United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

Bahrain recognizes the importance and the need for collaborative and innovative ways of delivering Government services to make life easier. This is the philosophy behind Bahrain’s eGovernment, which is more than a technology, it is a tool that is easily accessible and for the benefit of everyone in the Kingdom and beyond. Therefore, the Government of Bahrain identified that providing better public service delivery to citizens is a major concern of the ministries in the Kingdom. In this regard, even though each ministry had undertaken some initiatives on their own, a full fledged and integrated service delivery mechanism for people was not in force.

The major issues related to the public service delivery are bureaucratic hurdles, inefficient processes, outdated policies, inability of the existing government mechanism to handle the ever increasing demand for the public services. At the same time, Bahrain is uniquely placed in having one of the best ICT infrastructures amongst the countries in Middle East. It has a Government wide Data network connecting ministries, one of the highest personal computer penetration in the Arab world, highest mobile and internet penetration, advanced telecommunication infrastructure, and high literacy rate. It is in this backdrop, the Kingdom of Bahrain decided to leverage its ICT strength to solve the issues in improving the public service delivery. This led the Kingdom to evolve a national eGovernment strategy and programme implementation.

The eGovernment Strategy and implementation for the Kingdom of Bahrain is an all encompassing programme for a period of almost 4 years. The programme started in the middle of 2006 with the strategy development phase. The strategy phase was completed in December 2006. The eGovernment Strategy of the Kingdom of Bahrain was launched by the deputy Prime Minister, H.E. Shaikh Mohammed bin Mubarak al-Khalifa on 23rd May 2007. The Strategy to be implemented over 3 years aims to bring a dramatic shift in provisioning of government services to all the constituents of the Bahrain society – citizens, expatriates, businesses, public sector employees and visitors.

As a part of this programme, the kingdom is implementing over 167 eServices spread across 22 ministries to the citizens through various channels like the National web portal, Mobile portal, Common Service centres, Kiosks and National Contact Centre. The strategic vision of this programme is “Deliver Customer value through Collaborative Government”.

Finally, it is essential to highlight the fact that in the past two years, Bahrain has made considerable achievements in terms of building up the e-government infrastructure, providing straightforwardly accessible and user-friendly e-government services to customers. The focus of the next wave of e-government is a citizen-centric mode of public service delivery, highlighting on customer engagement, information management and the development of simple yet secure means of verification. The accessibility of handy and secure electronic services will improve citizens' quality of life and strengthen confidence in governance.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
eGovernment programme of the Kingdom aims to improve the service delivery to the citizens by providing easy and 24X7 access to all government services. In addition the online transaction are faster than face-to face transactions and it makes the state more responsive to everyone’s needs in order to help the citizens to see the government as a positive force in their lives. This is achieved through providing services on various channels like web portals, mobiles, common service centres and call centres. The web portal has already been implemented and is currently hosting 68 services. Some of the major achievements for the portal since its launch in May 2007 are as follows: 68 services provided online; Over USD 10 million payments done online; Over 10 million hits; Over 6 minutes of average time spent per visit; Visits from over 190 countries / territories covering all six continents; new visitors are being added at the rate of about 30%; over 70% of repeat visitors; 93% of direct traffic – demonstrating very high recognition of the Portal URL. The Kingdom conducts yearly citizen’s satisfaction surveys across the country to measure the impact of the eGovernment service delivery. The outcomes are analyzed and corrective measures are adopted for continuous improvement. The customer satisfaction survey indicated that 80% of who used the eGovernment Services expressed their willingness for repeat usage. Similarly, the UN eGovernment rank improvement from 53 to 42 in the year 2008 is one of the clear indications of the good impact of the eGovernment programme in Bahrain. The key benefits accrued to the citizens resulting from the initiative are: provision of 24 x 7 delivery of services to the public, convenience for citizens, reduction in the cost of service delivery, increase the depth and breadth of services, reducing the service turnaround time, and being a proactive and responsive government. Whereas the key benefits accrued to the government and ministry officials are – reduction in work load, faster processing time, better service delivery, being more responsive to the citizens and satisfied employees.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The Kingdom of Bahrain was in the forefront to implement innovative ways of improving the governance for the better service delivery to the public. They had embraced the use of ICT for governance from the past. All ministries had their websites and some of the services provided online. But the need for an integrated model of service delivery through an eGovernment programme connecting all public institutions in the Kingdom was required. Therefore, a committee for ICT was created under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister of the Kingdom. This committee called Supreme Committee for ICT (SCICT) comprised of Ministers. The SCICT proposed to go for a country wide integrated eGovernment Programme. SCICT decided to go for a pilot national portal to be launched with the help of private participation. In the year 2005 - 06, the government launched its first national portal with the help of BATELCO – the largest telecommunication service provider in Bahrain. The pilot was a great success. Based on the success of the pilot, the SCICT appointed a high level ministry official committee (Technical Committee – TCICT) to develop a wider scheme of eGovernment programme. As a result, the government appointed a consultant to assist in the development of national eGovernment Strategy. This strategy was a unified exercise by more than 25 ministries / government agencies. The strategy was later approved by SCICT and the ministries are implementing the same. During the development of the strategy, public opinion was also sought through “Voice of customers” survey to identify the needs and aspirations of the citizens. Based on this, the priority list of services and delivery channels were identified. In short, the eGovernment programme is a collective exercise through the participation of one and all, viz., citizens, businesses, government employees, ministries and the top leadership team of the Kingdom. The SCICT created a nodal agency by name eGovernment Authority (eGA) to implement the national eGovernment programme. eGA along with the participating ministries is implementing the programme. eGA supports ministries to implement the programme through technical, financial and human resource assistance. All the participating ministries have formulated working groups with members from both the business and technical teams. eGA interacts regularly with these working groups to resolve any issues / concerns regarding the programme implementation. These working groups own and direct the implementation of the eGovernment programme in their respective ministries. Most of the initiatives are being implemented through private partnerships.

