So far as "insiders" are concerned, there's a road to plough in getting the geeks (my affectionate term for network app managers) to align a country's federated Institutional credentials with a combination of apps (services in network speak). This is the Australian view.
Refeds provides the best illustration of the international perspective. I'm rounding up a few refed cats. But progress requires a few global OER communities to go "woof!
(at the same time.)The problem for me has always been how to come up with a non-institutional directory to an experts group's global space. E.g. This seminar is hosted on a domain called bccampus.ca, with the research discipline classified as (say) New education systems/pedagogy. Even if OERers went to their individual refed guys and said "we want a Moodle and xxx on the (con-federated) common services list" you'd still want a way to tie the apps to an IP address, so that the Community could be found, apps shared, and the goings-on, left with associated materials, as a (long term) archive.
You'd also want a way to tie the real time comms to an IP address, so E.g. when you logged onto a moodle, you could see who else was online and have a chat/conference. (Time zones are a problem). OUUK did do this quite well a few years ago, for a while, but it can't be sustainable unless you develop the services as a global (inter-NREN) ones. (quality-of-service issues as well)
Please keep in mind that with a directory, I'm only talking about the DNS scheme. Each IP address could be hosted anywhere (or same place). Also, the combination of services attached to each could vary.
Thanks for the interest.