service. Through the end of FY 2019, Digital Liberia supported a total of 161 procurements, representing 70 for Internet and 91 for value-added services. SNAPSHOT GOVERNMENT INTERNET PROCUREMENTS Government is often slow-moving and resistant to change. However, the USAID Digital Liberia and eGovernment Activity has become a catalyst for reform. By working directly with government partners at the policy level, Digital Liberia helped to implement important policy changes and procurement procedures to enhance internet connectivity, improve ICT infrastructure, and advance Liberia’s e-government strategy. Liberia’s ministries, agencies, and commissions were once responsible for procuring their own ICT infrastructure. Each entity would pay the government’s ISP, Libtelco, separately for services. ICT-related expenses, including internet, software, and hardware, were lumped into two budget line items with other expenses, such as mobile phone credits, postage, and general capital equipment. As the agencies exhausted the budget for these other items, Libtelco and other ISPs often did not receive payment for providing internet, leading to inconsistent service. With the help of Digital Liberia, the Government of Liberia now has a simpler way to procure internet. Digital Liberia helped to develop a centralized procurement procedure with the Public Procurement and Concessions Commission, enabling the Ministry of Finance to issue one monthly payment to Libtelco for all of the government’s internet usage, instead of leaving internet payments for each individual entity to prioritize, given resource challenges. Digital Liberia, Libtelco, and Liberia’s Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MOPT) worked together to assess bandwidth needs for each government entity, enabling each entity to accurately budget for internet. These changes give the government the ability to negotiate a consistent price for all the government’s required internet bandwidth and help ensure Libtelco receives payments on a regular basis. Additionally, Digital Liberia led discussions with Liberia’s Public Procurement and Concessions Commission to ensure internet procurement guidelines, manuals created were compliant with regulations and encouraged MOPT to take ownership of the ICT procurement process. Expected Result 6: Design for shared services infrastructure & application services In Year 1, Digital Liberia’s project advisory council determined that connection to the Local Internet Exchange Point (LIXP) was a base requirement for any ISP providing services to the Government of Liberia. The LIXP enables local Internet traffic to be transmitted locally, at a faster speed and without incurring international connectivity rates. The fully operational LIXP will benefit ongoing work in the education and health sectors by linking research and education networks as well as local cloud-based public services at significantly reduced rates. Although Liberia had established an LIXP in 2015 at Cable Consortium of Liberia, maintaining and operating the LIXP had been a challenge due to lack structured funding and administrative mechanisms for day to day running of the LIXP, with the members unwilling to meet to discuss issues. Digital Liberia facilitated a LIXP stakeholders discussion to address these shortcomings. The team’s intervention enabled the MNOs, the LIXP operator, and the sector ministry to agree on a one time plus subsequent monthly recurring payment mechanism for MNOs in support of the LIXP’s operations. Digital Liberia also developed the LIXP implementation and pricing plan to present the benefits of a LIXP to key stakeholders through the Liberia Telecommunications Authority. The implementation plan provides roles, challenges, and guiding principles for policymakers and stakeholders on the LIXP’s maintenance, operation and development. The pricing plan provides guidance on how to transfer savings from the LIXP to the Liberian Internet ecosystem. Together, they provide a mechanism to assist the Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA) and MOPT to effectively liaise with local ISPs and the Cable Consortium of Liberia as they identify challenges, develop definitive steps for implementation and work with stakeholders to operationalize local pricing. To boost usage of the exchange, Digital Liberia convened key stakeholders from LTA, MOPT, and ISPs to agree to install a Google Cache Server and DIGITAL LIBERIA FINAL REPORT | 20