TDRA helps drive UAE's digital transformation through key initiatives

Emirates ranks 21st globally in the UN's e-Government Survey 2020, advancing eight places since 2018

The UAE has ranked among the world's best countries in terms of government digital transformation, the World Bank's GovTech Maturity Index 2021 showed. Delores Johnson / The National

The Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority issued the UAE Digital Transformation Enablers report, highlighting the important milestones of the digital transformation process through a series of initiatives.

The report reviewed the digital enterprises undertaken by TDRA, the most important of which are the Federal Network, UAEPass, the Government Service Bus and the national customer relationship management system (NCRM), the government agency said.

"The UAE was one of the first countries to launch the e-government project at the beginning of the millennium and then continued its leadership in the next various stages to reach the digital government we live in today, which is consistent with the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the era of data and advanced technologies supported with artificial intelligence," said Mohammad Al Zarooni, TDRA deputy director general for the Digital Government Sector.

The UAE leads the Arab world in digital progress and preparedness for the future, a separate survey issued by the Portulans Institute in collaboration with Google said. The Emirates stood third – with Singapore claiming the number one spot – among 27 emerging global economies, the Future Readiness Index survey said. The UAE was ranked 23rd out of 123 countries.

The UAE has also ranked among the world's best countries in terms of government digital transformation, becoming the only Arab nation in this group, said the World Bank's GovTech Maturity Index 2021 that measured the reliance on modern tech in government work in 198 states.

The Emirates also ranked 21st globally in the UN e-Government Survey 2020, advancing eight positions over 2016, in terms of online services, telecom infrastructure and human capital.

The Gulf country also came ninth globally in the IMD Digital Competitiveness Ranking.

The TDRA has a mandate to work on two parallel and integrated tracks, which are to regulate and enable the ICT sector and advance the country's digital transformation.

The TDRA's report highlighted the main enablers of digital transformation in the UAE, such as the digital signature (UAEPass), the digital verification platform (UAE Verify), the digital trust platform, the digital services marketplace, the Government Service Bus (GSB), the UAE Hackathon and the API Marketplace, among others, to showcase the facts, figures and results related to these enablers.

UAEPass, a platform that allows residents and visitors to access government services using a unified digital identity, has 2.66 million people registered to this service, the TDRA said in its report.

The Digital Vault within UAEPass allows users to request their official digital documents and link them to their digital identity. It has 1.7 million registered users and facilitated 2.8 million transactions and shared 1.1 million digital documents.