Lebanon

Leb/02/M07

A project to formulate a national E-Strategy for Lebanon is underway. The Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform (OMSAR) leads it. The UNDP global Thematic Trust Fund on ICT for Development funded by the Government of Japan support the project (Link-BDP/TTf). The E-Strategy draft is due to be completed in December 2002.

The project activities are essentially related to a UNDP supported project is OMSAR Implementation of the Institutional Development Strategy for Lebanon (Leb/98/002), for which OMSAR is the Executing Agency (http://www.undp.org.lb/programme/governance/institutionbuilding/institution.htm). OMSAR and UNDP, through the above-mentioned project will directly manage the project and provide technical support through UNDP/OMASR professionals.

Description

The economic growth of Lebanon, the individual prosperity of its citizens and their integration in the borderless global era is significantly linked to deepening public understanding about technology through up-to-date education, training and awareness. This process will also have to motivate all involved policymakers, private businesses, academicians, students, researchers and citizens to be successful and sustainable. And as a result, Lebanon can come closer to become a center of excellence in the region, leading the Arab world in a more aggressive participation in the global information age.

The Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform has integrated the objective of developing and implementing an e-government strategy into the work plan of its project with UNDP for the year 2002. The purpose behind the proposed e-Strategy for Lebanon is to lay out the roadmap for the enabling building blocks for a national e-society covering information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure, institutional and legal frameworks and human resources from both the service user and service provider perspectives. This roadmap will for example allow for realizing in addition to e-Government, e-Commerce/e-Business, e-Learning and e-Banking applications.

A National E-Strategy

Formal initiatives to mainstream ICT in post-war Lebanon (1991) began in the Public Administration, under the National Administrative Reform Programme. The Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform (OMSAR), established in 1993, was designated to lead e-Government initiatives through technical assessments, preparation of specifications, and outsourcing functions. UNDP spearheaded the establishment of a Technical Coordination Unit, in OMSAR, whose primary mission has been to promote the modernization and development process, within the public administration, while keeping the general public aware of these achievements through various communication channels.

In 2002, OMSAR assisted by UNDP reviewed and expanded its targets to the formulation and mainstreaming of a national e-Strategy, with the aim of expanding ICT as a tool for enhancing decision-making capacity in Government, promoting a citizen-based administration, increasing digital inclusion, as well as enhancing coordination and linkages with other UNDP/civil society/private sector programmes in the area of ICT for development.

More specifically, the purpose behind the e-Strategy is to lay out the roadmap for the enabling building blocks for a national e-Society covering the information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure, the institutional and legal frameworks and the human resources from both the service user and service provider perspectives. Starting with an e-Readiness assessment (covering all of the above building blocks), the e-Strategy will identify and elaborate the measures required as per a high-level national business strategy to make the country at large, and its services industries in particular, ready to join the global e-Society. These measures are to be documented in a structured manner along with a high level plan of action for their timely realization and sustainability through continual modernization and updating.

The e-Strategy will build on lessons learned and identified needs for an enabling environment for ICT for development from previous and on-going initiatives in the areas of e-Government and Community Tele-Centers in remote communities across the country. Relevant success stories worth noting include assistance to the fiscal reform and rehabilitation in Ministry of Finance, notably the Custom's Administration and Directorate of Land Registry, where improvements in internal efficiency as well as speed and quality of services to citizens and the business community have been noticeable (www.finance.gov.lb). UNDP supports similar initiatives and approaches with other line Ministries as well as partners in the private sector and civil society. More recently, UNDP introduced the concept of the Technology Access Center in the liberated town of Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon, in partnership with the Council for Development and Reconstruction and CISCO systems that donated the equipment. The purpose of the Center is to facilitate access for the local communities who otherwise have limited means or interest in accessing the Internet, or in using the computer for otherwise manual, labor intensive or time consuming practices. More centers are envisaged through OMSAR where the concept of Multi-purpose Community Tele-Centers has been scoped and designed for set-up in the 5 governorates of the country.

The project strategy will include:

An E-readiness assessment.

A e-strategy document based on the findings of the e-readiness assessment

A national consensus building and information-sharing workshop. The workshop will present the findings of the e-readiness assessment and the key areas of the e-strategy. The workshop will provide the forum for selecting implementation priorities. The target audience is representatives of government line Ministries, public agencies, and the legislative, members of the private sector and civil society, national think tanks and academia, and members of the media including specialized journalists. The workshop will also invite the donor community in Lebanon in order to share with the results of the workshop to assist in the formulation of future programmes in this domain.