Jordan is working with other governments, specifically Italy, Singapore and Malaysia to share experiences and knowledge of implementing an e-government structure. We are also sharing our experiences so that best practice processes that we have experienced so that they can be utilised by other nations. In March 2002, Jordan participated in a workshop in Singapore which provided an overview of the Singapore government’s IT/e-government strategy, organisational structure, infrastructure requirements, broadband Intranet for government and government email system. A broad overview was also provided at the time on Singapore’s public service infrastructure which allows the government to provide e-services to its citizens through the Internet and public access points. Jordan has seized opportunities to learn with other countries on what will work best in developing its e-Government programme.

E-Government is the national program initiated by his Majesty King Abdullah II. Its purpose is to enhance the performance of government in terms of service provision, efficiency, accuracy, time and cost effectiveness, citizen satisfaction, cross-governmental integration and elements related to style the government and its perception. The key emphasis of the e-Government program has started with the re-engineering of processes to become more efficient, as well as human performance development and eventually, deployment of best practices using the latest technologies as a tool to enable government stakeholders to implement the new processes. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MoICT) has been assigned to take the lead in coordinating the efforts of implementing the e-Government Program and providing support where needed in the implementation.

Jordanian government employees are key stakeholders in the program and their commitment to its success is key. For this reason, there is focus on change management, as well as continuous learning and performance development. Running under the umbrella of the e-Government Program is the ‘ICT Literacy Program’. This introduces basic computer skills to government employees in partnership with UNESCO on the ICDL (International Computer Driving License) , qualifying employees with the ICT Literacy training program. The total cost of the project, which will be concluded by the end of 2005, is around JD 2.5 million, and up to 20.000 employees will be empowered by ICT literacy skills, in a step to make preparations for everyone to play a key role in Jordan’s e-government Government.

E-Government will touch all of Jordan’s government departments. However, there are priorities in implementation of the e-Government initiative. Criteria for selection was defined and a number of ministries and departments were included as the first wave in implementation. An example is the first phase of the Secured Government Network (SGN) and e-mail project, which connected; the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, Ministry of Planning, Ministry of Finance, Prime Ministry, Ministry of Industry and Trade, Municipality of Greater Amman. Phase 2 of the project will connect a further 12 Government entities to the SGN by the end of the year.