Bahrain leads Arab countries in eGovt ranking
It seems like there is absolutely no threat to Bahrain’s dominance in the Arab region, when it comes to readiness in eGovernment.
Proving this is the recently released UN eGovernment Survey for 2016, which maintains Kingdom’s lead in the sector for the fourth consecutive time, since 2010.
According to the survey, Bahrain enjoys first place on the Arab level within the eGovernment Readiness. It was also classified, for the second consecutive time, in the Very High eGovernment Development Index amongst the top advanced countries in the world.
Such classification is achievable only by countries, which attain a rank higher than 75% of the total report’s indicators, which exceed 400 criteria. Only 29 countries have received such high rank from the total of 193 countries, which the report covered.
Following Bahrain in the regional level are the United Arab Emirates at rank 29, then Kuwait at 40, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 44, Qatar 48, Sultanate of Oman at 66.
The Kingdom occupied rank 24 within the eGovernment Readiness on the international level.
Commenting on the report, Information & eGovernment Authority CE Mohammed Ali AlQaed said that Bahrain has maintained its lead despite the challenges experienced in the period between both reports - some of which include the challenges associated with the budget and cost-cutting of expenditures, the standards that have been added to this report’s edition comprising the measurement of Smart Cities.
Asfor opportunities of improvements, he explained that the focus in the upcoming period will be on developing open data and mobile applications, enhancement of eParticipation as well as working on progressing the Human Capital
Index.
Report praises GCC
Furthermore, this year’s report praised the efforts undertaken by the GCC, describing the region as a ‘Six Arab countries eGovernment itself that has become a development indicator’. The report also highlighted the mutual initiatives in regularly organising the GCC eGovernment Conference at one of the organising countries with the intention of exchanging experiences, accelerating eTransformation as well as improving their indicators within the report. The report also indicated that the GCC is one of the top 10 of West Asia in terms of raising the GDP, education as well as governments’ keenness in investing in their national eGovernment portals and providing enhanced eServices.
Telecommunication sector shines
The Telecommunication Infrastructure Index has witnessed a noticeable development to occupy 11th position internationally following its 26th rank in 2014.
This was based on the number of internet users beside subscribers of main fixed telephone lines and mobiles, wireless broadband as well as fixed broadband.
The Human Capital Index positioned the Kingdom at rank 77. This index measures adult literacy, gross enrolment ratio including university education, expected years of schooling as well as mean years of schooling per capita.
Within the Online Service Index Bahrain positioned itself at rank 22. The index measured a set of key components represented in government integration, delivery of multi-channel services, bridging the digital gap, increasing utilization ratio and the publicly available government data as well as eParticipation.
Moreover, Bahrain was advanced within the eParticipation Index, which is a supplementary indicator calculated within the Online Service Index to lead the countries of the
region.
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