United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

This mobile channel initiative is part of the strategic objectives of the Bahrain eGovernment since year 2007.The few years before 2007 have witnessed significant investments made by the kingdom of Bahrain in creating basic ICT infrastructure for enabling eGovernment .This includes the creating of Government Data Network (GDN), National Data Center etc. Also those years witnessed significant back-end computerization of the key government agencies, while back-end computerization and infrastructure has been created, a key component of eGovernment delivery framework; service delivery channels had not been effectively addressed.
Therefore, it was critical to investigate the delivery of electronic services through multiple channels as an immediate priority. Provisioning services through electronic means is only useful if it facilitates the target audience to access services more conveniently. Moreover, customers identifying the correct channels to use are a key success factor for any effective eGovernment strategy as the choice of delivery channels has a major impact on the following:
• Technology infrastructure required to support the channels.
• Business processes and procedures required to operate the channel
• Organization structure required to manage and deliver the electronic services
• Convenience and satisfaction for customers in availing public services
The aforementioned factors make it imperatives to develop comprehensive, well thought out strategy for the introduction of channels. A study was made based on the technological choices available, readiness level of various government agencies and the preference of citizens, residents and businesses.
The Web based portal, contact centers, mobile gateways and Common service centers emerged as the main service delivery vehicles.
Following are some of high value aspects the mobile channel as one of service delivery approaches was recommended under Bahrain eGovernment strategy:-
• 24x7 availability
• Best positioned and most convenient to avail services while on the move
• Easily integrates with channels such as contact centers common Services centers and internet
• Requires minimal human intervention cost-effective for provisioning services
• Immune to increase in customer traffic
• Best way to provide proactive/push services

In addition, the mobile penetration in Bahrain is very high (~1.2 mobile per person), which makes this channel ideal for delivering eGovernment services to the public.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
More than 50 government eservices has been implemented through the mobile channel. The services available on the mobile portal can be classified into the following three categories; 1) Information Services - Such as eWeather, Doctor Search , Embassy contacts etc 2) Interactive Services – Mobile Blog, Mobile Polls, Legality of Foreign Workers, Currency Convertor etc 3) Transaction Services – Pay Electricity and Water Bills, Pay Traffic Contraventions, etc The eGovernment mobile portal provides these services both in English as well as in Arabic languages. The services are accessible by residents via Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and/or through Short Message Service (SMS) communications globally. The SMS communication empowers virtually all devices available in the market to use government services to address the need if the mobile device doesn’t provide facility for mobile based web browsers to access WAP based portal. The eGovernment mobile portal (m-Government platform) is very sophisticated, scalable and integrated service delivery platforms. The portal has been integrated with all ministries following SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) principles in order to enable scalable service delivery framework. It has been integrated with multiple payment gateway and telecommunication providers to deliver highest quality of solution incase failure of one service provider. The solution has also been integrated with the national government web portal www.bahrain.bh seamlessly and the ccommunication between the integration points are done via secured channels e.g. SSL, Government Data Network (GDN) etc. The solution is hosted within a secured environment at the Central Informatics Organization that hosts all government applications and websites. Mobile portal provides facility to perform monetary transactions using mobile devices allowing through WAP and SMS communications. It enables user to pay using his credit card (Visa, Master, Amex etc) for governmental utility bills and other similar services. The user is required to register on national government portal (www.bahrain.bh) to use payment services through his mobile device. eGovernment mobile portal has been integrated with major telecommunication providers in Bahrain providing residents to avail eGovernment services through their preferred telecommunication carrier using SMS short codes reserved for eGovernment. The eGovernment Authority is also in the process of integrating the delivery of their services to 3rd available telecommunication provider recently came into business. Bahrain eGovernment Mobile portal is a regional leader in mobile eServices. The UN eGovernment survey report 2010 have commented that Bahrain mobile portal is one of the most advanced across the globe. Although the mobile channel has been launched within the year 2009, it is showing profound impact on the uptake of mobile channel services. In one day the more than 5000 students used the mobile channel to inquiry about their exam results through sending SMS. This service enables students of governmental school from elementary fourth grade to third secondary grade to view their final results online. Another example is the financial support service offered through the mobile; at times more than 3000 citizens check their eligibility for financial support through the mobile channel. The latest Bahrain eGovernment satisfaction survey conducted May 2010 showed that more than 89% of the Bahrain residents think that mobile channel is important and useful, and more than 84% of the same survey respondents stated that they are satisfied with the mobile channel. This is an indication that the mobile channel is gaining satisfaction across citizens and residents of Bahrain.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The initiative is part of the Bahrain eGovernment strategy and was designed and implemented by the eGovernment Authority Bahrain. Ministries, governmental agencies and telecommunication companies are major stakeholders in this initiative through offering their services to bring up the mobile portal. EGovernment Authority Bahrain is responsible for providing operational support to mobile portal whilst the solution is hosted with CIO (Central Informatics Organization), a government hosting center in Bahrain. The telecommunication and payment gateway service providers are private sector stakeholders who are providing their services to enable SMS push and pull communications and monetary transaction services respectively. The development of mobile portal was out-sourced to a private company

