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maltatoday | SUNDAY • 10 DECEMBER 2023 8 COMMERCIAL MITA Strategy – 2024-2026: A Brief Outlook MITA has launched its Strategy for the next three years, based upon the Vision of 'Leveraging the power of digital'. This is the strategic pursuit that MITA intends following in line with the accompanying mission of 'Facilitating the modernisation of the Public Administration through technology direction and digital solutions'. Essentially, the Vision and Mission build upon MITA's core competencies and exper- tise in digital services and in the Public Administration, that it has accrued over the past thir- ty-three years of its establish- ment. In doing so, it is keeping in view of major regulatory digi- tal developments being enacted by the European Union in areas including Artificial Intelligence, information and cyber security, data and data governance and in the realm of cross-border in- teroperability of public services. Three domains of focus shall be the underlying enablers for the Vision and Mission to be attained. Two of the domains 'Strength- ening the Agency', followed by 'Enhancing the digital infra- structure' are largely Agency focussed. However, both do- mains are essential in ensuring that MITA may effectively and successfully perform in its third domain as 'Partner to Govern- ment in the Digitalisation Pro- cess'. Therefore, MITA shall need to ensure that its people, its processes, its technology in- vestments and its underlying data are in line with its overall strategic pursuit. The actions covering the domain 'Strength- ening the Agency' are specif- ically intended towards this objective. They shall involve further focus on the profession- al and personal wellbeing of its employees as well as develop- ments in its processes covering its operations, administration, procurement, communication and the further utilisation of EU funds. The actions pertain- ing to the domain 'Enhancing the Digital infrastructure' shall in turn be focussing on Govern- ment's digital backbone, with further investments for scala- bility of Government's digital network along with the Agen- cy's Data Centre, platforms and enabling services. Though the engagement of academic and practitioner expertise locally and overseas, as well as though experimental and pilot projects, MITA shall in the process, seek to test for and apply innovation as necessary. Above all, MITA shall be fo- cussing its efforts through a number of actions which cov- er the third domain 'Partner to Government in the Digital- isation Process'. Primarily, the Agency shall be implementing EU, national and/or public ad- ministration strategic and legal digital requirements falling un- der its responsibility. Further- more, MITA shall be providing the technical direction and con- sultation in areas of governance including the Public Adminis- tration's digital policy frame- work, prioritisation and maxi- misation of Government digital investment and Government enterprise architecture, among others. The Agency shall also support the Public Administra- tion in the implementation of the latter's digital transforma- tion initiatives and modernisa- tion of its business solutions. Apart from reviewing its ser- vice portfolio, MITA shall also seek to consolidate its focus on stakeholder engagement and client-centricity, in line with its overall strategic direction for service delivery. All such activity would how- ever be futile without a thor- ough consideration by MITA of all aspects of the cyber security ecosystem on a Governmen- tal and national scale. This is an area where MITA has been actively contributing both through technological and or- ganisational investments as well as on an educational and aware- ness aspect over a number of years. This new Strategy shall keep up MITA's momentum in such critical and important as- pect within the digital realm. Indeed, MITA's role from a strategic point of view shall not limit itself to the Public Admin- istration alone or to a national scale in key digital matters, but it shall also seek to undertake a more active participatory with- in the relevant EU and inter- national digital-related bodies and institutions on behalf of Government. In public service delivery alone, in collaboration with the Public Administration, the Agency shall seek to ena- ble a more seamless, efficient and effective public service ap- proach through interoperability of related digital solutions and data on a national as well as on a cross-border scale. Such feat does not simply involve tech- nological considerations but also calls for close collaboration with legal, organisational as well as semantic efforts need- ed on a national and on an EU cross-border scale. The evolution in the digital world is an ongoing one and remains an interesting one to venture into and modernise ac- cordingly at a technological, or- ganisational and cultural level. Through its new Strategy, MI- TA is taking the cue and taking a leading role in supporting the Maltese Public Administration in its holistic digital transfor- mation journey. The MITA Strategy 2024 – 2026 may be downloaded through the MITA website www.mita.gov.mt. Dr Keith Cilia Debono