Kingdom of Bahrain - Manama: The eGovernment Authority has added a new achievement to it records by winning the internationally acclaimed FutureGov Award 2011 as the Public Sector Organisation of the Year in the Middle East recognizing its National Authentication Framework project (NAF). The award is organized for the 5th year to recognize the leading government organizations in eGovernment field.

The Award was received by Mr. Feras Ahmed, Director of Service Delivery and Channels Enhancement in the eGovernment Authority at an Awarding Ceremony that took place on the 14th of October 2011 at Putrajaya Conference Center in Malaysia.

The award winning project (NAF) aims at facilitating the government services for citizens and residents by saving them time and effort through a single sign on personal unified identity profile. Using a single sign on identity, users can complete all government transactions online quickly and conveniently without the hassle of repeated searching or re-entering of data, particularly with the growing number of government eServices”, he explained.

“This achievement is an addition to a series of accomplishments that eGA is proud to have achieved by virtue of the unlimited and ongoing support of the wise leadership, the guidance of the Supreme Committee for ICT, well-structured plans and the continuous efforts exerted by the eGA’s management and employees, said Mr. Mohammed Al Qaed, Chief Executive Officer of the eGovernment Authority.

Moreover, the Chief Executive of eGA has pointed out that the new project will provide eServices users with all the necessary information that will be needed such as details of the latest transaction they made, and recently browsed services while saving their time by suggesting other services they may need or want to use, at the same time, maintaining high security and privacy of users’ information whether they are citizens, residents, or any government services user.

Notably, the FutureGov 2011 has been organized in its 5th version and has been instituted to recognize the leading government organizations in the eGovernance arena. The jury committee comprised globally renowned professionals and senior officials in Public Service chaired by Mr. Laurence Millar, Editor-at-Large of FutureGov Asia Pacific magazine. It is worth mentioning that the winning projects were selected based on their creativity, effectiveness of application, usability, and contribution to productivity and future outlook.

The Awards categories included: Government Organization of the Year, Education Organisation of the Year, Healthcare Organisation of the Year, FutureCity of the Year, Technology Leadership, Wireless Government, Connected Government, E-Government, Cloud Computing, Data Centres, Information Security, Digital Inclusion, Service Innovation, Information Management, Green Government, Business Process and Government Transformation of the Year Award.

It is worth mentioning that eGA has provided over 211 eServices covering all stages of individual’s and business’s life cycle through its national portal (Bahrain.bh), Mobile portal, eService center, National Call center, in addition to a number of eKiosks distributed among various commercial complexes and government premises.