Prior to the start of Abu Dhabi’s e-Government initiative and the creation of ADSIC, no overarching improvement program existed in the Emirate for Government services. A coordinating e-Government authority was also lacking.
In the context of a major modernisation movement, Abu Dhabi initiated a large-scale Government reform in 2005 under the leadership of His Highness Sheikh Mohammad. ADSIC was created that October with the mandate of developing a scheme for service optimisation through use of information and communication technology (ICT).
This ICT-enabled service delivery became a cornerstone of reform—and ADSIC developed its vision of a “High Performance Government Delivering World-Class Services to the Benefit of All Its Customers” with the goal of making Abu Dhabi one of the most technologically advanced governments in the world.
In the beginning, substantial gaps existed that needed to be addressed by ADSIC’s service improvement initiative. A baseline study in the autumn of 2005 revealed both attributes that could be leveraged for service optimisation and major shortcomings. Study highlights are provided below, organised within a holistic strategy framework that encompasses the effort’s Environment, Readiness, and Usage (E-R-U) dimensions.
1. In the Environment (E) dimension, comprising Emirate-wide macro-environmental factors, a major positive element was the strong political commitment to service optimisation. However, no legislation specific to e-Government (“cyber laws”) was in place—and user demographics posed a distinct challenge. While Abu Dhabi’s mobile phone penetration was at 99 percent, the Internet was used by only 30 percent of the Emirate’s population. In addition, almost 60 percent of the population was made up of non-Arabic speakers, necessitating tailored solutions.
2. In the Readiness (R) dimension that subsumes IT infrastructure and capabilities that enable e-Government services, no cross-cutting technology building blocks were in place and limited solutions existed. An IT assessment conducted by the Emirate in 2006 revealed that only 36 percent of government entities had a Web site, and most entities did not have IT standards and IT architecture. Because no authority existed to coordinate efforts, IT capabilities of entities remained siloed and resulted in unnecessary redundancies. Moreover, no overarching resources such as networks, public key infrastructure (PKI), and geographic information systems (GIS). Overall, IT was considered to be a low priority. Security awareness in this area was low—to the point that some server rooms were without access controls, many Abu Dhabi government employees used private e-mail addresses, and 25 percent of the Emirate’s employees had no PC skills.
3. In the Usage (U) dimension, which describes the service portfolio offered by the government to all customer groups, the prevalent method of service delivery was traditional, on-premise, over-the-counter operations. Other delivery channels—including kiosks, telephone, and the Internet—were rarely used, or were used only by specific government entities. The Abu Dhabi Police, for example, offered an online service that enabled users to search for their fines online and pay them via the Internet. But as a group, entities did not have a clear, holistic view of their services or provide them across multiple channels.
|