The United Arab Emirates has been ranked first in the GCC, Arab region, and Western Asia, and 8th globally in the Online Service Index (OSI), issued by the United Nations within the E-Government Development Index (EGDI).

The UAE is also ranked 4th in Asia in this indicator, advanced one rank in the E-participation Index as well as progressing from 17th (2018) to the 16th position. According to the same survey, the UAE is ranked 7th in Telecommunication Infrastructure Index in the ICT Infrastructure Index (TII).

In its current edition, the survey focused on the role of countries in serving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, especially “Leaving no one behind” and the role of digital transformation programs in narrowing the gap between segments of society in various fields. The survey addressed government programmes around the world in engaging customers in developing services, policies and programs for everyone’s benefit.

The UAE has been ranked 21st globally in the overall index, which consists the sub-indicators: Online Service Index, OSI; Human Capital Index, HCI; and Telecommunication Infrastructure Index, TII; in addition to the E-participation Index, EPI, that falls within the online services.

With this result, the UAE assured its leading position on the Arab level in digital transformation key indicators, which reflects its global position and leadership in adopting the principles of the future government that are based on embracing advanced technologies, and particularly ICT technologies, and using them to provide customers with easy and interactive government services. The results also confirm the UAE’s global role in implementing the sustainable development goals, as it has been among the first countries to establish a specialised platform for this purpose in cooperation with the United Nations and relevant international bodies.

After the UAE, Bahrain has been ranked second in the GCC in EGDI, followed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 3rd, Kuwait 4th, and Oman 5th.

Moreover, the UAE is sharing the 4th rank in OSI in Asia along with China and Japan, following Korea, Singapore and Kazakhstan.

The survey highlighted distinguished UAE experiences in interacting with customers, and emphasised the ‘Rammas’ Application launched by Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), which is a virtual employee that uses Artificial Intelligence to respond in English and Arabic, where a question can be directed to “Rammas” verbally to get the answer immediately.

Despite the intense competition between countries in the E-participation Index, the UAE has achieved a breakthrough by advancing one rank and reaching the 16th position, which reflects the implementation of digital transformation programs in the UAE in line with the wise leadership directives, by engaging the various segments of society in designing services and policies that enhance society’s happiness. The E-Participation Index (EPI), is derived as a supplementary index to the United Nations E-Government Survey. It extends the dimension of the Survey by focusing on the government use of online services in providing information to its citizens or “e-information sharing”, interacting with stakeholders or Commenting on these results, Hamad Obaid Al Mansoori, Head of the UAE Digital Government and TRA Director-General, said, “Despite the intensity of competition between countries, with these results, the UAE maintains its position among the most advanced countries in digital transformation. We realise that the more we advance, the more difficult the competition will be, but under the directives of our wise leadership and with our national competencies and accumulated experiences in this field, we are determined to place the UAE among the best countries in the world, and we will achieve our aim through cooperation and working as one team. These results lay upon us new challenges that we will overcome with hard work to achieve the first global position in smart services.”

Al Mansoori added, “In this context, I thank all government entities that worked with us hand in hand, to implement the concepts of a unified and integrated e-government within the framework of the OSI executive team, and I wish them more innovation during the remainder of the 2022 survey. I am confident that we will live up to our leadership’s expectations.”  In turn, Salem Al Housani, Acting Deputy Director General of the Information and mGovernment Sector, and Head of the OSI Executive Team, said, “I congratulate my colleagues in the OSI executive team for their efforts over the past two years. We worked together as one family, developed plans, constantly revised them, developed our work, learned about global experiences, took customer needs into consideration, and held our meetings regularly to unify understanding and coordinate efforts. We are ready for the next stage, and we will work in the same spirit to achieve more progress in the OSI and related indicators.”

WAM