Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens (IDABC)

Period: 2005-2009

Budget: EUR 148.7 million

IDABC is the successor of the IDA programme and aims at promoting the establishment of pan-European eGovernment services and the development of the underlying interoperable telematic networks.

The objectives of the IDABC programme are to;

• Enable the efficient, effective and secure interchange of information between public administrations, whether national, regional or local, as well as between such administrations and the Community institutions or other entities as appropriate, in order for the Member States and the Community to implement, within their respective areas of competence, the Community policies and activities referred to in Articles 3 and 4 of the Treaty

• Extend the benefits of the interchange of information as specified under the first objective to businesses and citizens

• Facilitate communication between the Community institutions and support the Community decision-making process and develop the related strategic framework at the pan-European level

• Promote citizens' and businesses' participation in the construction of the European Union

• Achieve interoperability, both within and across different administrative sectors and, where appropriate, with businesses and citizens

• Converge networks under the first three objectives towards a common telematic interface

• Achieve substantial benefits for Member State public administrations and the Community in terms of streamlined operations, speeded-up implementations, security, efficiency, transparency, service culture and responsiveness

The primary beneficiaries of the IDA Programme are public administrations, in particular national authorities and European institutions. By providing expertise - a forum for information exchange and funding for IT solutions - IDA helps the administrations improve the efficiency of their existing networks.

IDA also offers generic services, common tools and guidelines that facilitate interoperability across European borders. Citizens and enterprises are also increasingly benefiting from the various IDA projects, either by using directly some of the IDA networks. In addition, since the IDA programme carries out its projects on the basis of market-available solutions, IT and service providers can benefit directly from the Programme by participating in the open calls for tenders.

Unlike other Community Programmes (e.g. eTEN, eContent, etc.), the implementation of IDABC is rather different. Participation in IDABC is not through submission of project proposals by consortia under open calls, but exclusively through a public tendering procedure managed by the Commission. Thus, public authorities that would like to get funds from IDABC should reply open calls for public tenders.

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