Dubai achieves 96.3% transformation to smart government

Dubai's two year plan for m-government has resulted in an accomplishment rate of 96.3% across the 337 most important government departments, according to an official announcement from news agency WAM.

Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum was presented with a report on the achievement of Dubai government entities in reaching the target of launching comprehensive m-government services by this month. Forty-one government departments succeeded in achieving the shift to m-Services within 730 days.

HH Sheikh Mohammed said that the next step would be to focus on increasing usage of m-government services to 80% and raising satisfaction with the services. He added that a star rating will be introduced to show quality of service, and that the most important achievement over the past two years was the shift in mindset among government departments.

HH Sheikh Mohammed said: "Work teams managed to complete the shift to m-Services. The next stage is to link all services together, improve the quality of smart applications and achieve a high satisfaction rate for smart services. The report also explains that the low numbers of users of some m-Government services were attributed to low awareness of users and sometimes to the difficulty to use these services."

"The target of raising the number of m-Service users to 80% by 2018 has been set. The report also shows varied degrees of quality and user-friendliness of the services... We want these services to be more streamlined, faster and simpler. We also want the customers to be happier than they were in the past years," he added.

"The two-year deadline was not meant to be a scourge hanging over work teams. Rather, it was meant to be just like any other ordinary practice in administration and leadership where a timeline is set for fulfilling each target that we have. The aim of our government is not to keep pace with the ongoing technological and scientific developments in the UAE but to lead these developments. This is no easy challenge."

HH Sheikh Mohammed also said: "The most important change that was taking place over two past years was the change of mentality, the culture of government services and the archaic definition. Today, delivery of services no longer relies on buildings and thousands of employees, but on advanced systems and innovative minds. In the near future, we will see yet bigger and faster changes."

The report on the progress of the m-government initiative was presented in a meeting which was also attended by Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Gargawi, Minister for Cabinet Affairs; Mohamad Ahmad Al-Qamzi, Chairman of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of (TRA); Khalifa Saeed Sulaiman, Director General of Dubai's Protocol Department; Ohood Al Roumi, Director-General Office of the Prime Minister; Hamad Al Mansouri, Director-General of the UAE mGovernment Initiative and Director-General of the TRA. 

HH Sheikh Mohammed launched the mobile government initiative in May 22, 2013.

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