- Great interest in the significant milestones towards Smart transformation
- Governmental cohesiveness, smart infrastructure and customer satisfaction main areas of success
The Dubai Smart Government Department (DSG) recently highlighted its exceptional achievements in the emirate’s move towards government excellence under the wise leadership of H.H. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President & Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, at the Dubai Government Achievements Exhibition 2015. Held for three consecutive days under the theme ‘Local Governments, Global Achievements,’ the event cast the spotlight on the latest milestones in the move towards a smart government based on innovation and competitiveness.
Government leaders were very impressed with the performance of DSG and its ongoing success in transforming Dubai into one of the world’s smartest cities. Leaders commended the ePay service, which has reached AED 7 billion in 2014 as compared to 2013. The service also saw an increase of 16 per cent in terms of operations, and 25 per cent in terms of payments. Widely adopted by the public, the mPay application, an app for mobile smart phones, is also crucial in DSG’s efforts towards creating a smart government. It is seen as an effective tool for enquiries as well as payment of fees for governmental transactions and services. The Mpay application has been downloaded 92,000 times, and it has grown by 257 per cent and in terms of payments. It has also reached AED 163,777,792 million, reflecting a growth of 418 per cent in 2014 compared to 2013.
DSG has made significant strides in developing the infrastructure for smart government, which was reflected in the growth of the government information network which is a unified network that helps transfer information and exchange governmental transactions based on the highest security standards and privacy and the cornerstone of Dubai’s electronic government infrastructure. 2014 saw the creation of 58 points of communication between governmental networks and semi governmental networks.
H.E. Ahmed Bin Humaidan, Director General for Dubai Smart Government department, stated, “The Dubai Government Achievements exhibition was an excellent platform to exhibit the remarkable progress of Dubai’s government work to provide exceptional service that satisfy and bring happiness to the people.” He added, “Our department is committed towards implementing the best practices in order to achieve our smart vision goals of becoming one of the leading nations by 2021.”
Bin Humaidan added, “In the last year, we were able to make unprecedented achievements driven by innovation, supported by H.E. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai. He has encouraged building the future government as a creative government able to adapt to the fast changing environment and come up with pioneering solutions that can make the public happy. Our continuous success pushes us to further work on seriously elevating government services towards higher levels of excellence and raising the UAE’s competitiveness worldwide in line with 2021 plan.”
Apart from that, the MyID service, which provides a single sign-on into the Dubai Government services in collaboration with Emirates ID Authority, received 42,000 registered users that will be able to reach more than 250 smart e-services from 11 governmental authorities.The past year’s milestones in the journey towards Smart government culminated in the launching of the smart employee application in October of 2014, which was designed to serve government employees based on national human resource planning. The application was well received with 14,000 requests up until March 2015. In addition,
www.ejob.ae, the central employment portal received 40,527 requests last year. It gave an opportunity to 16 local governmental agencies to place job opportunities on the portal.
The Customer User Laboratory emerged as one of the most important accomplishments that reflect the commitment of DSG to realize the vision of H.H Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, in making Dubai the most innovative city in the world. The laboratory is designed to engage customers in the design of government services on the basis of their opinions and their needs, thereby contributing to the mission of the Dubai 2021 plan to achieve happiness and a good quality of life for people and the community. The laboratory has achieved very positive results in its development of the first unified application for individual services ‘mDubai,’ which is a comprehensive communication platform for Dubai Government authorities. The application, which includes 19 government entities, is a significant advancement in the integration of government services, which comes in line with the directions of H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Executive Council.
The Governmental Human Resource Planning system achieved a qualitative leap in terms of users which numbered 4,000, while the number of employees benefiting from its 25 systems reached 65,000 in 2014 alone. The system continues to achieve positive results in simplifying strategic planning for over 50 governmental agencies and enhancing the internal mechanisms of the government in line with financial systems and policies as well as the HR and administrative procedures of Dubai. It has been an essential element in pushing forward government excellence, by contributing 95 per cent to the government’s budget operation.DSG saw achievements in other areas as well with regards to information security which has received a lot of attention as the rapid adoption of smart services amplified the need for special
procedures to ensure the privacy and security of information. By doing this the government is able to provide high quality services for the benefit of users and the society at large. 28 governmental units have joined the Unified Governmental data center, providing a secure environment for governmental data and information and encouraging the best usage of governmental resources in the march towards making Dubai smart city.
