Staff report: CAIRO, July 4, 2018 - Assistant Minister of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities for National Projects Waleed Abbas said that the government was currently implementing a plan to build 16, fourth generation smart cities, including the New Administrative Capital and the New Alamein City. Abbas was addressing the Egypt Government Excellence Conference 2018, which is being organised by the Ministry of Planning, Follow-up and Administrative Reform under the patronage of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, and in partnership with the United Arab Emirates. Abbas said that President Sisi was keen on providing modern capabilities in smart cities and on constructing these cities in all the governorates. Abbas outlined the government's approach to the transition to smart cities through the implementation of e-government standards, access to services through the Internet, smart management of facilities and all utilities networks such as water, communications, gas, electricity, central air-conditioning, drinking water consumption, re-use of treated wastewater, the traffic system and means of transport. He added, "Access to advanced standards in smart cities will reflect positively on the economic sector and the real estate sector. The Ministry of Housing has established smart city systems in the New Administrative Capital and the New Alamein city which are qualified to become smart cities." During a session entitled "Building Exemplary Government Human Resources Capabilities", the Director of the Federal Authority for Government Human Resources (FAHR) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Abdel Rahman Abdel Mannan el-Our described his authority's system of work as an innovative model for empowering government cadres. The Emirati official said that knowledge, economy, promoting competitiveness, encouraging continuing education and building human capacities were key pillars of the UAE Vision 2021 National Agenda. He said, "The fourth industrial revolution and the subsequent technological developments are a turning point for economies and future of governments around the world." The conference focused on four main topics; government performance, efficiency and excellence, government capabilities, smart services and government stimulus. "The conference is aimed at achieving a quantum leap in government services to transform the strategic sustainable development goals of the ‘Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS): Egypt Vision 2030' into reality," Planning, Monitoring and Administrative Reform Minister Hala el-Saeed told the inaugural session on Tuesday. The conference is the first step taken in implementing a memorandum of understanding to modernise government work. The MoU was signed by the Egyptian Planning Ministry and the UAE Ministry of Cabinet Affairs and the Future on the sidelines of the World Government Summit, which was held in Dubai on February 11-13. During another session Wednesday entitled "Global Entrepreneurship and Government Excellence", Professor of Entrepreneurship at the American University in Cairo Khaled Ismail said that there should be universities and research centres for developing technology and finding new solutions to problems. He referred to one of the centers that he worked for and said that it was providing a budget of $6 billion for innovation and finding new solutions. The university professor also called on governments to promote efficiency and to foster innovation and thinking "out-of-the-box" about the root-causes of problems and how to tackle them.
