Earlier this month at the Palace Hotel in Old Town Dubai, the UAE held a workshop attended by General Managers, Executive Managers, IT Executives, Government Communication Executives and Webmasters from the Federal Government bodies to discuss how government departments can best use, organize and implement e-government and social media.

According to the Dubai School of Government on their Arab Social Media report, the UAE is ranked first among Arab countries with close to 50 percent its population owning Facebook accounts, which represents 10 per cent of the total number of users in the entire Arab world. In addition, UAE is now among the top 10 countries in the world in terms of Facebook penetration, raising their government’s awareness on a need to streamline their online presence.

During the workshop, H. E. Salem Khamis Al Shair Al Suwaidi, Director General, General Information Authority discussed a primary evaluation made by the UAE website by their eGovernment team.

Referencing how eGovernment evolved and the guidelines were conceived, Suwaidi added:

Our work on this field comes in line with our decision to apply the concepts of the second generation of eGovernment Gov. 2.0. In this we have been inspired by H. H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai; who long ago established accounts on both Facebook and Twitter and has been using them to communicate and interact with people

The documents presented guidelines on Multimedia, Web content, Social Media Networking, eParticipation and Open Data policies and also included an updated Web standards document.

The Updated Web Standards declared at the workshop spelt out the internationally accepted uniform practices and procedures that government bodies should follow for their website layout and design to be compliant with the recommendations laid out by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

In addition, the announced guidelines comply with the requirements identified by the 2010 United Nations eGovernment Survey, which are used by the United Nations to assess the readiness of eGovernment programs around the world.

The UAE evaluation team also launched guidelines for the appropriate use of social media by various government employees. This document was prepared in partnership with Dubai School of Government with contribution from Gartner Inc. and United Nations eGovernment Survey team.

The aim of this document is to leverage social media tools by employees of government entities in a responsible, effective manner to collaborate with civil society and engage them in designing/distributing government programs and service.

Due to the various applications of social media sites, the guidelines recommend: “Access to social media sites shouldn’t be banned. Employees should be held accountable for any improper use of any social media site.” However, it cautions that:

Because of the dynamic nature of social media, a list of recommended websites should be developed and updated by the Social Media Unit periodically in a collaborative, rather than top-down manner

The workshop divulged that by abiding to these guidelines, the participation in eGovernment and eServices will increasingly become more convenient, competent, and content for civil society. This holds great precedence for the UAE, who wants to raise their position in the U.N. E-Readiness Index.

Governments from all around the world are recognizing the power of social media in effectively communicating with their citizens. They are also developing initiatives to create similar guidelines for the web content on government portals so interoperability can enhance their online capabilities.

In Europe, the European Commission Information Society aims to support with its eGovernment Action Plan 2011-2015. The Action Plan identifies provisions for a new generation of eGovernment services for businesses and citizens, where four political priorities are based on the Malmö Declaration agreed on in 2009 in Sweden. The four priorities are to empower citizens and businesses; reinforce mobility in the single market; enable efficiency and effectiveness; and create the key enablers and pre-conditions to make things happen.

Additionally, in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Plan of Action for the Information and Knowledge Society in Latin America published in November 2010 outlines the region’s objectives for e-governance. These include treating e-government as an obligation of all countries for its citizens and to achieve transactional and participatory e-government.

You can research other countries principles and procedures on e-governance by viewing the U.N. E-Government Survey for 2010 here in our document library.