ESCWA opened today the expert group meeting on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications and e-services in the public sector in the region to overview the status of this sector and the challenges that face it, and suggest a series of steps to improve it and overcome these obstacles.
In the opening session, ESCWA Chief ICT section Youssef Nusseir stressed on the many aspects of applications and e-services, tackling the issue of trust that citizens should have. He said that trust should be built on the legal, personal, institutional and other levels, to build citizens' culture of e-dealings.
Nusseir noted that the essential impediments to ICT are represented in financial and human resource shortages, affirming that the spread of, and access to, ICT are more important that the availability of e-services. He also pointed out that the percentage of access to ICT in the Arab region was less than half of the global percentage.
However, certain Arab countries have begun to give a bigger importance to the issue, establishing specialized agencies, such as in Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Oman and others. Nusseir gave the example of Jordan to showcase the importance of e-services. He said that passport renewals in the country now require 30 to 60 minutes, compared to 2 or 3 days before.
The meeting will provide a platform for sharing experiences of selected countries, and overview strategies in countries with advanced e-sector, like Tunisia. It recommends steps to overcome difficulties in the ICT sector, stressing on the speed of extending these applications in the public sector and providing efficient e-services that citizens require.
The meeting covers many e-services such as e-government, e-payment, e-health, e-learning, and other services offered by the public sector, either electronically or through ICT applications.
The meeting tackles the status of the ICT applications in the public sector, the challenges facing the sector, the requirements for introducing or improving ICT applications and e-services such as sustainable strategies and policies, capacity building, infrastructure, financing and legal frameworks. It will also look into latest trends such as mobile services and applications, and regional cooperation for developing and enhancing e-services in the ESCWA region.
