Professor Nizar Ben Neji Highlights Tunisian E-Government Advances

 

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Left to right: Jian Li, NCDG pre-doctoral fellow, Jilin University, China; Dr. Gretchen Gano, CPPA STS Research Associate; Nele Leosk, NCDG pre-doctoral fellow, [European University Institute, Florence, Italy); Jane Fountain, Distinguished University Professor and NCDG Director; Nizar Ben Neji, [Assistant Professor, University of Carthage and Fulbright Scholar; Prof. Raquel Galindo, Autonomous University of Madrid; Dr. Obed Pasha, Center for Public Policy and Administration.

On Wednesday, April 22, Nizar Ben Neji, a Fulbright Visiting Scholar and Assistant Professor from the University of Carthage in Tunisia, presented an overview of e-government initiatives in his home country during a seminar hosted by the National Center for Digital Government in Gordon Hall 203 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

During the last few years, public administration and structures in Tunisia have shown promising signs of moving from a classical way of delivering services to a more modern approach. The United Nations E-Government Survey 2014 shows that Tunisia leads the continent in e-government innovation and resources, climbing 28 places since 2012 due to the new government efforts to better serve citizens and businesses online. Neji will also highlight one of the most recent e-government projects in Tunisia, the Tunisian E-Procurement System (TUNEPS), a new digitized system that is covering the entire procurement process from purchase requests to payments.

In the video below, Neji discusses e-Government initiatives at the eID conference in Budapest:

 

The full presentation given at the National Center for Digital Government can be viewed here: Neji’s Presentation. For additional information, the former Tunisian Prime Minister gave a talk at the Harvard Institute of Politics entitled “Tunisia: A Start-Up Democracy,” the complete video is available by following this link.

During his Fulbright exchange, Neji is conducting research on cloud security and cryptography at the UMass Amherst electrical and computer engineering department. He has worked as information technology project manager at the Tunisian Government Certification Authority of the Ministry of ICT, where he was in charge of providing IT consulting services to support various PKI-related projects across e-government, e-banking and e-commerce. He was member of several national steering committees in charge of supervising national IT projects such as TUNEPS and the national committee in charge of revising the cybersecurity and cybercriminality law in Tunisia.