Dubai eGovernment says 90 per cent of Government services will be available through electronic channels by 2007

In the same time frame, it is envisaged that nearly 50 per cent of all public services transactions will be conducted online.

These glimpses into Dubai eGovernment's future strategy were provided by Mahmood Al Bastaki, Acting Director, eServices, Dubai eGovernment, during his address at the 2nd Middle East eGovernment Summit which concluded in Dubai recently.

In his overview, Al Bastaki said, 'The day is coming when counters will be virtually eliminated, once all the electronic channels are fully activated. There will be a single point of contact or a common number for each of the channels such as cell phones and land-lines, which will inevitably make the services more user-friendly. Each customer will then be identified individually through the eJawaz authentication system. Dubai eGovernment's achievements in the past years has encouraged us to forge ahead to accomplish the strategic goal of delivering 90 per cent of all governmental and citizen related services electronically by the year 2007.'

Referring to the current status of Dubai eGovernment, Al Bastaki revealed that it has e-enabled 81 per cent of is its services and these are at various stages of implementation. He added that Dubai eGovernment is in the process of completing the final, officially approved list of its services.

Al Bastaki said Dubai eGovernment will continue to enhance the eServices experience through improved synergistic tools and shared best practices among government departments. These tools include eIntegrate, an electronic business integration service to enable workflow-based electronic documents processing; eDelivery, an electronic processing system for courier services, eJawaz, an electronic authentication, single sign-on and authorisation service and eFeedback, an electronic service to gauge satisfaction levels to eServices.

Commenting on the progress made by Dubai eGovernment, Al Bastaki said Dubai eGovernment was on the verge of entering the ultimate 'seamless' stage of eGovernment. He also said that aggressive marketing campaigns would be launched to increase the user base of eServices.

The Middle East eGovernment Summit hosted by Dubai eGovernment was attended by international and local eGovernance and Public Administration experts and helped in highlighting the latest developments in the field of e-governance and sharing success stories from across the region and the globe.

The speakers included Tan Kar Joo, Director, Electronic Services Division (ESD), InfoComm Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore; David Cass, well known presenter, broadcaster and consultant; Herbert E. Kamensky, Managing Director, Comguard FZ-LLC, a professional IT security solutions provider; Mohammed Emir Mavani Abdullah, Project Director, eGovernment, Ministry of Finance & Industry; Dr. Heinz Schrey, Director, Business Consulting, Geneva, and Rehab Lootah, eServices Provisioning Manager at Dubai eGovernment.

Case studies were presented by Dr. Ahmed Al Mohanadi, Director of Qatar eGovernment Project, Bilal Sununu, IT consultant, General Manager Business to IT Services, Saudi Arabia, Ghazi Atallah, General Manager, Cisco Systems Middle East and Neil Smith, Head of e-Risk Management, Visa International - CEMEA.