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 eGovernment strategy for the Kingdom of Bahrain is focused on ensuring effective delivery of government services to citizens, residents and businesses (customers). The eGovernment strategy is summed up as “Deliver Customer Value through Collaborative Government”. The Kingdom regards recipients of government services as ‘customers’ and not ‘beneficiaries’, i.e. looking at citizens/businesses as customers with ‘unique needs and requirements.’ There are two key implications of the customer concept: 1. Customers have ‘choices’ and demand ‘services’ - Customers have different needs and differing requirements in terms of how these needs are to be serviced. Fundamental to this fact is the expectation of better service and service levels. Customers increasingly want to know how long it will take to solve a problem or remedy a situation. The concept of choices and service is especially true for delivery of government services, as a government cannot chose its customers and yet it needs to serve all. 2. They demand ‘value for money’ - Citizens are not willing to pay for basic services that are part of standard governance responsibilities of the government. Even when the government is able to extend the effectiveness of the service delivery model through innovation, citizen’s willingness to pay is driven by value for money. This necessitates government to be efficient. The Kingdom will need to continuously seek ways to reduce cost for availing government services. The eGovernment strategy has five key elements: 1. eGovernment Leader – The Kingdom of Bahrain aspires to maintain and improve upon its position as a regional eGovernment leader that is committed in using leading edge technologies to serve and provide value to its customers. It aspires to be recognized as a leader that countries in the region look up to and learn from. 2. All Government Services – The eGovernment strategy for the Kingdom is focused on the provision of services to customers, and in this respect will work towards electronic enablement of all key services (comprising over 90% of transactions today). 3. Integrated, Best-in-Class – The Kingdom will strive to increase satisfaction levels of customers with government services by redesigning processes in a customer-centric fashion. Services will be delivered such that customers interact with one ‘government’ rather than multiple agencies. Service levels will be communicated upfront and religiously adhered to. 4. Available to All – Given that governments do not choose their customers, the Kingdom of Bahrain will ensure effective delivery of applicable government services to all, irrespective of their education, nationality, age or income. 5. Channel of Choice – In order to achieve the above, the Kingdom will provide customers multiple channels for availing government services. A ‘no wrong door’ policy that allows customers to avail a service through multiple channels will be implemented. The above mentioned key elements of the strategy were established through a consultative process with participation from SCICT, TCICT, government employees, citizens and businesses.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The eGovernment programme had a clear road map for implementation to achieve its goals and objectives in a time bound manner. The key development and implementation steps of the programme were the following: 1) Formation of the SCICT - Jul 2005 2) Formation of the TCICT - Jul 2005 3) Voice of Customer Survey and eReadiness Assessment of Ministries – Jun to Dec 2006 4) Launch of National Portal with 3 services online – June 2006 5) Launch of the Payment gateway facility – June 2006 6) Development of the National eGovernment Strategy – Dec 2006 7) Appointment of Programme Management Consultants – Jan 2007 8) Launch of the National eGovernment Strategy Implementation- May 2007 9) Launch of the National Portal with 30 services online – May 2007 10) Set up of the National eGovernment Authority – Sep 2007 11) Launch of revised National Portal – Oct 2008 12) Launch of mobile services (SMS) – Oct 2008 13) Launch of 68 services online – Dec 2008 Achievements: 1) The eGovernment strategy has been widely appreciated by leading international agencies including UN (Quote the words of UNPAN Authorities “UN would publish the Bahrain eGovernment strategy in their website for other countries to study and emulate”) 2) Setting up of eGovernment Authority (eGA) for the Kingdom 3) Launch of a National Portal with over 60 electronic services, and over 6 million visits, over USD 10 million payments through the national portal. 4) Won several national and international awards for the eGovernment programme – ICT4D award for the national smart card project

