The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) has represented the State of Qatar in the MENA-OECD Working Group, which was held in the Italian capital, Rome, from 3-6 October, 2022. Ms. Mashael Ali Al Hammadi, Acting Assistant Undersecretary for Information Technology Affairs at MCIT, led the participating Qatari delegation.

This event aims to discuss the governance program in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the OECD and the Committee on Public Governance of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This also includes showing the standards that governments can set to be more open, digital, and innovative, thus contributing to promoting greater participation of citizens and stakeholders in the region.

Al Hammadi said in a symposium entitled “Current state of Digital Governance in the MENA Region”: “Qatar has witnessed a huge upward shift in digitalization and earned an eminent place in the global digital society, in which governance played a significant role. Digital governance officially began in 2013 when the Steering Committee of Qatar Digital Government (QDG) was formed to oversee the ICT sector and ensure the proper implementation of e-government programs and initiatives. Shortly after, the efforts of the Steering Committee led to the development of the QDG 2020 Strategy, which included establishing a governance structure to steer programs and projects towards achieving QDG 2020 vision and targets that focused primarily on better serving individuals and businesses, creating efficiency in government administration, and increasing government openness.”

Source: Government of Qatar