Human and organisational aspects of adoption of gis technology in botswana

Abstract

A major characteristic of the diffusion and adoption of GIS technology in Botswana is localised arrangement of resources in different government agencies. After the first enthusiasm shown in late 80’s, and practical results achieved in the middle 90’s, the utilization of GIS systems at national level has been substantially reduced. GIS has not been utilized in decision -making process. Advances in information technology evolved faster than the institutional and organisational capacities of different GIS users and the ability to absorb them. In the absence of critical user mass, an efficient institutional and organisational setting is for the future implementation of GIS technology is under serious threat. Current efforts to establish the National Spatial Data Infrastructure will also be highly dependent on “human factors” in the stage of its implementation. This article gives a brief guideline for GIS decision makers on how to improve GIS diffusion based on human and organisational factors.

Keywords: Geographical Information Systems - GIS, Human, Organizational, information technology – IT, GIS diffusion