Rome - Italy

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) represented the State of Qatar in the MENA-OECD Working Group, which was held in the Italian capital, Rome, from 3-6 October. The participating Qatari delegation was headed by Ms. Mashael Ali Al Hammadi, Acting Assistant Undersecretary for Information Technology Affairs at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

This event seeks to discuss the governance program in the Middle East and North Africa region, the OECD and the Committee on Public Governance of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in addition to showing the standards that governments can set to be more open, digital, and innovative, in a way that contributes to promoting greater participation of citizens and stakeholders’ interest in the region.

Speakers from the Middle East and North Africa region and members of the OECD with outstanding good practices in this field will participate in the event. The topics presented focus on the advantages and challenges of utilizing digital tools and data and maximizing innovation to enhance opportunities to communicate with citizens to share sources of ideas and participate in finding solutions to collective challenges.

Al Hammadi said in a symposium entitled "Current state of Digital Governance in the MENA Region", which was held on the sidelines of the (INDIGO) celebration sponsored by the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ): "Qatar has witnessed a huge upward shift in digitalization and earned an eminent place in the global digital society, in which governance played a significant role. Digital governance officially began in 2013 when the Steering Committee of Qatar Digital Government (QDG) was formed to oversee the ICT sector and ensure the proper implementation of e-government programs and initiatives. Shortly after, the efforts of the Steering Committee led to the development of the QDG 2020 Strategy, which included establishing a governance structure to steer programs and projects towards achieving QDG 2020 vision and targets that focused primarily on better serving individuals and businesses, creating efficiency in government administration, and increasing government openness."

“Increasing and activating government openness has become an urgent necessity because data has become the most popular way to gain public trust. It increases the need for coordination across platforms to ensure consistency and requires proper management of public information. Today, Qatar Digital Government is preparing a new QDG Strategy (QDG 2026 strategy) with a governance model that addresses such challenges and enables the strategy to have the right visibility, accountability, oversight and support required for successful execution in alignment with the Qatar National vision 2030,” Al Hammadi added.

Al Hammadi concluded her final statement by saying: "Over the next couple of years, we aspire to further fulfil our national aspirations of becoming an advanced society capable of sustainable development with the goal of providing a high standard of living for all citizens. And to achieve that, we aim at transforming government service delivery into more human-centric services that align with real beneficiary needs by focusing on beneficiary engagement. We also seek to use digital to optimize our processes, aid better decision making, and increase efficiency by supporting the creation of a data-driven government. Moreover, we aim at transforming the culture of Qatar’s public sector towards excellence and innovation by ensuring policy effectiveness and facilitating cultural change.''

The importance of Qatari participation in the MENA-OECD working group meeting is to enhance the role of the State of Qatar in international forums and topics related to open, digital, and innovative governance to know the level of maturity of the countries of the Middle East and North Africa in the selected topics, due to their importance in evaluating and improving indicators of the digital government of the United Nations and affiliated organizations.

The MENA-OECD Working Group Meeting is considered one of the most multilateral initiatives, as it contributes to assisting governments in implementing public sector reforms with the aim of launching social and economic development, meeting citizens' expectations in terms of quality services, inclusive policymaking, transparency, improving existing practices and initiatives, and encouraging innovative approaches. Furthermore, the meeting seeks to promote omnichannel strategies, and effective and inclusive public communication, to ensure that participation in public decision-making is open to all and that no party is left out due to the digital divide or lack of knowledge of ICT.