise architectures (EA) of all government agencies for the purposes of leveraging Government’s ICT assets and purchasing power to achieve cost savings and avoid duplication and wastage of resources. As stated earlier, an added benefit is the enabling of interoperability among various agency networks. Ultimately, this allows the design of frameworks that treat businesses, citizens, residents and investors as partners in public service delivery. Of course, technical infrastructure and platforms for e-services will have to be created and standardised, particularly in respect of procurement, design and management. 47