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
eGovernment programme implementation had the following obstacles: 1. Lack of key resources: A programme of this size requires experienced project managers and varied technology and business skills at different levels in the ministries. Bahrain as a country lacks these resources. eGA recruited qualified people from other geographies on contract basis and also hired vendors; skill up-gradation of the existing government employees through the various capacity building training programmes; sponsored overseas training for the employees. These actions ensured that best-in-class skills sets are available in Bahrain for the programme implementation. 2. Ownership, relationships, and Cooperation from stakeholders: As the programme success is dependent on delivering eServices, which in turn are owned by stakeholders (ministries), their cooperation is the key. To ensure the continuous co-operation and support, the following actions were undertaken - Created a high level steering committee led by the Deputy Prime Minister for overseeing the progress - SCICT and TCICT; Creation of task teams for implementation- Task force in ministries; Conduct meetings at frequent intervals for status tracking and issue resolution. Effective communication amongst the stakeholders is the key success factor for any eGovernment initiative to succeed. Stakeholders should also ensure the participation of users and business communities during formulation of processes /regulations regarding the use of technology by public administration. 3. Loosing focus on the big picture: The programme because of its size as well as duration sometimes lacks focus and direction. In order to avoid this, the following strategies were adopted - Creation of a central Authority (eGovernment Authority) for facilitating implementation, Quarterly review of the strategy achievement and implementation plan, Status tracking through periodic progress reports, Review and preparation of yearly plans, and benchmarking with similar international initiatives. 4. Lack of capacity building measures amongst stakeholders: For the sustenance of the eGovernment initiatives, proper capacity building and transfer of knowledge has to happen between implementers and stakeholders. This is required for a continuous business operation cycle. These obstacles were overcome by the following - creation of Bahrain Institute for Public Administration (BIPA) for administering the complete training and skill up-gradation of government employees, creation of central pool of resources capable of managing the operations through sourcing. 5. Lack of standards and policies: Ministries lacked standards and policies for the data exchange or inter-operability. This has resulted in compatibility issues between applications for delivering eServices. This was overcome by creation of standards and policies by eGA for developing and maintaining eServices. 6. Lack of awareness among the citizens and lack of trust in e- commerce: The success of the eGovernment programme lies in the uptake of newly developed electronic channels vis-à-vis traditional channels. This required a massive awareness and capacity building campaigns throughout the Kingdom. The Marketing Awareness directorate of eGA conducts awareness campaigns, and various marketing initiatives for the general public. The success of the eGovernment programme is also dependant on the citizens’ trust in e-commerce especially performing online payment related transactions. Concentrated efforts are required to create awareness among the general public and build their trust in e-commerce.

