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e-Transparency Initiative
Jeddah Municipality
Saudi Arabia

The Problem

E-government is used in many countries to reduce corruption and increase transparency (Bhatnagar and Singh, 2009; Fan, 2009; Liu, 2008).

Before 2007, the Jeddah Municipality (JM) website was a simple website that only contained limited static basic information about the Municipality and the City of Jeddah and no interactive services. The information was neither dynamic nor current. Furthermore, the website did not provide a channel of communication for website visitors to contact the Municipality. Residents of Jeddah needed to visit the Municipality if they needed any service or if they needed to know about regulations and rules. Theses consumers were also unable to view any information about running projects in the city or about future development plans. They also were not involved in any of the decision making processes. Investors and business owners did not know any information about the investment opportunities offered in the city unless they visited the headquarters and searched for that information.

In 2007, The Jeddah Municipality, in its effort to improve transparency to the public took on an e-Transparency initiative, which included the launch of its e-Transparency section of the portal, which contains the city strategy, projects, budgets and spending, and performance reports in 2009 and its e-Procurement Web-based System in 2010. The Municipality put on a strategy where it felt that its efforts, spending, and strategies must be exposed to the recipients of services. This became in particular important after the Jeddah floods in October 2009 left 109 people dead and people wanted more transparency to see where government money was spent, feeling that corruption or bad planning may have contributed to the catastrophe. The disaster was a turning point in the country’s history. And in May 2010 a Saudi Royal Decree was issued to form a committee to investigate if corruption could have contributed to the loss of lives. JM felt that exposing its procurement, spending and budget details were a major cornerstone in giving the residents what they want to see.

With a vision to be "The main means of communication between the Jeddah Municipality and its stakeholders and their main faster and easier source for information about both the City of Jeddah and the Jeddah Municipality, and point of contact, where they can submit requests, follow up on older requests, download information, use municipal e-services, receive investment opportunities, or collaborate, more efficiently and effectively, anytime and from anywhere" the new version of the Jeddah Municipality Portal was launched in 2007. The portal is also targeted to improve communication between the stakeholders and the Municipality personnel and decision makers, as it enables citizens to have a more participatory role in the strategic planning of Jeddah and to become more active participants in development of their city.

The beneficiaries of the Portal are business people, investors, government agencies, Jeddah citizens, Jeddah visitors, engineering offices, and contractors.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The Jeddah Municipality e-Transparency initiative has truly changed the way the Municipality conducts its business and provides its services to residents and investors. The initiative is composed of three main components so far:

1. The e-Transparency section of the portal, which contains the city strategy, JM projects, budgets and spending, and performance reports.

2. The e-Procurement Web-based System. 3. e-Governance empowerment tools that enable users to critique, comment, provide feedback, suggest projects and improvements, and submit complaints.

In addition to increasing transparency and improving procurement fairness, the e-Transparency initiative also promotes healthy competition and strengthens communication and democracy. First, the e-Transparency section enables visitors to both view current information and to monitor and comment on any item related to the city strategy, running projects, KPIs or performance, budget spending and proposed future projects and budgets. Many examples which illustrate the role citizens played in future projects exist. Perhaps the most important was related to the massive feedback and reviews received from people before the “City Cleaning Projects” RFPs for the upcoming year were officially released as tenders. More than 400 thorough reviews and comments were received, which helped JM officials review some sections of the projects and promoting equal opportunity for all. Residents and contractors are now able to provide electronic feedback on any RFP, even before it becomes an official tender. The visitor empowerment tools provide visitors with forms, online discussion forums, contacts, and Web 2.0 tools to provide feedback.

