The Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC), the eGovernment Centre (eDEM) of the Public Administration Institute for Turkey and Middle East (TODAIE), the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TİKA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) co-organized the “International Conference on eGovernment: Sharing Experiences (eGovSharE2009)” in Antalya, Republic of Turkey, on 8-11 December 2009. The SESRIC delegation to the conference was headed by Dr. Savaş Alpay, Director General, and included Mr. Hüseyin Hakan Eryetli, Director of Publication and IT Department, Mr. Haytham Zeinelabdin, Research Assistant, and Mr. Tagelasfia Eltayeb, Translator.

The main objective of the conference was to provide a platform for leaders, public managers and professionals, researchers as well as academicians from all over the world to share their practices, ideas and research results. The conference also tried to explore collaboration potentials through the exchange of practical experiences in eGovernment project implementations within the region.

The opening session of the conference was honored by the participation of H.E. Binali Yıldırım, Minister of Telecommunication and Transportation of the Republic of Turkey and H.E. Imad Sabouni, Minister of Communications and Technology of the Syrian Arab Republic. Following the speeches made by the ministers, welcome speeches were made by Their Excellencies heads of the co-organizing institutions; Dr. Savaş Alpay, Director General of SESRIC, Prof. Dr. Eyyup Günay İsbir, Director General of TODAIE, Dr. Musa Kulaklıkaya, President of TİKA and Ms. Ulrika Richardson Golinski, UNDP Resident Representative in Turkey.

In his opening statement, Dr. Savaş Alpay took the participants through the enormous steps taking place in the field of Information Technology and which have been paving the way for access to information on an unimaginable scale. Following the briefing about the performance and readiness of the Member Countries of the Organisation of the Islamic Countries (OIC) in the area of eGovernment application, he encouraged the participants to get use of every opportunity presented during the conference since the experiences of the others will absolutely guide towards avoiding the hard teachings of trial and failure. Thus, the conference is a valuable opportunity to start and increase cooperation and capacity building efforts among both OIC Member Countries and other nations. He also informed the participants that the SESRIC undertakes strong and close cooperation with the most relevant international and regional organizations with a view to promote the cooperation level up and far to the best through providing training and capacity building programmes to the OIC member countries.

The Conference resumed its proceedings in six sessions, three sessions for country cases and four working groups. In the first day of the conference keynote speeches were presented on the theme of “eTransformation in Public Administration” by four panelists. The sessions, working groups and country cases themes are provided hereunder respectively:

• Challenges to eGovernment
• Knowledge Management
• Legal Security and Trust Issues in eGovernment
• Measuring eGovernment
• eGovernance
• mGovernment

The working groups deliberated on:

• Administration Reform Process and eGovernment
• eGovernment Project Management
• eGovNet
• eGovernment Portal

The papers presented under Country Cases Sessions tackled the following subjects:

• eIdentity, eRegistration and eJustice
• eHealth, eSocial and Health Insurance, Social Aid and eEducation
• eCustoms, eConsulate and eMunicipality

Hüseyin Hakan Eryetli, Director of Publications and IT Department of SESRIC, presented a paper titled “eGovernment Readiness: The Performance of the OIC Member Countries.” In his presentation Mr. Eryetli stopped on the status of the OIC Member Countries evaluating it with reference to the data drawn up during 2005-2007 period. The data was collated and processed to build up the composite eGovernment Readiness Index (ERI) of the OIC Member Countries based on Web Measurement Index (WMI), Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (TII), and Human Capital Index (HCI). The presentation came out with three sets of recommendations suggested to make e-government initiatives successful at the OIC level. The first set of recommendations deal with setting the foundation for the e-government transformation and the second set of recommendations focus on the efforts for shaping an effective and sustainable e-government environment in the public sector of the OIC Member Countries, while the third set expresses the cooperation methods at the OIC level to enhance the capacity building of the Member Countries in e-government applications, and increase the productivity and quality of the e-government applications.

The detailed recommendations of these sets emphasized, inter alia, on developing one comprehensive strategic plan to lead the efforts of the OIC Member Countries in making their e-government programs successful and serve as a clear methodology for the current and prospective e-government programs. With such a developed strategic plan, the decision makers can track their progress on carrying the current applications to the digital platform. In addition to that, an electronic common platform for sharing e-government experiences among the OIC Member Countries should be established to assist the exchange of information, technologies, and experiences on e-government strategies and initiatives. To foster an overall capacity-building of the OIC Member Countries in their e-government initiatives, a review at the OIC level should be made to bring out the training needs. In this respect, the Training and Technical Cooperation Department of the SESRIC can organise activities oriented towards e-Government Capacity Building through its Capacity Building Programme (CBP) based on the aforementioned review.

Opening Statement of Dr. Savaş Alpay, Director General of SESRIC

Presentation on “eGovernment Readiness: the Performance of the OIC Member Countries” by Mr. H. Hakan Eryetli, Director of Publication and IT Department, SESRIC