Muscat E-media:

Muscat – The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has received four awards at the 1st GCC e-government Conference organized from 21 to 23 December 2009 in Muscat capital of Oman. The e-Government Program (Yesser) of Saudi Arabia came first In the best e-project category for its government integrated channel and in e-economy category, the payment system in Saudi Arabia (Sadad) came first in addition to SaudiEDI (Saudi Electronic Data Interchange) project which won the award of appreciation. The prize was received by Eng. Ali Bin Saleh Al Somae the Director General of the E-government Transactions Program (Yasser) from H/E Ahmed Bin Abdunnabi Makki the Minister of national Economy, the Deputy Chairman of National council for Finance and Energy Sources in the Sultanate of Oman.

Saudi Arabia's Sadad payment System won the first place in electronic economy branch received by its CEO Abdulmalik Al Al Sheikh while Jeddah Governorate Portal came second in the best e-content. The prize was handed over to Dr. Arwa Al A'ama the Assistant Secretary of Jeddah. The Saudi program for exchange of information electronically won a prestigious award in recognition.

Jeddah Governorate Portal came second in the best e-content.

Eng. Ali Bin Saleh Al-Soma, General Manager of e-Government Program (Yesser) said that the Kingdom's achievements reflect the efforts exerted by various government sectors in achieving the Leadership's desire to provide easier government services to both individuals and the business sector. The General Manager pointed out that these awards crown the effort of the winning agencies to transform to the electronic government transactions, and makes the winning projects models to be emulated in the Kingdom in particular and in the Gulf in general.

He added that the winning projects are pioneer projects in the Kingdom that deserved the Gulf Award and this will be reflected through the results of the second version of this award.

In the same development, the Director of Quality and Excellence Department of the Information Technology Authority and head of the Award Organizing Committee Fatima Al Riyamiyyah said that the participation of 69 projects in the award indicates the keenness of the participating countries to produce their best products. Ms. Fatima added that Arbitration Committee included experts in Information Technology from all GCC countries in addition to two UN experts headed by Peter Book .

At the conclusion of the conference, Dr. Salim Al-Ruzaiqi, CEO of Information Technology Authority (ITA) in Sultanate of Oman read out the recommendations of the conference.

The conference recommended that practical frameworks at multiple levels and in various fields be devised to exchange ideas at the regional level for instance, similar conferences, specialized workshops and a GCC E-government Award be held periodically and to develop practical examples of successful projects for sharing among member states, as well as the establishment of a section for e-government at the website of the General Secretariat of the GCC countries for the reinforcement of joint action.

The conference also recommended the enhancement of cooperation between GCC member states to study international indicators that are related to e-government and work hard to raise the level of the GCC countries in these indicators and see if it is possible to find a GCC indicator and also to put authorities and organizations and GCC e- programs on the map of World Development in the field of knowledge in general and in the field of electronics in particular.

The conference stressed the importance of taking necessary measures and promulgating laws that secure integrating IT & C in all the functions and operations undertaken by public and private sectors as well as civil society organizations taking into consideration the strategic design stages and formulating development and implementation plans. It also encouraged providing these organizations and individuals with incentives to benefit from the e-government services. In the area of capacity building in IT&C from the perspective of community, the Conference stressed the need for the promotion of investment in the manpower working in areas relevant to the digital society, especially e-government services, and new technologies, and e-content and others, by creating partnership with Higher Education Organizations and the importance of employing new technologies to improve different sectors of society, especially people with special needs.