ITU symposium on eGovernment and IP for the Arab region gets off to a rousing start

Alexander NTOKO, Chief, E-Strategies Unit, ITU/BDT opened the first session on "Enhancing communication between government entities " with an overall perspective on how ITU fulfils its mandate of harnessing the potentials of ICTs (Information & Communication Technologies) for the socio-economic development of developing countries. In his address to the delegates, he also outlined the priority areas for ITU and gave a preview into its work globally going forward.

Dr. Emir Mavani, e-Government Project Manager, Ministry of Finance & Industry demonstrated the pioneering work of the UAE Federal eGovernment with insights into its benefits and the strategy of using information technology as a catalyst for enhancing procedures, building citizen centred applications and providing a single point of contact for customers.

A unique perspective on the Egyptian Information Society Initiative (EISI) for Government Services Delivery was given by Mohammed Sameh Bedair, Minister of State for Administrative Development from Egypt. In his presentation he took the audience through their vision for a common gateway for all government entities involved in a business process, the challenges faced and a list of projects identified to counter the challenges starting with a basic infrastructure project for accessibility and authentication to economic databases project for higher levels of transparency and better vision for investors and decision makers.

The successes of Dubai eGovernment in meeting its objectives and its ambitious targets also came up for review in a presentation by Mahmood Al Bastaki, Dubai e-government. He also outlined that going forward they would attempt to make 90% of Services online by 2007 with 50% of transactions being conducted on-line by 2007 .

Making a special mention of UAE and its proactive and innovative approach to eGovernment, Hamadoun TOURE, Director of the Telecommunications Development Bureau, ITU in a speech via videoconference from Geneva said, "
The efforts of countries in the Arab region reflect their serious committment to using ICT to improve services in order to help their citizens embrace the new Information society. The discussions at this conference in the form of Dubai Declaration will be the cornerstone for the World Telecom Development Conference in 2006."

Day 2 of the symposium opened with a session on Transaction based government services. In the opening session, Alexander NTOKO, Chief, E-Strategies Unit, ITU talked to audiences about building trust and security for E-Government which also focused on a Technology Framework for Online Trust based on Data Confidentiality, Data Integrity and Strong Authentication.

In an interactive session with delegates, Tariq Habib, Senior Manager, eCompany gave a presentation on the challenges governments face in bringing eServices to citizens and businesses, and in the process delivered insight into a four step methodology to manage the challenges of delivering eServices starting with a dedicated project management office.

Summing up his impression of the symposium, Saddig I .Al Tayeb, General Manager, Licensing, Communications & Information Technology Commission (CITC),Saudi Arabia said " The discussions here reflect a commonality on the problems faced by the region in implementing eGovernment. It gives us a valuable opportunity to share knowledge and avoid pitfalls in a eGovernment rollout."

"The symposium was very successful in bringing the practical implementation of eGovernment into focus", said Abdelaziz Osman A/aziz, CEO & General Manager, Sudanese Telecom Co. Ltd. " It was very effective in highlighting the challenges of eGovernment implementation and the discussions were indeed very useful and illuminating."

The session on Regional Strategies saw presentations to delegates from countries around the region starting with a look at "Transformational Models from Traditional to Digital Governments" by Dr. Farid EL-NAJAR, Benha University, Egypt. eProcurement and the impact of Tejari with its dramatic cost savings ,greater efficiencies and greater market reach came up for review in a presentation by Saqib Iqbal, CEO Tejari.com. The session also gave delegates an opportunity to understand the developmental issues of eGovernment in Sudan in a presentation by Asim Abdelwahab Abdorabo from Sudatel.

The days proceedings was rounded of with a session on Internet Governance and the World Summit on Information Society with Desire Karyabwite from ITU giving the audience an insight into Best practices for DNS and IP addresses Management including IPv6 implementation. The timeframe for migration from IPv4 to IPv6 also came up for discussion. The challenges and issues faced in Yemen and the transformative role of ICT((Information & Communication Technologies) in the country was the subject of a presentation by Samira A.M Salem, Ministry of Telecom & IT.