Egyptian Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC) obtained “Committed to Excellence” certificate from the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM); becoming the first African and Egyptian governmental institution to obtain this certificate.
The certificate is awarded to the most distinguished institutions according to European institutional excellence standards. This comes as a culmination of the IDSC’s efforts to root the institutional values and to root the creativity culture in the work environment.
Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly congratulated all the center’s employees for obtaining such award; highlighting his appreciation of the efforts exerted throughout this period, looking forward for continuous and sustainable performance improvement and development, as the center deserves to take an advanced place among similar centers around the world. He added that the center, with its outcomes including researches, reports, data and information has been a true supporter to decision maker.
Assistant Prime Minister and IDSC Acting President, Osama Al Gohary, said that EFQM Certificate of Excellence is an acknowledgment from the European Institution that the awarded shall commit to follow the best administrative practices in its activities; adding that it is capable of further business development and improvement.
Al Gohary highlighted that the IDSC obtained this certificate after the assessment team made their sessions, which included reviewing all the followed procedures and methodologies, improvement chances and the result based on the EFQM Excellence model.
The IDSC Acting President revealed that the management of internal operations is being improved as well as the methodologies adopted at the center according to the European standards.
In addition, the organization may ask the IDSC to launch three development projects, establish an agenda that aims at improving the performance in general, and apply for “Committed to Excellence (C2E)” certificate. A team affiliated to the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) will visit the center to assess these projects, measure their implementation status, and ensure the center’s commitment towards the European quality standards to grant the award.
Al Gohary pointed out that the IDSC has previously won 14 Arab and international awards over 35 years; the most significant of which was receiving the award of the best Arab organization in 2002.
Moreover, Al Gohary reaffirmed that last year witnessed the implementation of a comprehensive improvement plan for all IDSC’s systems and headquarters. It covered the “Legal Portal for Egyptian Legislations” and the “National System for Emergency Management.”
A unit for data sciences was established; it is specialized in processing big data and come up with solutions to resolve any problems that may face decision-makers. This unit will adopt the latest Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems.
The Assistant Prime Minister stated that the IDSC has developed all its communication channels with the public opinion and the outside-community. The center was also able to expand its editions of the weekly research bulletin such as “An Overview of Events”, “Development Snapshots”, and “Trends for the Future.”
Additionally, the IDSC has developed its online website; it improved the management of its official accounts on social media platforms to reach out to the largest number of followers using the latest tools of information presentation.
Osama El Gohary added that the IDSC had its prominent role in supporting the government’s efforts in combating COVID-19 pandemic through launching the website: care.gov.eg. The website presents key information on the pandemic and its updates. Also, the IDSC launched “Ahalena” (Our Families) website to support irregular employees.
Moreover, the IDSC cooperated with key Egyptian thinkers and opinion-writing journalists to write policy papers concerned with the issues of the most important changes globally and locally. Last year, it was keen on being present at both levels through hosting international conferences; the most important of which were the 4th Arab Partnership Meeting for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Governance and Egypt’s Vision 2030 Forum which was organized in coordination with the Chinese Embassy.
The Cabinet’s IDSC Acting President pointed out that IDSC had been interested in forging partnerships with more international bodies; for example, World Food Program, UNICEF and several other international organizations. It also worked on deepening cooperation aspects with numerous major global companies in the Information Technology (IT) fields.
Thus, the IDSC signed several cooperation protocol; the most notable protocols were signed with the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA) and Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
Lastly, he highlighted that the IDSC focused on the internal work environment which was awarded the European Certificate of Excellence through an ambitious plan to develop the human element. Opportunities were offered to the youth to hold leading positions within the IDSC, research axes were restructured and new units were introduced to develop the work process.
