The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) has released the 2025 Government Electronic and Mobile Services Maturity Index (GEMS), with the participation of 17 Arab countries. The initiative aims to support decision makers across the Arab region in developing digital government services and monitoring progress in digital transformation.
GEMS serves as a regional tool for measuring the maturity of government e-services and mobile services. It is based on an assessment of 100 core government services selected along the life-cycle of service use by individuals and businesses, covering service availability and development, service uptake and satisfaction, and government outreach and engagement efforts.
The 2025 edition assessed a total of 1,333 government services and institutions across the Arab region, namely 956 services and 377 government institutions. The steady increase in the number of institutions evaluated between 2021 and 2025, by more than 78%, reflects the growing scope and expansion of digital transformation across government entities in the region.
Regarding the results, ESCWA GEMS project lead Mohamad Nawar Al-Awa underlined that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar ranked highest among participating countries in the 2025 edition. The Arab region also recorded slight overall progress, with the regional average index score rising from 45% in 2024 to 46% in 2025. "This demonstrates continued efforts to improve public sector efficiency and enhance services provided to individuals and institutions," he added.
The participating Arab countries were categorized into four main groups according to their maturity levels: very advanced, advanced, intermediate, and early maturity. This distribution shows that several countries have begun reaping the benefits of previous investments in digital infrastructure and foundations, while others continue to face structural and contextual challenges that limit their ability to adopt and scale digital and emerging technologies.
Despite the progress achieved, Al-Awa pointed to the persistence of a significant gap between countries at the very advanced maturity level and those still at the early maturity stage. This gap remained at 95% in 2025. He called for continued support to Arab countries still in the early stages of digital maturity, greater exchange of expertise across the region, and accelerated digitization of more government services across sectors to ensure services that are more efficient, inclusive, and responsive to the needs of individuals and institutions.
The 2025 results also show that regional gains have been concentrated in strengthening trust foundations, developing infrastructure, enhancing digital identity systems, and improving channel security. However, progress remains limited in the areas of proactive services, the adoption of emerging technologies, and the enhancement of the user experience, particularly through mobile channels.
At the sectoral level, the utilities, interior affairs, and labour sectors led the ranking of evaluated services. The results also underscore the need to accelerate the digitization of services in other sectors, notably social affairs, tourism, and health.
The index further reveals that several performance indicators related to mobile platforms continue to record medium-to-low scores, particularly in terms of the availability of mobile applications, the maturity of mobile services, accessibility features for persons with disabilities, mechanisms for collecting user feedback through mobile channels, and overall user satisfaction with these channels.
Regarding emerging technologies, the findings show that indicators related to the use of these technologies in government services and the application of artificial intelligence to support users remain at medium-to-low levels. This underscores the need for greater efforts to harness the potential of these technologies in a safe and effective manner. The results also point to the existence of foundations that can be built upon, particularly in connecting government entities with the wider ecosystem to leverage emerging technologies and improve the user experience.