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
The eGovernment programme has a three year implementation target to provide 167 Key government services over four channels – the National web portal, mobile portal, common service centres and call centre. The programme is spread across more than 22 Ministries / government agencies of the Kingdom. As such, proper mobilization and better use of resources is the key to the success of the programme implementation. The eGovernment programme is a completely internal government funded project. The total outlay of the programme for three years of implementation is 22.9 million Bahrain Dinars. This includes the cost for technical and human resources. The technical cost comprises of the hardware, software, technical consultation assistance and implementation efforts. The formation of eGA has provided the basic programme management support and technical support for the programme implementation. Other than this, the support of working groups in each ministry (Technical and Business teams) is being extensively used for the implementation. And wherever, the government requires external technical assistance, they procure the same through competitive tenders. This includes fixed price contracts as well as on Time & Material basis.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The eGovernment strategy and programme implementation is an ongoing transformation initiative adopted by the Kingdom of Bahrain. The first strategy in this regard was initiated in 2006 and an implementation over a period of 3 years. In order for the programme to succeed and sustain, the national eGovernment Authority (eGA) was formulated to oversee the implementation. The programme is being owned and supported by the ministries. The following are the efforts in the direction of the sustenance and replication of the programme: a) Review of the strategy implementation at regular intervals and devising the forthcoming strategy for further improvements. b) Conduct bi-annual citizen survey to assess the satisfaction levels and scope for further improvements. c) Conduct business process re-engineering and improve the process by streamlining of government operations and initiate administrative reforms in the forthcoming strategy. d) Continuous training for the employees to upgrade the skills required for sustaining the eGovernment initiatives. e) Implement common polices and standards for ICT initiatives through the implementation of Kingdom-wide Enterprise Architecture. f) Support the ministries by providing ICT infrastructure, financial, technical and human resources. Other than the above, the programme is also supporting in creating an enabling environment for eGovernment. The initiatives in this regard are the following: a) Marketing and awareness campaigns for increased use and uptake of electronic services. b) Implementation of customer charter defining the service levels for all services provided by government. c) Creation of ICT education strategy for creating a pool of skill sets for the use and support of ICT in the Kingdom d) Support and provide advise to the Telecom Regulatory Authority in terms of representation in the Business User Advisory Group e) Enhance the role of eGA by providing consultancy support to other countries for implementing eGovernment through leveraging the experience in Bahrain. Note: After a recent meeting with UNPAN, the UNPAN had decided to publish the eGovernment Strategy of Bahrain on their website for other countries to emulate. This is recognition of the acceptance of the efforts of Bahrain in this area.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The eGovernment programme of the Kingdom has been widely accepted by the people in the kingdom as well as internationally. The impact made by the programme has been manifold – improvement in the customer satisfaction for the government service as evident from the customer surveys. 80% of who used the eGovernment services expressed their willingness for repeat usage. Another remarkable achievement is the improvement in the UN eGovernment Survey ranking from 53 to 42 in the year 2008. The key elements that made this programme a success are the following: a) Clear political mandate and buy in from the top leadership of the Kingdom (The Supreme Committee for ICT led by the Deputy Prime Minister) b) Highly motivated team in eGovernment Authority c) Alignment of ministry level goals to eGovernment strategy d) Well defined programme governance framework – SCICT, TCICT, Task Force, eGA, etc. e) A Strategy that clearly addresses the citizens needs A concentrated effort involving all stakeholders is needed, including the public sector and the private sector at large; yet such initiatives may well be disjointed and erratic at times. The government cannot control all activities or conditions needed for e-Government to succeed. eGovernment is not an exclusively governmental intervention and seeks for more partnerships with private sector .It demands participation and commitment from the non-public sector agents and citizens. For the most part, Bahrain has tried to involve all of society in its initiatives in the past. To actively involve private sector in eGovernment programmes, eGA had taken an initiative to promote Bahrain’s Private IT companies alongwith Public Sector agencies in the GITEX event. Bahrain faces huge challenges as it moves into the 21st century. The objective of Bahrain Vision 2030 is to ensure that we are proactive in shaping a response to those challenges rather than being overwhelmed by them. Therefore the most continuing lesson is that building a culture of eGovernment in particular and, more generally, a culture of ICTs for development and for everyday life in the long run.


Institution Name:		eGovernment Authority, Kingdom of Bahrain
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Isa AbdulRahman
Title:		Director of Marketing & Awareness
Telephone/ Fax:		+973 17388337, +973 39322822
Institution's / Project's Website:		+973 17388338
E-mail:		iabdulrahman@ega.gov.bh
Address:		10th Floor, Euro Tower, Bldg No 485, Road No 1010
Postal Code:		PO Box 75533
City:		Sanabis
State/Province:
Country:		Bahrain

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information