1-What is Jordan’s e-Government programme?
2-To what extent are the government employees ready to implement e-government?
3-What Ministries will be part of e-government?
4-Is it possible to link the Jordan e-government with other e-government programmes?
More1-What is Jordan’s e-Government programme?
e-Government is a National Program initiated by his Majesty King Abdullah II. The purpose of this program is to enhance the performance of government in terms of service provision, efficiency, accuracy, time and cost effectiveness, transparency, high level of customer satisfaction, cross-Governmental integration, and much more of elements related to the style the Government of Jordan works and perception of others to the Government.
The e-Government Program will support government transformation, using ICT tools to achieve the ultimate National goals. This transformation process requires a focal point of contact to coordinate the efforts between Government entities and support them with best practices and subject matter expert. Therefore, the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MoICT) was assigned to take the lead in implementing the e-Government Program, facilitating and providing support whenever needed to Government entities. For this purpose, MoICT has established a Program Management Office (PMO) and hired subject matter experts in areas of project management, change management, technical management and support services, risk management, quality management and other competencies.
The role of e-Government program is to plan, facilitate, manage and supervise the implementation of the following: Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) towards better and more efficient processes, human performance development (including knowledge transfer and training), organizations review and re-structuring to have more efficiency. Additionally, the e-Government deploys best practices and latest technologies to enable Government stakeholders implement new processes and create a knowledge-based community
2-To what extent are the government employees ready to implement e-government?
Jordanian government employees are key stakeholders in the program and their commitment to its success is key. For this reason, there is focus on change management, as well as continuous learning and performance development. Running under the umbrella of the e-Government Program is the ‘ICT Literacy Program’. This introduces basic computer skills to government employees in partnership with UNESCO on the ICDL (International Computer Driving License) , qualifying employees with the ICT Literacy training program.
The total cost of the project, which will be concluded by the end of 2005, is around JD 2.5 million, and up to 20.000 employees will be empowered by ICT literacy skills, in a step to make preparations for everyone to play a key role in Jordan’s e-governmentGovernment.
3-What Ministries will be part of e-government?
E-Government will touch all of Jordan’s government departments. However, there are priorities in implementation of the e-Government initiative. Criteria for selection was defined and a number of ministries and departments were included as the first wave in implementation. An example is the first phase of the Secured Government Network (SGN) and e-mail project, which connected; the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, Ministry of Planning, Ministry of Finance, Prime Ministry, Ministry of Industry and Trade, Municipality of Greater Amman. Phase 2 of the project will connect a further 12 Government entities to the SGN by the end of the year.
4-Is it possible to link the Jordan e-government with other e-government programmes?
Jordan is working with other governments, specifically Italy, Singapore and Malaysia to share experiences and knowledge of implementing an e-government structure. We are also sharing our experiences so that best practice processes that we have experienced so that they can be utilised by other nations. In March 2002, Jordan participated in a workshop in Singapore which provided an overview of the Singapore government’s IT/e-government strategy, organisational structure, infrastructure requirements, broadband Intranet for government and government email system. A broad overview was also provided at the time on Singapore’s public service infrastructure which allows the government to provide e-services to its citizens through the Internet and public access points. Jordan has seized opportunities to learn with other countries on what will work best in developing its e-Government programme.