Tenth Arab e-government programme directors meeting

Key messages resulting from discussion of the directors of e-Government programmes:

• Considered the initiative GEMS (Government Electronic and Mobile Service maturity index) and its platform an excellent activity that benefits all Arab countries, and proposed to extend its scope to include joint activities that facilitate the exchange of national experiences.
• Proposed to organize a meeting for the coordinators of national entities participating in the evaluation of GEMS initiative for sharing experiences and strengthening the performance of the prototype platform for data collection.
• Conveyed interest in participating in the annual update of the services covered by GEMS index, to be informed about the selected new services and benefit from it within their work.
• Expressed interest in the results of ESCWA studies on the social and economic impact of open data, and readiness to collaborate towards implementing Open Data in Arab countries, similar to other countries in the world, and the necessity of laws related to access to information and protection of personal data.  
• Welcomed the activities of ESCWA in the area of e-accessibility and the related forms that support policymakers in developing their national e-accessibility plans, and expressed readiness to benefit and share experiences through national and regional workshops. 
• Emphasized the importance of enhancing skills and capabilities and developing an enabling environment for digital transformation, towards strengthening national efforts on indicators and building the capacities to develop, deploy and use digital services.