UfM holds workshop on enhancing the digital transformation in Egypt
15-16 November 2023, Cairo. The Union for the Mediterranean held the National Workshop on Digital Transformation in Cairo on 15 and 16 November 2023 with the support of the German Agency for International Cooperation and in partnership with the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the Estonian ICT Cluster. With over 60 experts and participants from various backgrounds in attendance, this two-day event allowed for discussions on how to enhance the digital transformation and for the exchange of best practices and ideas based on the experiences of Estonia and Egypt.
This event, like the e-Governance National Workshops conducted in three South Mediterranean countries (Algeria, Palestine and Mauritania) throughout 2021, followed up on the conclusions of the Digital Transformation and Digital Skills for the Future conference in Tallinn in 2019. It also reinforced the cooperation between the UfM and Egypt with an initiative in line with the Digital Egypt Strategy 2030.
In their opening remarks, Ingrid Amer, the Ambassador of Estonia to Egypt, Samah Aziz, the director of the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Said Charna, a senior advisor at the UfM, and Andreas Grabade, an advisor at the German Agency for International Cooperation, coincided on the importance of digitalisation for an inclusive, sustainable and human-centred economic development as well as on the need for cross country and sector collaboration to roll out a successful digital transformation.
The first day’s sessions focused on the requirements for successful digitalisation, such as an enabling national strategy and legal framework, public-private partnerships, an open innovation ecosystem and digital skills, while examples of digital public services (e-taxation, e-justice, social protection, etc.), digital identity, interoperability and data security were examined on the second day. A similar UfM workshop will take place in Rabat, Morocco on 11 and 12 December 2023.