Also through the portal, one can voice his opinion, download the service guide, look up amenities in Jeddah, receive services, participate in strategic decision making in the city planning, file a complaint textually or geographically, read daily Municipality news, and follow-up transactions.. For investors, the portal provides policies and procedures, investment opportunities, RFPs, Urban Planning documents, rules and regulations, and service guides. For engineering offices, the Portal is the gateway to apply and process building permits.
Polls and online surveys are available to enable residents to rate the quality of life in the City. Results from these polls help JM prioritize its projects and efforts. During the year 2011 over 4000 thorough surveys were filled out by visitors. Furthermore, hundreds participated in online one question monthly polls covering a range of subjects both related to the portal and to the services provided by JM.
The Portal constantly witnesses an increased number of visitors starting with about 400,000 visitors in 2008 and exceeding 1,500,000 in 2011. Furthermore, 19% of the 3173 JM registered contractors have signed up to use the e-Procurement System. As a result, the Municipality was able to get higher participation levels in bidding for the different tender offerings, thus enabling it to have healthier competition. It also enabled JM to better understand what its stakeholders really want and need and thus align its priorities with these need.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
Top management of the Jeddah Municipality, led by the Mayor of Jeddah, realized the importance of increasing the communication with Jeddah Citizens and improving the quality of service they provide to them. So the decision to develop Jeddah Municipality Portal was taken by the Municipality to allow people to experience a faster and more transparent form of access to all the information and services the Municipality has.
The Municipality hired a team of 5 women with computer science backgrounds to initiate the project. The head of the team was an academic university professor who was seconded at the Municipality to lead the project. The initial design was developed by the team and monitored personally by the Mayor. The team increased in size and skill set gradually over the past years. Today, the portal is managed by a team of developers, designers, and content managers, under the Information Technology Department umbrella. The team is responsible for all requirements including planning, information gathering, analysis, designing, development, testing, administration, and maintenance.
The current version, launched in 2011, was designed by the development team with a consultancy panel that included head of Investment, head of Administration and Financial Affairs, head of GIS, head of Performance Management, and head of PMO and Strategy. The Portal was developed by conducting periodical meetings with these and many other department representatives. The development spanned over a year.
Furthermore, the JM Portal itself includes a discussion forum, which includes a page for visitors to suggest portal improvements and critique current items.
The Portal is constantly improved and more services are added. All feedback received by either internal or external stakeholders is seriously considered and taken into action if deemed feasible. Some of the newer services provided through the Portal were suggested by users, such as a service for tracking service calls which was proposed by a citizen who was unable to track his street lighting service order online. Internal stakeholders are the JM employees and departments. The external stakeholders include habitants of Jeddah, visitors and tourists, investors and business men and women, other government agencies and employers, and researchers.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The main goal of the e-Transparency initiative was namely to increase transparency, improve communication, and empower people to become more proactive in the improvement of their city. Such initiatives are sometimes known as e-democracy initiatives.
The main objective of Jeddah Municipality Portal is to be the gateway to stakeholders of the Municipality to different e-government services and to be the main source of information for them on Municipal services and activities as well as city-related events, news, and information. Jeddah Municipality has a strategy to increase transparency and to increase the efficiency of the services Jeddah Municipality provides to individuals, including citizens, businesses and other government organizations. For Jeddah Municipality, the Portal is the main tool for information and communication where people can access reliable, accurate, and updated information faster and easier.
The Portal is developed and managed by a team that follows strict well documented policies and procedures used for adding or updating any content. Furthermore, the team follows a preset update schedule to ensure that all updates are constantly done on time and no outdated material is on the site.

Furthermore, the Jeddah Municipality Portal uses an efficient and user-friendly design compatible with W3C standards in order to enable accessibility to all. The standards used comply with the XHTML 1.0 version and have been validated by W3C as compliant.
The portal and the e-transparency initiative are constantly developed and improved. A gradual development enabled JM to do constant formative and summative reviews. The development is led by the IT Department, with constant feedback and close supervision from the top management. The IT Department is responsible for developing all related guidelines and strategies, which in turn are aligned with the general Jeddah Municipality Strategy. Furthermore, JM has an Electronic Services Steering Committee, headed by the Mayor with major department representation, which meets monthly to monitor, discuss and review all related e-services and initiatives.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The main goal of the e-Transparency initiative was namely to increase transparency, improve communication, and empower people to become more proactive in the improvement of their city. Such initiatives are sometimes known as e-democracy initiatives.
The main objective of Jeddah Municipality Portal is to be the gateway to stakeholders of the Municipality to different e-government services and to be the main source of information for them on Municipal services and activities as well as city-related events, news, and information. Jeddah Municipality has a strategy to increase transparency and to increase the efficiency of the services Jeddah Municipality provides to individuals, including citizens, businesses and other government organizations. For Jeddah Municipality, the Portal is the main tool for information and communication where people can access reliable, accurate, and updated information faster and easier.
The Portal is developed and managed by a team that follows strict well documented policies and procedures used for adding or updating any content. Furthermore, the team follows a preset update schedule to ensure that all updates are constantly done on time and no outdated material is on the site.

