His Majesty's vision steers eGovernment in Oman

The two day workshop began on the 15th November with the aim 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 workshops on the first day gathered IT professional from the public sector under one roof to discuss the challenges and the required actions for priority.

In the final session, Mr. Talal Al Rahbi, Chief of Information and Awareness Division presented the various effort taken by ITA through the eOman projects. Mr. Richard Kerby, E-Government Advisor and Mr. Wai Min Kwok, Knowledge Management Advisor from UNDESA gave presentations on enhancing government websites, improving internal and external communications and knowledge management in an effort to implement effective eGovernment.

Speaking on the importance of the workshop Al Khasibi opined that comes from its focus to step up our efforts to provide electronic services to the public and to focus on building the required human capacity and realise His Majesty's vision for eGovernment. It also aims to understand international criteria for evaluating eGovernment readiness and our effort towards the UN guidelines in this regard will also satisfy the mission of the eOman strategy, he added.

These challenges and priorities for eGovernment were discussed among several focused groups of public sector IT professionals and their recommendations were put forward for the senior management in today's sessions.

Quoting from the opening speech of Dr. Salim Al Ruzaiqi, CEO of ITA,

"We are guided by His Majesty's words on harnessing Information and Communication Technology to deliver eServices to the public. His directives have motivated us to work harder in implementing the nation's eGovernment strategy in close collaboration with all government organisations. We have been able to focus on the challenges faced in our mission and draw up an action plan for recommendation."

In presenting an update on eOman awareness projects, Talal Al Rahbi, Chief of Information and Awareness division explained the eGovernment readiness index which ranks countries worldwide through an eGovernment survey. He explanied that the mission of building human capacity, building required ICT infrastructure and enabling eServices aligned towards the needs of the public are the key missions of Oman's strategy and this also lines up with working towards improving the eGovernment readiness.

Quoting Marwan AbdulMalik Al Bulushi, Diwan of Royal Court, one of the attendees of yesterday workshops, "this workshop helped us to realise the importance of the need to re-engineer the workflow of our internal processes and to involve users and include electronic services in our website development".

An open discussion session of was held after presentation of the recommendations with the UN and ITA professionals responding to the questions. Most of the audience required a closer focus on infrastructure, skill-based training and alignment of IT strategies of ministry with their business strategy.

"Very useful insight was made available about the common challenges faced in the implementation of eGovernment and we now have to work collaboratively to tackle these challenges and transform Oman into a digital society", told HE. Engr. Ahmed Al Dheeb, Under Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

According to Mr. Kerby the workshop was very productive and the discussions were enthusiastic. With key ingredients for eGovernment such as leadership by His Majesty, vision, strategy and the administrative body - ITA playing an active role are the strengths that will enable Oman to face its challenges in the implementation of eGovernment".

Based on the challenges identified and the recommendations presented in the workshop, the following action points arise as the way forward as highlights of this workshop:
• Utilising the workshop as a beginning, move forward by developing ministerial action plans to align efforts in line with the nation's Digital Oman strategy.
• It is recommended to improve the presence of government agencies online and offer more eServices to the benefit of the public.
• ITA will continue its support to the public sector entities in enhancing their technical infrastructure to offer eServices, re-engineering of business processes and offer to both online and face-to-face training for civil employees in IT programs.
• The need to form a network of government IT professionals is stressed and this will facilitate more cooperative efforts in developing Oman using ICT.
• The ministries are requested to keep their online content up-to-date and extend more support in offering eServices and aligning them through the integrated Government eServices portal.
• Give more priority to train the employees and build capacity within the civil staff and the public so that they can fully utilise the benefits of eServices offered.
• It is stressed on the ownership of e-government initiatives and to motivate every professional to lead as an e-government champion and drive their organization towards change from the traditional style to modern citizen-oriented philosophy harnessing the power of ICT tools.

Ms. Shariffa al Meskary, International Relations Manager at ITA said,

"This workshop aimed to build awareness of the need for transformation of public services using ICT through innovation has concluded successfully. We are very pleased about the cooperative discussions held and the recommendations put forward for action. ITA will continue to support all government units and keep them informed about the ongoing development in the delivery of electronic services. We truly hope that the action plan out of this workshop will percolate through all government units and staff and direct them towards achieving the royal vision of His Majesty."