The Federal eGovernment team yesterday discussed the latest developments in the implementation plan and the progress of MOAF’s eGovernment project. Saeed bin Mohammad Al Raghabani, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, discussed the progress with Abdulla Aleter, Assistant Under-Secretary for Human Resources, Finance and Information Technology at the ministry, Dr Emir Mavani, the Federal eGovernment Programme Director and other officials.

The MOAF eGovernment project has been divided into three streams. The objectives under the Stream 1 phase are to develop an ePortal and eServices. Stream 1 has been further divided into three sub-phases consisting of Wave 1, Wave 2 and Wave 3.

During the meeting, the minister complimented the team on the successful completion of Wave 1 of the project which saw business requirements and prototypes for 25 eServices being developed in just five weeks starting July 2005.

The soft launch of these services under Wave 1 have been scheduled for end of December 2005. A total of 46 eServices will be developed by the eGovernment team under Wave 2 and Wave 3 by mid next year.

“I am extremely pleased with the rapid progress made by the eGovernment team on implementation of the eGovernment project at the ministry. In particular, I would like to emphasise the importance of Stream 3 which is the Knowledge Management phase. This phase is highly essential as it will lead to qualitative change as knowledge gets harvested across the ministry,” said Al Raghabani.

Suad Abdullah, Deputy IT Manager, MOAF, pointed out: “The recording and viewing of statistical information in Stream 3 with regard to the eServices will help the ministry keep records and measure performance of these services. This will also help in feedback and analysis in order to improve these services.”

Stream 2 which is the second phase will lead to a full scale automation of the ministry with connectivity of all the MOAF physical branches across the Emirates through high speed Internet services.

Stream 3 which is the third and last phase of the project is the Knowledge Management stream which is aimed at increasing learning and knowledge across all levels at the ministry.

Commenting on the project, Ahmad bin Ghannam, Deputy Director, eGovernment Programme, said the eGovernment team expressed appreciation for the strong support of the minister in this initiative. “The key benefits from the roll-out of this project will be the simplification and facilitation of customer interaction with the government, more stream-lined back end processes which will allow improved customer service, reduced duplication of effort for the government entities involved in the processing, reduced service provisioning costs and improved access to data and information,” he said.