The Government Interoperability Maturity Framework (GIMF): Advancing Digital Governance in Sub-National Governments
Abstract
Sub-national governments are the level of government most directly encountered by citizens, yet substantial gaps persist between national and local digital government capacity. The United Nations E-Government Survey 2024 and the World Bank's GovTech Maturity Index 2025 both document persistent disparities in digital maturity, particularly across Africa. While digital government is associated with improved efficiency, transparency, and accountability, these benefits depend on interoperable data systems and complementary institutional reforms rather than digitization alone. The same constraint applies to artificial intelligence, which relies on digitized and connected administrative data. This paper makes two contributions. First, it reconceptualizes civic-tech and government technology as interconnected domains linked through government data interoperability. Second, it introduces the Government Interoperability Maturity Framework (GIMF), a five-stage analytical framework developed inductively from qualitative field research across four Nigerian sub-national contexts. The study draws on direct institutional observation, site visits, workshops, and key informant interviews conducted between 2025 and 2026, engaging 93 government officials and stakeholders. The GIMF maps digital capacity from Stage 1 (paper-based operations) to Stage 5 (connected digital governance) and introduces two field-derived refinements: stage fragmentation, in which different functions operate at different maturity levels, and the digital facade, in which external digital visibility is not matched by internal administrative capacity. Drawing on interoperability scholarship, the framework distinguishes technical, syntactic, semantic, and organizational interoperability and relates digital maturity to governance capacity and accountability. Developed from Nigerian field evidence, the framework is proposed as an analytical tool for broader application and validation across sub-national governments.
