Bahrain’s Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA) has implemented the ‘Cloud First’ policy, enabling migrating systems to the Cloud following the best practices while adhering to iGA’s security standards and procedures.

The announcement came from Mohamed Ali AlQaed, chief executive of iGA at the recent Amazon Web Services Summit hosted by Bahrain.

Bahrain was selected by Amazon to become the first leading regional center for data in the Middle East and Africa regions. With such announcement, the Kingdom is considered to have made another international accomplishment added to its rich record.

AlQaed said in his presentation that Bahrain is considered today as one of the leading countries in the Middle East that adopts the Cloud policy in the public sector. “Such step will open a wide range of providing high salary jobs in the public and private sectors as well as all related sectors,” he added.

He also highlighted that many government entities in the Kingdom are able to transfer their systems to the Cloud and that the authority has already begun this step which is a quantum leap in the field of adopting the latest technologies.

Moreover, AlQaed revealed that - up until now - four integrated government systems have been transferred – these include iGA, Ministry of Education, Bahrain Institute of Public Administration (BIPA) along with Ministry of Justice & Islamic Affairs which are the first entities to embrace this policy and are thanked for their active role as well as constructive collaboration in an initiative considered as a leap in achieving the eGovernment program on a national level.

Additionally, more than 20 government websites have been transferred utilizing more than 100 server from a total of 650 which the government announced its commitment to become transferred end of 2017 – becoming one of the leading countries in this field.

He explained that the authority has focused on building efficiency in the public sector by a process that was accomplished through working within the pioneering eGovernment program, developing the eGovernment channels, supporting users’ experience, finding an advanced government data network as well as enhancing technical efficiency and reducing expenses.

Furthermore, he clarified that implementing the cloud will contribute in reducing IT expenditures by up to 30 per cent-90 per cent according to the nature of each system. It also contributes in facilitating the management of government services, speeds accomplishment of projects as well as increases productivity and enhances level of online security and quality of services.

AlQaed also confirmed that embracing the migration and adoption of ‘Cloud First’ Policy is in line with the National Strategic Plan and Government Work Plan which allow ministries to deliver more services to citizens and customers with lower IT operation costs – enabling them to focus more on the business rather than the maintenance of expensive IT systems.

As part of iGA’s adoption journey, iGA has previously conducted a workshop for ICT senior officials in government entities in order to introduce them to the policy and cloud strategy in all its details. It has also collaborated with all government entities in this field. – TradeArabia News Service