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 was the main driver for this initiative. A team of experts was formed within eGA to perform a feasibility study for the eService that can qualify to develop and deliver through eGov mobile portal. The team performed the study and came up with 50 core services that can be delivered through mobile channel. The list of the services was finalized based upon the service popularity, suitability to deliver through mobile devices, benchmarking with other similar mobile government portals etc. The team’s recommendation was to make the mobile portal accessible through WAP and SMS. This was necessary to cover vast majority of devices available in the market to use the government service without any issues. Initially to entice people using mobile portal, the telecommunication SMS cost (for Pull and Push communication) was borne by eGovernment which later on was set to standard SMS rates based on the telecommunication provider used, applicable while using any egovernment service through SMS communication. The main objectives for the establishment of the Mobile Portal are: • Provisioning of various services through mobile devices. • Anytime, Anywhere access to relevant information and select public services • To increase the convenience of the customers seeking variety of services • To reduce the costs involved in servicing the customers • To provide transactional facility for payments through the mobile phone • To supplement and improve quality of the services provided through the national eGovernment portal www.bahrain.bh

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
eGovernment Authority Bahrain formed a team of experts to perform a feasibility study to identify the services that can qualify to deliver through mobile portal. The team recommended 50 eServices to develop. At the later stage, the detailed scope of the project was defined and upon customer charter approval the scope was translated into an RFP (Request for Proposal) which was floated to receive bids from technology vendors globally for the development of solution. Upon selection of a preferred vendor through RFP evaluation process, the project kick off meeting was organized. The project was divided into three phase implementation approach. The first phase with 17 online services and the commission of mobile portal was planned to release in a quarter time. Following is a list of major milestones achieved during the course of the project. • Mobile Portal infrastructure readiness, this involved to bring separate hardware and set it up for the mobile portal. • Readiness of Mobile Portal platform, this includes the basic platform that will support to deliver WAP based services. • Implementation of service delivery framework to launch services through mobile portal • Readiness of SMS communication engines and integration with telecommunication providers for pull and push messages • SOA architecture readiness, this involves to build webservices and integration with respective ministry to enable communication between the services on mobile portal and the backend ministries systems • Services development & integration, this was an iterative phase where individual services were developed, tested and launched • Readiness of payment gateway engine and integration with service providers to enable monetary transactions through the mobile portal • Bulk SMS notification engine, this enables user to subscribe into the system and get notified about his utility bills, Vehicle contraventions, Weather, Tenders etc • Administration Portal development, for administrative purposes.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The implementation of eGov mobile portal has come across a many of challenges during the course of its project duration. The project was kicked off with time base delivery challenge that requires commissioning the mobile portal with 17 online services within 3 months time. This requires procuring and getting ready the infrastructure for mobile portal, readiness of SOA architecture and core service delivery platform and development of 17 services involving business owners from respective ministry teams. The challenge was overcome by the dedication of eGovernment Authority team who closely worked with development vendor, telecommunication providers and ministries to ensure the target meets its deadline, by fast tracking the project development and by forming working group teams within ministries to get timely buy-ins from their side to the project. Following are some of other obstacles faced during the lifetime of project and the respective mitigations adopted. Challenges 1. Complex integration with national government web portal running on different technology stack created major challenges while integrated mobile portal with it. 2. Usability and security issues for payments using credit cards through SMS communication drove to change application architecture of mobile portal to enhance user interaction and securing the communication. 3. Scope of the project was extended with 5 additional services bringing the total to 55 online services 4. USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) implementation through SMS communication due to telecommunication providers not been able to support the basic features required to implement USSD solution 5. Due to limited support for data encryption, the payment through mobile portal (WAP and SMS) using debit cards wasn’t’ suitable. Solutions 1. Special APIs were used to developed webservices for the integration of mobile portal with national government web portal. The task was assigned to eGovernment Authority web portal development team as the business owner to provider integration facilities. 2. A pre-registration process was finalized for any payment transaction required to run through eGovernment mobile portal. This registration was decided to be offered at the national government web portal and the login facility using same credentials was provided on mobile portal through integrations. The user registration at national government web portal requires user to go to 4 steps process to enable his profile to use for payments through his mobile. 3. Through the change management, the extension to the scope was agreed and a revised time and scope baseline was agreed. 4. eGovernment Authority team took the responsibility to closely work with telecommunication providers to ensure that the basic USSD facilities get enabled earliest and the development team was informed to work on this module during application support phase. 5. The option to provider Debit Card payments through mobile portal was suspended however eGovernment Authority figured out m-Wallet as a potential alternative payment channel in replacement of debit card payment. The respective team in eGovernment Authority is finalizing the contract with potential vendor to incorporate m-Wallet base payment capabilities into the mobile portal.

