December 1, 2003

By Jason Deign, News@Cisco

The Middle East's arid lands are proving a fertile breeding ground for a wide range of e-government initiatives, some of which are already at the forefront of public service delivery in the world.

In as little as a year's time, at the current pace, administrations such as that of the emirate of Dubai look set to overtake current e-government leaders such as Canada, the US or the UK in terms of the penetration and ease of use of automated public service systems.

E-government has really taken off in the region in the last two or three years, says Ghazi Atallah, Cisco® director of operations for the Middle East. "The first governments to get involved were those of Dubai, Egypt and Jordan.

"When the worldwide buzz regarding e-government started up, governments in the region saw it as a way to bring the benefits of technology both to their own organizations and to the populations they served."

The first e-government applications to be piloted in the region varied from one government to another. In Dubai, the administration started its network ambitions with immigration and police systems. Jordan used electronic systems to improve municipal transactions.

And in Egypt, the technology was brought to bear on healthcare and customs services.

These early pilots were quickly followed by major, widespread deployments across the region. Several factors, it turns out, make the Middle East ideal for e-government projects. Namely:

• Governments are readily convinced by the experiences of others in the region - and quick to follow early successful examples.
• There is very little existing technology infrastructure in the region's administrations, so it is relatively easy for governments to leapfrog technologies and move straight to the latest IP networks.
• Middle Eastern populations are mostly very young - typically with 50 to 60 percent of people under the age of 18 - which means that they are at ease with new technology and have high expectations of service.
• Traditional government bureaucracies in the various countries that can be readily be made more efficient through e-government systems—these bureaucracies in the past have been a barrier both for foreign investment and home-grown commerce.

Virtually every government in the area now has some degree of networked public sector service delivery, with some, such as that of the State of Qatar, providing almost complete access to services online.

Most of the applications - such as the Saudi Ministry of Finance's e-transactions and numerous municipal and police systems - are typical of e-government setups the world over. There are, however, a number of deployments that simply could not be found anywhere else.

Foremost of these is perhaps that of the Saudi Ministry of Hajj, which oversees the affairs of the two to three million pilgrims visiting the country during Dhu'l Hijja, the 10 days each year when Muslims undertake their lifetime trip to Mecca, and the many other faithful who visit at other times.

In working with Cisco and other companies and agencies, the Ministry of Hajj has spent around US$25 million on an e-government project which allows pilgrims to do everything from acquiring visas to booking hotels online. A further investment of some US$100 million is planned for further improvements to the service.

Infrastructure-wise, Middle Eastern e-government projects use virtually every technology in the Cisco portfolio, from routers and switches through to security systems, storage area networks, wireless LANs or IP telephony.

Cisco is not just supplying technology to support moves to e-government, however. A number of initiatives are also encouraging knowledge transfer to bolster the pool of skills needed to manage burgeoning government networks.

Particularly notable is a scheme aimed at increasing the number of female network engineers in Jordan, where women currently make up 27 percent of the information and communications technology work force.

The project, launched last year under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, is a joint venture between Cisco and UNIFEM (the United Nations Development Fund for Women), in collaboration with the Jordanian Ministry of Education.

It involves 10 Cisco Networking Academy® schemes where women make up more than 60 percent of students training to achieve CCNA® certification, a global standard for network engineers.

These skills will doubtless be invaluable as administrations in the region continue to embrace e-government. Atallah says: "Already we have some examples of applications which are up there with the best in the world.

"The region is still lagging at the level of overall application availability but in the next two years I think we will see a major increase in the provision of services, with places such as Dubai, Jordan and Qatar setting the pace for e-government worldwide."

Jason Deign is a freelance writer based in Barcelona, Spain.