This clarion call was made by Maqbool bin Ali Sultan, minister of commerce and industry, who was addressing the first phase of the World Summit on Information Society being held here as His Majesty the Sultan’s representative yesterday. “One noticeable strong trend is the rush by many governments in the world toward implementing the e-government, and provision of the different types of data to their users. However, e-government by itself will not be of significant value unless citizens and businesses acquire knowledge and resources that would allow them to avail such services,” Maqbool asserted.
He added: “Equally, the citizens and businesses aspire for availability of the telecommunications infrastructure and the electronic transactions supporting environment. Above all the objective should be better government services to be availed rather than just converting to e-government.”
The minister however, acknowledged “the significant participation by most of the world countries, and at such supreme and distinguished level, as a genuine evidence of the ever-growing importance of Information and Telecommunications Technology (ICT) and its role in providing a more secure and productive working environment.”
“The global nature of the information society means that we are in front of an excellent opportunity that allows all of us to learn from our joint experiences, help each other and learn how to transform failure into a motive to ensure future success,” he said.
Maqbool urged all countries to strive to ensure development of national e-strategies, including the human capacity building by 2005.
“Are the developing countries, and particularly those the least developed countries, prepared and equipped for performing this task?”, he asked.
“The answer is that perhaps, most of those countries are not. They don’t have the means for achieving such objective, and they also lack the financial resources that would enable formulation of a comprehensive policy for the information and telecommunications sector,” he pointed out.
“It is here that the basic role of developed countries, relevant international development organisations and financial institutions becomes crucial. They should help the developing countries in absorbing the latest technological advances in information and telecommunications field, and not be burdened with old and obsolete technologies, which the developed countries may have abandoned,” the minister emphasised.
He said the Sultanate welcomed the proposal of creating a digital solidarity fund to provide technical and financial assistance towards national and regional capacity.
In his speech, Maqbool particularly referred to the directives of His Majesty the Sultan in addressing the subject with much attention, citing the country’s progress todate as encouraging.
“Besides the macro-economic policies adopted in the country for ensuring a high degree of economic freedom conducive to enterprise and investment, we formulated a national information technology strategy that sets the track of the path for the coming years. We hope that the steps for implementing the main dimensions of such strategy will go according to the plan, so as to achieve Oman’s digital society,” he noted.
He continued: “In the capacity building realm, we have an ambitious programme in place to deploy the International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL) to many thousand of young Omanis, which would enable them to acquire the basic skills in such field.
“We also recognise our need for high specialisations in the IT field at university and post graduates levels, and that is why KOM our Omani High Tech Park established recently hosts two private technical colleges — one being dedicated fully for IT courses.
In conclusion, His Majesty’s representative called for making the summit “a model of cooperation between the North and the South and translating the draft declaration of principles and the action plan into a tangible reality that manifests all the principles and values of joint work so that our world becomes more free, more secure and more peaceful.”
Quelle: Times of Oman, 12.12.2003
