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His Excellence Salem Al Hosani,
Development Director in TRA, said that
the Kingdom of Bahrain will host the 4th
GCC eGovernment Award, Conference
and Exhibition, which is closely
associated with the GCC’s guidance
strategy. He pointed out that there is
high-level cooperation and collaboration
in the field of eGovernment, as in the
meetings of the Ministerial and Executive
Committees.
Al Hosani said that the adoption of
the GCC guidance strategy is a key
output of these meetings. The strategy
generally aims to reinforce the role of
the eGovernment being an efficient tool
to enhance sustainable development
and provide the government sector with
ideas that contribute in its development
and achieve integration among GCC
countries.
He noted that there are certain initiatives
that fall under the strategy, including the
GCC network, the GCC e-portal, joint
e-services, GCC e-transactions law, in
addition to the eGovernment Award, the
most notable among such initiatives.
According to Al Hosani, this award aims
to achieve three pivotal goals namely
establishing a mechanism to reinforce the
culture of excellence at GCC government
bodies through designated standards;
finding a competitive and positive
atmosphere that encourages ongoing
development and research; and finding
a means and tool to promote innovative
practices and document GCC success
stories.
Whether or not the award encourages
competitiveness among various GCC
governments, Al Hosani said that there
is no doubt competitiveness is a key
principle among the GCC eGovernments.
Criteria and conditions to participate in the
award as well as evaluation criteria have
highlighted competitiveness. Additionally,
four out of the award’s eight divisions
focus on enhancing the principle of
competitiveness among e-services at the
local, regional and global levels.
The eight categories of the GCC
eGovernment
Award
are:
best
government website, best integrated
government e-service for the business
sector, best government service, best
G2G services, best government service
for the business sector, best government
practice in community engagement,
best mobile app, and best joint national
e-project.
Al Hosani added that the UAE is
participating in the 4th GCC eGovernment
Award and that all federal and local
agencies were invited to submit their
entries to the TRA. It is noteworthy that
the UAE was ahead of the game in the
previous editions. In the first edition
hosted by the Sultanate of Oman, the
UAE claimed 25% of the awards. In the
second edition hosted by Kuwait, the
UAE claimed 50% of the awards and in
the third edition hosted by the UAE, it
claimed 60% of excellence awards.
Al Hosani said that the TRA is getting
ready to participate in this year’s award
hosted by Bahrain, and added that the
TRA is in charge of the eGovernment and
mGovernment initiatives in collaboration
with the Prime Minister’s office. The
TRA’s coordination efforts at the local
level can be summarized in the five main
pillars below:
Educational and awareness role and
criteria of the award; the TRA holds
workshops for local and federal entities;
Promotional and marketing role;
Consulting role; the TRA has a qualified
team that offers transparent answers for
all inquiries and terms and conditions of
the award;
Evaluation and selecting works to
represent the UAE in the award;
Qualifying role; the TRA qualifies and
develops selected works to be able to
compete and win the award.
Regarding its regional role, the TRA
serves as the link between federal and
local entities, and the hosting country.
Salem Al Hosani:
The GCC eGovernment Award
aims to reinforce the culture of
excellence, development and
innovation
Report