Furthermore, the Jeddah Municipality Portal uses an efficient and user-friendly design compatible with W3C standards in order to enable accessibility to all. The standards used comply with the XHTML 1.0 version and have been validated by W3C as compliant.
The portal and the e-transparency initiative are constantly developed and improved. A gradual development enabled JM to do constant formative and summative reviews. The development is led by the IT Department, with constant feedback and close supervision from the top management. The IT Department is responsible for developing all related guidelines and strategies, which in turn are aligned with the general Jeddah Municipality Strategy. Furthermore, JM has an Electronic Services Steering Committee, headed by the Mayor with major department representation, which meets monthly to monitor, discuss and review all related e-services and initiatives.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
Several obstacles were faced. One of the main obstacles was to hire and retain highly skilled IT professionals with limited government budgets and constraints. Furthermore, constant dynamic changing policies and procedures was another obstacle. The controversy of whether increased transparency is an advantage or disadvantage to the Municipality within the different departments was also an obstacle which kept departments from providing full information to the public. Change management within JM to convince people that transparency has more advantages than disadvantages was very challenging. This became a bigger challenge as people constantly monitored and critiqued and the media took an aggressive role with the majority highlighting the negatives and minimizing the positives of performance. It was interesting to see that most of the resistance was internal than from external stakeholders.
Another obstacle is related to making large size maps for construction projects available through the e-Procurement System. Some contractors do not have the ability to download such large sized maps. Currently, these are provided on CD to those who are unable to successfully download them. Another issue currently faced by JM is the need to constantly monitor the discussion forums to answer user questions. These require human resources and commitment. JM is working on providing these through the media center.
To overcome these obstacles, the Municipality increased the IT budget to attract skilled professionals and opened more job opportunities for developers and designers with competitive packages. JM also made sure a full team is available to develop the portal constantly to accommodate for any JM policy changes. The Municipality also allocated permanent jobs to some of the developers.
The road was long and rocky. But with constant support from top management and constant governance and enforcement, all departments were forced to cooperative to make the initiative possible.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
Currently, the website development team consists of a highly skilled team with a minimum of a college degree in computing or a related field. The team also includes two graphic designers. Some of these members are municipality government employees while the rest are contracted through the Municipality. Having official employees as members of the team assured the sustainability of the Website, as these are unlikely to leave the organization. At the beginning of the project, in 2007, all members were contractors, with the threat of leaving the organization for better external opportunities. Today, most of the team members are government permanent staff.
The Municipality also located an annual budget of several million Saudi Riyals to retain and improve the portal.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The initiative is sustainable and transferrable. The website is managed by an IT in-house team, whose sole job is to constantly develop both its technical aspects and its content. Some of the updates are daily such as news items and project information, while others are periodically or on-demand, such as standard department information or new project initiation. Furthermore, aspects such as budget information, tender information and announcements, and online discussion are all instant and dynamically updated.
Furthermore, the JM Strategy includes the transformation of a total paperless environment. And, hence, more and more usage of the portal and e-services is seen every day. Small policies such as the prohibition of selling anymore hard copies of tender documents and only enabling investors to buy online are truly what make the solution sustainable. Constant governance is also important to support and enforce.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
E-government should improve citizen relations with the government as well as it did with businesses. At the minimum, it must be used to “transform governments by making them more accessible, effective and accountable by making their operations more transparent and, thus, reducing the opportunities for corruption. Through e-government, information is more accessible and civic engagement is promoted by enabling the public to interact with government officials” (InfoDev, 2002). This is what the Jeddah Municipality aims to do through its e-transparency initiative**.
The Jeddah Municipality e-Transparency initiative increased transparency, improved communication, enhanced democracy, and made the procurement process much faster. Procurement was mainly improved by enabling more contractors the opportunity to bid on projects. This is evident by the variation and increase in numbers of contractors bidding on JM projects and by seeing newcomers who were not seen before the e-procurement system. This alone improved fair competition and gave JM more options, thus improving project outcomes. The e-Procurement System has in turn also clearly improved the efficiency of the public procurement process for JM and its clients. The Municipality implemented the System gradually and plans to continue to improve the System by adding more services and by integrating with other JM Systems. The Municipality has also been selected by the Saudi Ministry of Information Technology and Communication, which oversees the Saudi e-Government Program, as a model for other public organizations, where it constantly refers them to conduct visits to JM to view and learn from their e-Procurement experience. It is clear that success of its efforts have been made possible by both horizontal and vertical collaboration and coordination and top management support. Awareness programs and online two-way communication channels are two more ingredients that contributed to the success of the Jeddah Municipality e-Procurement System.
The success was mainly contributed to top management support, allocated budgets, and skilled resources, coupled with perseverance and governance. Resources to manage, develop and interact with users, are definitely a key success factor for the e-Transparency initiative.
The Jeddah Municipality is also working on other efforts to improve governance and productivity and to reap more benefits of e-government initiatives. The e-transparency initiative promotes democracy and encourages true government transformation. It has indeed resulted in a healthier government-public relationship.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Jeddah Municipality
Institution Type:   Government Agency  
Contact Person:   Arwa Al-Aama
Title:   Dr.  
Telephone/ Fax:   0096626148661
Institution's / Project's Website:   www.jeddah.gov.sa
E-mail:   aalaama@jeddah.gov.sa  
Address:   P.O.Box 7687
Postal Code:   21146
City:   Jeddah
State/Province:   Western
Country:   Saudi Arabia

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