Second Regional Meeting of GfD Working Group II, Dubai, 6 March 2006

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The second regional meeting of the Working Group II on E-government and Administrative Simplification took place in Dubai, UAE, on 6 March 2006 at the invitation of the Chair of Working Group II, Mr. Nabil Ali Alyousuf, Deputy Director General, The Executive Office, Dubai and in collaboration with the OECD. A back-to-back High Level Seminar on "How to Build a Successful Action Plan" was organised by the Dubai School of Government on 7 March.

Participants

The meeting was chaired by Mr. Nabil Ali Alyousuf and co-chaired by Vincenzo Schioppa, Minister Plenipotentiary, Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mr. Chang Kil Lee, former Director General, MOGAWA and Head of the OECD Asia Centre.

24 high-level delegates from 10 Arab countries (Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia and UAE) attended the meeting. In addition, policy experts from 6 OECD countries, from the OECD Secretariat and from the Dubai School of Government were present.

Objectives

The main objectives of the second regional Working Group II meeting were to:

Update participants on the progress made with the activities that were defined in the Working Group II Work Plan at the first regional meeting of Working Group II and give them the opportunity to provide their input on how to move forward with the completion of this work plan;
Identify key topics for the upcoming High-Level Seminar on Administrative Simplification which will be hosted by Egypt in 2006.
Allow Arab countries to provide an assessment of their country’s experience with e-government as well as to give an overview of the key elements contained in their Draft Country Action Plan in the field of E-government; and
Prepare the Second Steering Group Meeting at Ministerial Level, 19-20 May 2006, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

Outcomes

The following key outcomes of the meeting were achieved:

Acknowledgement of the excellent results of the First High-Level Seminar on E-Procurement, Naples and agreement that this seminar format has proved successful for high-level exchange of experience between practitioners;
Presentation of Draft Country Action Plans by Lebanon, Egypt and Bahrain. In follow-up to the meeting these Draft Country Action Plans as well as those for Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and Dubai have been finalised;
Presentation and distribution of a Template for Action Planning prepared by Lebanon to facilitate prioritisation of national and regional actions on six areas, namely:
- E-government legal framework
- E-government technical framework
- E-government service framework
- E-government capacity building/promotions/operations framework
- Administrative simplification
- Cross e-government and administrative simplification
Agreement on future regional action targets envisaged in the field of E-government and Administrative Simplification by Working Group II. In particular it was agreed to focus on the following targets:
- Creation of an Arab Fund for the development of ICTs/e-government in Arab countries;
- Organisation of a Regional Forum on E-government every two years;
- Set-up of a Group of Expert on E-government in the Arab world;
- Establishment of an Online Observatory of E-government Projects through the creation of an online portal focusing on sharing good practices for project development, action planning, development of e-government indicators, etc; and
- Foster twinning among Arab countries to support inter-Arab co-operation projects.
Confirmation by Egypt to host the Third High-Level Seminar on Administrative Simplification in 2006;
Expression of interest to host a High-Level Seminar by
- Jordan (on E-procurement in follow-up to the High-Level Seminar in Naples),
- Tunisia (on Public Private Partnerships),
- Italy and France (topic to be determined).