RIYADH — Saudi Arabia moved up nine notches in the United Nations E-Government Development Index (EGDI) in 2020. The Kingdom has improved its digital infrastructure index ranking, jumping 40 notches to the 27th globally. The Kingdom's remarkable achievement was attributed to the unlimited support of the leadership to the communications and information technology sector, the Saudi Press Agency reported quoting Minister of Communications and Information Technology Eng. Abdullah Al-Sawaha as saying. Al-Sawaha said the Kingdom's digital infrastructure witnessed qualitative leap by jumping to 8th position among the G-20 countries. On the human capital index, the Kingdom jumped 15 notches to 35th globally and 10th among the G20 countries, while Riyadh ranked 10th in the world in terms of sub-technology index and the 31st globally in intercity competitiveness. Al-Sawaha said this achievement is a result of the outcome of the National Transformation Program (NTP) and reflects the progress achieved by the Kingdom in its transformational journey in building a coherent present for an innovative future. "The leaps achieved by the Kingdom in the index came as a result of the concerted efforts of many government agencies and adoption of modern digital methods by launching many initiatives and products. All these have accelerated government's digital transformation, in a way realizing the goals of the Kingdom's Vision 2030," he added. The EGDI presents the state of E-Government Development of the UN member states. Along with an assessment of the website development patterns in a country, the EGDI incorporates the access characteristics such as the infrastructure and educational levels to reflect how a country is using information technologies to promote access and inclusion of its people. The EGDI is a composite measure of three important dimensions of e-government, namely: provision of online services, telecommunication connectivity and human capacity.
