The electronic Detailed Implementation Survey (eDIS) and the Overview of Implementation Assessment (OIA)

What are the eDIS and the revised OIA? An eDIS is a list of questions that assess the implementation of Security Council requirements and more generally the response to terrorism by a Member State. It is one of the tools used by CTED to fulfill its assessment mandate. The eDIS contains 77 questions, most of them with subquestions, and an additional 24 questions for those States that have already been visited by the CTC.

Together, the eDISs for all Member States constitute the largest database that we know of in the area of counter-terrorism. 

The eDIS feeds into the OIA, which is a summary of the state of implementation of Security Council requirements, key CTC recommendations and needs for technical assistance by a Member State. 
Both are then sent to the concerned Member State for feedback, which is incorporated into the documents, to ensure ownership and accuracy. 

The eDIS and the OIA assist the Committee and CTED to take stock of progress made by Member States in implementing resolutions 1373 (2001), 1624 (2005) and other relevant Security Council resolutions in a timely manner. The tools are also designed to ensure thoroughness, consistency, transparency and even-handedness in the Committee’s stocktaking process and to improve their utility to Member States, donors, recipients, the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism and other United Nations agencies for the purpose of designing technical assistance and capacity-building support. They also allow for the most effective use of qualitative and quantitative data.

Both were updated in 2021 by the CTC, after Security Council resolution 2395 (2017) requested CTED to update its survey tools. 

What purposes do the eDIS and OIA serve?

Dialogue with Member States

The eDIS and OIA are used for dialogue with Member States. CTED shares the eDIS and OIA once completed with the assessed Member State, inviting it to provide feedback thereby ensuring transparency and constructive dialogue. Feedback is then incorporated into both eDIS and OIA. They highlight the main achievements and remaining gaps, key recommendations and technical assistance needs, as well as good practices that will be shared with other States. Member State input is therefore critical to ensure the transparency of the exercise, as well as ownership and factual accuracy. 

Member States’ feedback ensures that progress and good practices are thoroughly reflected, and that relevant areas of progress are identified so as to enable the Member State to identify the best way to fully and effectively implement the relevant Security Council resolutions. The identified technical assistance needs also make sure that they are tailored to the identified gaps so as to help States receive relevant assistance and, consequently, advance in the implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions.

Analytical capabilities

Data collected in the eDIS will also serve as the basis for analytical products, and will play a key role in the execution and strengthening of CTED’s trends analysis mandate. The online portal allows for comparisons of a new kind, such as measuring progress over time in a given Member State, comparing compliance or progress between thematic areas across the globe or in a region, and more. This will be made possible by having the counter-terrorism database combined with the online tool. These analyses can be used to inform the CTC and the Security Council; donors and technical assistance providers, to determine where to allocate resources and what to prioritize; the UN counter-terrorist community more broadly, to evaluate progress of counter-terrorism efforts over time; and the wider public.