Maravi

ICTs investment critical to minimising digital divide

ICTs investment critical to minimising digital divide
By Kabanda Chulu
Wednesday March 28, 2007 [02:00]

INVESTMENT in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is important in order to minimise the digital divide if Zambia is to benefit from global economic activities. This is contained in the national ICT policy document, which President Levy Mwanawasa is expected to officially launch today.

However, the policy document has acknowledged that Zambia is currently facing a shortfall in critical ICT skills required for developing its information and knowledge economy at managerial, professional and technician levels in order to facilitate the development, deployment and application of ICTs in both the private and the public sector.

"Some of the challenges to be addressed should include low ICT literacy in the country, high cost of technology acquisition and limited local ICT industry thus offering inadequate services and few job opportunities, lack of standardisation and certification programmes in the ICT field resulting in external courses with little localisation to the Zambian education curriculum and inadequate institutional capacity among formal training providers to increase intake and output numbers of ICT graduates," the document states.

Despite this situation the policy intends to address key implementation issues, namely, regulating a converging ICT market as well as putting in place effective and sustainable institutional framework for coordination and implementation of ICT at all levels of society across the country.

"The key to achieving results lies in the performance of the ICT industry; therefore, the policy addresses the need to restructure the industry by putting in place appropriate institutional, legal and regulatory measures to ensure successful implementation of the policy provisions," the dcoument states.

"On the other hand, this policy shall serve as a guide in monitoring and evaluating progress made on various actions proposed in this document and in this respect, Zambia should invest in ICTs now, rather than in the future in order to minimise the 'digital divide' between the country and the global economy, failure to which participation and reaping benefits from global activities will forever become difficult."

The digital divide is a term used to reflect the technological gap between countries that have exploited ICTs and those that have not.
The ICT policy intends to act as a roadmap to guide the nation in the spirit of achieving an information and knowledge driven society, thereby accelerating sustainable social and economic development as part of the national effort to reduce poverty through wealth creation.

"Information and knowledge are key commodities that are heavily contributing to making the difference between rich and poor nations today. Therefore, information is one of the key pillars for accelerating national development in any society and it should be transformed into knowledge if society is to realise benefits from ICTs," the document states.

It notes that the ICT sector was facing the problem of non-availability of tools and services especially in rural and underserved urban areas and high cost of access to ICT tools and services whenever available.

The policy document states that inadequate local content to support cultural promotion and traditional knowledge development and limited coverage of electronic media across the country; and the role of ZNBC as the "national broadcaster" with respect to information delivery to the general public amidst liberalised airwaves needs clarity to ensure transparency, responsibilities and equity.

Labels: ICT

posted by MrK @ 4:37 AM