The Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) held an introductory workshop on the digital government roadmap, which was attended by a number of representatives of ministries and government entities in the UAE. 

 

The workshop, held virtually via Zoom, aimed to highlight the digital government guiding document and roadmap 2021-2025 prepared by TDRA, which includes developing and launching the Unified Digital Platform, and transferring 100% of government services to the platform within two years.

 

This workshop comes in light of TDRA’s launch of the UAE Strategy for Government Services and supporting policies, and the need for federal entities to adopt digital government enablers, in order to provide proactive, integrated, easy and fast digital services that exceed customer needs and expectations through a unified platform, in line with the principles of UAE Centennial 2071 and the National Strategy for Wellbeing 2031.

 

Commenting on this workshop, Eng Mohamed Ibrahim Al Zarooni, Deputy Director General of the Digital Government Sector at TDRA, said: “TDRA’s launch of the Digital Government Roadmap 2021-2025 comes at a time when world countries have understood the key importance of digital transformation and the need to adopt digital initiatives and switch to digital services to maintain the safety and security of their peoples. The United Arab Emirates, pursuant to its wise leadership directives, has been proactive in adopting plans and strategies aimed at achieving a full digital transformation, enabling all members of society to access government services and even private sector services via the smartphone. Today, UAE residents can utilise 2500 digital services in the various fields of economy, health, education and community.”

 

Eng Al Zarooni added: This workshop aimed to introduce the digital government roadmap, future of digital transformation in UAE over the next four years, TDRA’s plans to achieve a fully comprehensive digital transformation and deliver all government services through a unified digital platform, thus making the lives of citizens, residents and visitors easier and allowing businesses to obtain licences and official documents easily. This workshop is a window whereby we tried to introduce the attendees to UAE’s digital future, in which we strive to make the UAE a forerunner in digital transformation. The Digital Government Roadmap 2021-2025 is within the context of achieving UAE’s leadership and global competitiveness in digital government and contributing to community happiness, by advancing the country’s digital transformation process and enhancing the UAE trend towards adopting 4IR technologies backed by 5G, IoT and AI.”

 

Speakers highlighted the six strategic themes of the roadmap, namely: infrastructure and services; common digital enablers; the Unified Digital Platform; laws, policies and standards, digital,capacity, building, engagement and outreach. The map also included 64 initiatives to work on the six themes.

 

Speakers also discussed strategic priorities of the roadmap, which are to provide a world-class digital infrastructure to ensure secure digital services that guarantee privacy; provide a unified digital platform and common digital enablers; government system integration and service automation; provide quick and easy digital services saving customers from visiting business centers, filling applications and attaching supporting documents; ensure digital-ready legislation to ensure a seamless and holistic digital transformation; raise government efficiency; and leverage digital capabilities & skills.

 

In order to ensure a proper implementation of the roadmap items, TDRA has developed five strategic indicators, namely achieving a 100% end-to-end true digital transformation within 2 years, raising customer happiness to 90%, increasing the digital uptake by 85%, inclusive and full training of the federal government workforce on digital enablers by 100%, providing a single digital platform and unified digital experience across all federal government services by 100%.

 

Speakers emphasised that the roadmap items can be fulfilled through the common digital enablers owned by UAE, including the digital identity, signature & seal, end-to-end secure linking between government entities, secure data exchange with the private sector, digital trust platform, utilisation of emerging technologies, and commitment to global digital standards.

 

In cooperation with other government entities, TDRA will seek to build digital capabilities in the federal government, ensure digital-ready laws and policies for a true digital transformation, provide uninterrupted digital platforms to ensure business continuity in all circumstances, and enhance planning & investing in future technology. -- TradeArabia News Service