Bahrain government successfully adopts Cloud First Policy

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The government has successfully adopted and implemented its Cloud First Policy, Information and eGovernment Authority (iGA) Chief Executive Officer Mohammed Ali Al Qaed announced at a press conference.

He credited the achievement to the vision of the Kingdom’s leadership and the directives of the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa.

Present in the occasion was the Chief Executive Officer of the National Communication Centre, Yousif Mohammed Albinkhalil, and iGA’s Deputy CE of Operations and Governance, Dr Khalid Al Mutawah.

Al Qaed highlighted a string of government achievements during 2021, including the migration of more than 70% of the operations and systems of 72 government entities to the Cloud; the complete migration of 32 public and private entities; and the establishment of four entirely cloud-based government entities, namely: the National Bureau for Revenue (NBR), the National Communications Centre (NCC), the Urban Planning and Development Authority (UPDA), and the Sustainable Energy Authority (SEA).

He noted that work is ongoing on the cloud migration of the General Sports Authority (GSA) and several hospitals and health centres.

Al Qaed shared indicators of the government of Bahrain’s successful adoption of its Cloud First Policy, including a reduction in the time needed for the technical infrastructure readiness of projects by 60%, and operational expenses by 60 to 80%.

He explained that the Ministry of Education’s eLearning project has led to a reduction in costs amounting to BD97,432 or 89%.

Similarly, Al Qaed noted that the Civil Service Bureau’s Organizational Performance Project (Takamul) led to an 83% reduction in costs or the equivalent of BD80,235 and the Ministry of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Endowments’ Digital Archiving project cut costs by approximately 56% or BD82,560.

Al Qaed added that Bahrain, over several years and through hard work, succeeded in creating a robust infrastructure for the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector, in addition to ensuring the readiness of the business environment and providing legislation supportive of digital transformation and the deployment of advanced technologies.

These accomplishments led Amazon Web Services (AWS), one of the largest cloud computing service providers in the world, to choose the Kingdom as the location for its first data centres in the region, launched in 2019.

In 2017, the government of Bahrain adopted its Cloud First Policy, as per the decision by the Supreme Committee for Information and Communication Technology (SCICT), chaired by Deputy Prime Minister, His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Mubarak Al Khalifa, with the support of the Minister of Interior, Lt Gen Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, to redirect IT investment towards Cloud computing.

Al Qaed said that the Cloud First Policy aims to encourage the deployment of advanced technologies and systems in the IT sector to enhance the public’s quality of life by providing highly efficient services.