Dubai eGovernment has announced that it is increasing its focus on engaging customers in the process of policy making and governance, in a move that is expected to result in significant benefits to both, customers and Dubai eGovernment.
“Engaging our customers will allow us to incorporate customer needs and expectations formally in our governance processes. Dubai eGovernment intends to establish a long term partnership with its customers through mutual feedback and contribution. The engagement of public will entail various mechanisms, in addition to cultural and process changes within Dubai eGovernment,” said Salem Al Shair, eServices Director, Dubai eGovernment.
The engagement of public will involve among other things, public feedback and public consultation. In an effort to raise awareness about its portal www.dubai.ae and to increase customer feedback, Dubai eGovernment has introduced a two-week promotion as part of a wider campaign to attract more users for its eServices. Under the promotion, UAE residents who fill in an online feedback form on dubai.ae are eligible to win various prizes from Hewlett-Packard, sponsors of the promotion. The promotion starts from April 27.
“Dubai eGovernment has used cutting edge technology and advanced solutions to make our portal a user-friendly channel that will enable people to migrate from manual services to fully secure electronic services. The portal serves as a gateway to all government departments through a centralised integrated system,” stated Al Shair.
“We are proud to say that Dubai eGovernment has put over 1,600 government services on electronic platforms and is on track to achieve its goal of delivering 90 per cent of public services electronically by the year 2007,” said Al Shair. “However, there are many people who are still hesitant to use electronic services. Through this promotion we hope to attract more visitors to the portal and motivate them to try out our online services. We are pleased to tie up with HP to offer prizes to participants in a raffle draw.” Al Shair added.
“HP is pleased to support this Dubai eGovernment initiative that demonstrates the high degree of commitment Dubai government has shown to its users, by providing high quality services and solutions. HP believes that innovation is the driver behind success and growth and by participating in this initiative we have a good opportunity to offer our latest and most attractive products as prizes to reward the most innovative and creative ideas from the portal,” said Joseph Hanania, Managing Director, HP Middle East.
“As Dubai eGovernment serves as a regional beacon in the field of electronic governance, HP is pleased to be associated with the promotion that will help thousands of people in the UAE get familiarised with online public services.” added Hanania.
The promotion is open to all UAE residents. Participants have to fill in a feedback form on the www.dubai.ae portal and submit their entry. The entries will be judged by a committee comprising representatives from Dubai eGovernment and HP. Twenty-five best suggestions will receive prizes from HP.
“The portal forms the main pillar of Dubai’s strategic policy of eliminating counters in the long term and positioning the emirate as the Hub of Digital Economy in the region,” said Al Shair.
“Dubai eGovernment aims to achieve customer focus, trust, transparency and accountability by engaging public in its policy making and governance processes. Customer focus forms a major part of our strategic agenda and we hope to work in close partnership with our customers to establish a long and mutually beneficial relationship. Our aim is also to build a rich feedback repository that can help our team as a backbone for our decision support mechanism, we hope our plans be more satisfactory through this program,” concluded Al Shair.
Dubai eGovernment is a pioneering initiative in the region to provide online services across the spectrum of corporate and community life in the emirate. It also has a vision to integrateindividually automated government departments under the single umbrella of the eGovernment initiative, thus empowering employees across lines of businesses and levels of government, besides facilitating the lives of citizens and customers of the government. Dubai has taken a lead in the region in deploying eGovernment applications and is among the first few governments in the world to provide such integrated services to its citizens. The eGovernment portal (www.dubai.ae) is a single contact point masking the complexity of the bureaucratic procedures, and guiding access to all services in the easiest possible way. In addition, the eGovernment initiative seeks to improve and enhance procedures by maximizing the benefit from technology, so that users from all walks of life will be able to utilize the portal for their specific needs with considerable ease.
