Exchanges of experience between the TRA and the Sharjah Municipality in the field of digital transformation

TRA delegation visits Sharjah Municipality

Mobilk - A delegation from the General Authority for Regulating the Telecommunications Sector (TRA) visited Sharjah Municipality in an effort to share expertise and experience between federal and local government entities to serve digital transformation in the UAE. The visit included a presentation by the TRA delegation on its efforts in implementing the projects and initiatives of the mGovernment strategy and best practices. The national plan was reviewed to support mGovernment objectives, connectivity and integration projects, evaluation, capacity building and other general features of the plan. The visit also addressed how to coordinate between the parties and other government entities in general to achieve mutual benefit and serve the higher objectives of the government.

Abdullah Ali Al Qaidi, Assistant Director General of Corporate Support Sector, Head of the Digital Transformation Team in Sharjah Municipality, confirmed that the Municipality is moving steadily towards establishing digital transformation of all its services and is working to strengthen cooperation with the TRA to drive development and growth, and achieve maximum productivity at work in innovative ways, thus taking steps towards digital transformation, which has become the key driver of business in various fields, and has become the countrys destination as a business model and a success center.

Manal Al Afad, Project Manager and Head of mGovernment Enablers Team, expressed her appreciation to Sharjah Municipality for this initiative, saying: "We came to Sharjah Municipality in line with the directives of our wise leadership to work as a single government team to further our countrys endeavors in digital transformation, which is one of the paths of shaping a bright and sustainable future of our beloved nation. We are pleased with this visit, and we will work on turning it into a milestone in an extensive path of cooperation and experience sharing between the two parties."

The workshop addressed the vision and mission of the national mGovernment plan as well as the strategic themes underlying the mGovernment i.e. innovation, knowledge, government and people. The workshop also reviewed the mGovernment objectives, which are improving customer satisfaction, increasing government efficiency, increasing generation and sharing of knowledge using ICT, and raising innovation. Priority areas of the mGovernment were also reviewed, including the smart infrastructure, smart identity, engagement, awareness, governance and policy, human resources, smart data and updating smart services.

The workshop presented the best practices of federal entities in achieving mGovernment enablers indicators. In addition, the workshop discussed central projects and initiatives such as "SmartPass" which allows the user to log in to different government websites using a single password and username, to access their online services without having to register in each website separately. The TRA also reviewed its "Mabrouk Ma Yak" service, which provides the citizens with five services within one at the event of a new baby born. Through this service, the customer can get new birth certificate, inclusion of the newborn in the family book and population register, issuing Emirates ID and Passport.

At the level of networking of government services and organizations, the workshop addressed the Federal Network (FedNet) project, launched by the TRA, in order to provide a common infrastructure allowing secure access on demand to a range of integrated computing resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage applications, and services) to all federal government entities in the UAE, as well as integrating them with each other and enhancing communication and coordination among them. Another project which was reviewed is the Government Services Bus (GSB), which provides a centralised interconnectivity platform for eGovernment services. It facilitates procedures for accessing eServices and enhances the integration and the quality of government services within a safe electronic environment. GSB assists federal and local government entities to render several services through eConnection process and exchange data smoothly amongst the entities systems. It provides a single window system for integrated government services according to national guidelines and highest digital security. The workshop also addressed the ease of business project, which aims to reduce time and effort taken from customers in establishing and registering their companies, application and the unified service portal.

The workshop agenda included highlighting the mGovernment enablers, which cover seven key indicators as follows: online transformation of government services, online service usage, public awareness of online services, government website compliance with quality standards, government service compliance with quality standards of online services, and online services integration.

The mGovernment aims to achieve 100% in the online transformation index, and to achieve number one globally in the Online Services Index by 2021. It also aims to achieve 80% in the indicators of online service usage, customer happiness, and online service awareness. Additionally, the indicators of website quality index and online service quality index have been set at 93% and 86% respectively. The seventh indicator deals with the online service integration and interconnection index, and the 2018 target for this indicator is set at 60%.

The TRAs delegation included Khawla Al Muhairi, mGovernment Project Manager, and Manal Al Afad, Project Manager and Head of mGovernment Enablers Team. Persons attending from Sharjah Municipality included H.E. Abdullah Ali Al Qaidi, Assistant Director General of Corporate Support Sector, Head of the Digital Transformation Team; Khalifa bin Hadda Al Suwaidi, Assistant Director General of Engineering and Buildings Sector; H.E. Sheikha Shaza Al Mualla, Assistant Director General of Public Health & Central Laboratories Sector, Deputy Director General of the Municipality; and Ms. Halima Samba, Acting Head of the Excellence Programs Division.