The meeting is part of Dubai eGovernment's ongoing endeavor to streamline the "Bayt Al Khebrah" (House of Excellence Project) launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, for Dubai eGovernment to share its knowledge and experiences in the field of eGovernment with the Arab world. The meeting also discussed several issues including the challenges facing eGovernment and the opportunities it can avail of in the light of the global financial crisis.

In his presentation, Bin Humaidan highlighted best practices from Dubai eGovernment and the synergistic tools that it provided to government departments. Bin Humaidan stressed the importance of the practices of the Government Resource Planning Systems Department as they provided the backbone support for human resources, payroll, finance, purchasing, inventory and asset management for 25 government departments and over 65,000 government employees.

In addition to representatives of OECD, Bahrain eGovernment Authority, Dubai eGovernment and Dubai Governance College, a group of executives and decision-makers representing several European and Arab countries participated in a seminar that preceded the meeting to discuss means of improving eServices take-up as well as the related challenges and solutions for enhancing eGovernment in the Arab world.

It is noteworthy that during a meeting held by the "Governance for Development in Arab Countries Initiative" in Istanbul, Turkey, in February 2004, it was agreed to select six themes for development in the Arab countries. In April of the same year, Dubai was selected to chair the working group assigned to the second theme of "eGovernment and Administrative Simplification", which was co-chaired by Italy and Korea. The first meeting of the group was held in Dubai in 2005.

Global Arab Network