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
Human Resource Used 1. Program and Project Managers 2. Subject matter experts 3. Technical team lead 4. Development team 5. Infrastructure and operational teams Technical Resources 1. Payment gateway services 2. Telecommunication services for SMS short codes 3. SMS gateway 4. Mobile Portal Infrastructure with RAID 0 and RAID 5 implementation Financial recourses The project was funded by the budget allocated for the eGovernment Strategy. Costs For the purpose of costing the following considerations have been taken: • The core components of the mobile gateway are the payment gateway, mobile interface for the portal, WAP servicer and the content converter. • 700K users are expected to use this channel with around 500-1000 concurrent transactions. • Human Recourses Costs -60% of programme management recourse cost to come from existing resources The estimated cost allocated the last 3 years are as follows(in Bahraini Dinar): • Salary/Contract Staff Cost: 456K • Hardware:108K • Software: 240K o WAP Server:120K o Content Converter:120K • Other Costs:270K o Integration Costs:180K o Miscellaneous Cost:90K Therefore the total project cost is estimated to be around 1 Million Bahraini Dinar Mobilizing recourses eGovernment Authority formed a dedicated project team to manage the delivery of mobile portal project. The resources availability from external stakeholders, e.g. ministries, was ensured using working group team concept. The agreement with telecommunication and payment gateway providers ensured the quality of service and support required from them during integration stages. The agreement with development vendor ensured to get on-site project manager and technical resource presence whilst the development work was agreed to be off-shore.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
Continuous marketing campaigns have been running to ensure the spread the awareness levels and service uptake of the mobile portal. With every new service launched a target specific marketing campaign is conducted to increase the awareness levels. Also, eGA marketing team ensures to collect the feedback from citizens and reflect them on the mobile channel to increase the satisfaction levels that brings user more confidence to use eGov mobile portal. eGA marketing team runs periodic road-shows targeted in highly visited areas like shopping malls, schools & organizations to build the capacity of user who can use government services through mobile channel. From the technical perspective, the solution is accessible globally through its WAP interface whilst SMS communication is support through all the major telecommunication providers available in Bahrain. The solution is also accessible outside of Bahrain using SMS communication through roaming telecommunication services. User doesn’t require downloading any special facility or application on his mobile to use eGov mobile portal. This can be accessible by opening ww.bahrain.bh/mobile URL from any mobile browser, having 3G or WIFI or any equivalent internet connectivity. This approach is supplemented by also allowing user to access the mobile portal using SMS communication. This requires user to construct his message in SMS format (format patterns are available at web version of mobile portal) respective to a service and send it to eGovernment number 4949 (Batelco) or 88311 (Zain), depending upon the telecommunication provider being used in Bahrain. The user gets a response in SMS from the system against his request.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
Since commissioning of mobile portal was one of eGovernment Authority’s mandates to achieve as part of eGovernment Strategy implementation, the initiative got full support from Supreme Council for Information and Communication Technology (SCICT) and higher management of eGovernment Authority Bahrain. The collaboration between all the stockholders at all levels is one of other important aspect that made the initiative a success. Expert team dedicated for the project also contributed to make the project a success story. During the eGA internal study of the project and moving trend globally on using services through mobile devices, it is a paramount aspect that governments across the globe are paying more attention toward enabling m-Government services and would provider alternative mechanism to their residents to use governmental services through their mobile devices anywhere anytime. eGovernment of Bahrain is in process of launching device specific applications e.g. iPhone, Blackberry etc, that would increase the utilization of services through mobile devices.


Institution Name:		eGovernment Authority, Kingdom of Bahrain
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Aamir Nizami
Title:		Head - Channels Enhancements
Telephone/ Fax:		+973 17388307
Institution's / Project's Website:		+973 17388338
E-mail:		anizami@ega.gov.bh
Address:		Building no. 145, Road no. 2403, Block no. 224
Postal Code:		PO Box 75533
City:		Muharraq
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