Capacity building workshop for eGovernment

The first of the workshop for senior IT professionals of the public sector was inaugurated today by Dr. Salim Al Ruzaiqi, CEO of ITA. Richard Kerby, E-Government Advisor and Mr. Waimin Kwok, Knowledge Management Advisor conducted interactive workshop sessions on behalf of UNDESA.

The 2nd session of the workshops will be held on the 16th November 2008 at the Conference Hall, Ministry of National Economy under the auspices of HE. Mohammed Nasser Al Khasibi, Secretary General-Ministry of National Economy and Chairman of ITA. Several high level government officials including Excellencies, Under Secretaries and ICT Director Generals of the public sector will be attending this session.

In his council address, His Majesty has stressed the importance of Information and Communication Technologies in the nation's progress into the third millennium and directed government institutions to enhance their performance and develop e-government services through a national strategy. In implementing his royal directives, the workshop aims to build capacity within the government sector in aligning their efforts towards e-government and work together to transform the delivery of public services through digital technologies.

The workshop aims to achieve e-Government vision through collaboration among public sector entities and support each other in the process of transformation .The workshop sessions seek to share UN guidelines for quality online presence in order to serve the public more efficiently and effectively.

Dr. Salim Al Ruzaiqi, CEO of ITA in his opening speech, said:

"His Majesty has wisely led us into the new era harnessing the power of Information and Communication Technologies. We now focus all our energies in translating HM's directives to enhance the performance of government establishments and facilitate their public services through digital technologies. This workshop aims to launch an integrated effort in strengthening both internal as well as external communications, improve the quality of online presence through websites and undertake knowledge management."

Thanking all the government staff for participating in the workshop, Dr. Salim expressed the importance of this workshop in the context of His Majesty's royal vision to expedite the process of implementing e-government services.

"The workshop will build the skills and knowledge required to use digital technologies within the government entities to improve internal processes and serve the public better. In this forum facilitated by UNDESA, we hope to share our knowledge, discuss the challenges we face and present our collective recommendation for higher authorities within each government entity. This will enable formulation of collaborative action plans to raise the profile of the country in the international levels," he added.

Speaking on Oman's position, Mr. Richard Kerby, E-Government Advisor at the UNDESA said, "Oman is placed in the upper 50% of the UN e-Government readiness survey and has scaled faster in the last 2years to reach 84th position in e-government readiness index. The country lead by the strong vision of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos and spearheaded by the ITA aspires to move forward as an integrated community towards the transformation of its e-government services. He stressed on the importance of gaining commitment from different government entities in this cooperative and collaborative endeavour."

The workshop sessions focus on discussing the advantages of e-government services, solutions and content. The interactive working session seek to build on the existing knowledge available to create an e-government friendly environment among the ministries and government institutions. The workshop sessions include objectives and aims at having Government Information online (Government Online), improving the web presence to benefit the visitors and how to achieve these objectives by introducing Knowledge Management KM within the public offices.

Mr. Talal Al Rahbi, Chief of Information and Awareness division of ITA gave a presentation highlighting the implementation of the Digital Oman, national strategy and the progress made in several projects under the umbrella of eOman. He shared the plans of ITA through the Digital Oman strategy, and the progress of eOman projects like the Government sServices portal, ePayment gateway, Digital literacy training for Civil staff, etc. He also cited escalation of Oman's ranking in recent UN's E-Government readiness survey and the various capacity building initiatives undertaken by ITA for digital literacy for the civil employees and the community at large. He noted that working towards improving the E-Government readiness index is highly aligned with implementing the royal directives on building national skills and capacities in the use of modern digital technologies.

Mr. Waimin Kwok, Advisor - Knowledge Management, UNDESA said:

"Knowledge Management strategy is vital to nurture the use of technology and create a culture that will enable useful collaborations for effective implementation of e-government. Outlining and applying the right technology and applications combined with the right promotion, evaluation and measurement of Knowledge management will align the public services towards the growing needs of the citizens."

The workshops stress upon the ownership of e-government initiatives and motivate every professional to lead as an e-government champion. They are to drive their organization towards change from the traditional style to modern service-oriented philosophy harnessing the power of ICT tools.