The GCC governments still face key challenges as they strive to increase ICT adoption and effectiveness — a problem rooted in the lack of key enabling resources, inadequate infrastructure, and, at times, transient funding and oversight, said a new study by Booz and Company.
The environment dimension involves the conduciveness of the regulatory and ICT environments to delivering e-government services, while the readiness dimension focuses on governments’ ability to capitalise on opportunities created by an e-government programme, particularly in terms of common or shared resources or platforms. “A robust e-government agenda should properly cover all three dimensions by defining the services the government wants to offer in order to drive improvements in the supporting environment and readiness factors,” said Ramez Shehadi, a partner a Booz and Company.
On strengthening the regulatory environment, it said an area in need of regulatory attention “is the under-utilisation of encryption and other advanced security mechanisms needed to gain the public’s trust in ICT-based services.”
Regarding encouraging government collaboration, the study said regulations and implementation policies for intra-government data sharing could have a major impact on the way government agencies operate and collectively fulfill services for constituents.
It called for standardising ICT tools and processes could support productive collaboration, especially in terms of performance metrics and systems, structured ICT budgeting mechanisms, and even common ICT infrastructure and services such as broadband networks, data centres and contact centres.
“Developing and documenting processes for planning, managing, operating and delivering ICT services is essential to ensure the effectiveness of ICT, as well as the predictability of outcomes,” it said.
On the need for improving the ICT environment, Booz said enhancing ICT and Internet penetration and usage among citizens, businesses, and government agencies is essential to making the most of e-government services.
The study asked the GCC countries enhance their security measures for which the governments across the region need to devise holistic government-wide security strategies that establish steps to prevent security breaches, protect sensitive data, and react swiftly when data or systems “are compromised”.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Santhosh V Perumal
Quelle/Source: Gulf Times, 13.07.2010
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