Social media usage enabling citizen engagement in Arab region

The growth of social media in Arab nations has helped the governments there to engage people on enhancing public services when the public sector in the region suffers from deficiencies, according to a survey.
The Arab Social Media Report series, launched by Dubai- based Governance and Innovation Programme, says Arabs have positive attitudes towards getting engaged by government via social media for public service design and delivery.
It says that 55 per cent of the respondents strongly support the government's use of social media.
Respondents also said that social media facilitates better accessibility to government entities and public sector officials.

However, according to the report findings, social media is still used in the Arab region as a one-way information source for the majority who use it to connect with government.
Only 2 per cent of the respondents reported visiting official social media pages or using their personal social media accounts for sourcing information on public services.

Of the 63 per cent who do utilise government social media pages, 74 per cent only use it to access information on government services and entities, while giving feedback, sending complaints or new ideas to government ranked lower.
"We are still in a beginning of an era where technology is empowering the public and allowing for collaboration opportunities between government and society," said Fadi Salem, Director of the Governance and Innovation Programme and co-author of the report.

"With around 82 million Facebook users and 5.8 million active Twitter users in the Arab world today, more than 22 per cent of Arabs are actively using social media platforms in innovative ways," he added.
The report suggests that increased connectivity, coupled with the low levels of quality and accessibility of public services in the region prompted many civil society structures to utilize social media tools to fill gaps in service delivery.
Growth of social media usage in Arab world has been consistently strong, with the number of users in 2014 increasing by a whopping 49 per cent on Facebook, 54 per cent on Twitter and 79 per cent on LinkedIn since May 2013.