“As the world recovers from the global financial crisis, we are optimistic the ICT sector will realize its great potentials to ensure universal access and high-speed connectivity to vital information,” Angara said, even as he added that this will require investments in infrastructure from both the public and private sector.
The senator explained: “ICT is a tool to boost a country’s overall competitiveness by improving the efficiency of production processes across sectors and industries, accelerating the growth of knowledge-based services, and empowering people to access unprecedented sources of information and markets.”
Angara, who chairs the Senate Committee on Science and Technology, pointed out that governments around the world are crafting policies and creating institutions for ICT growth, using various developmental approaches.
For instance, he noted that Germany has an interministerial agency handling information technology (IT) policies, while France and Portugal have established one central coordinating body, directly answerable to the Chief Executive.
Angara acknowledged that the country still lacks a coherent, long-term policy for ICT development, as well as an agency that will implement the strategy.
“ICT has proven to be a significant catalyst for national development, without which coordination between government offices and partnerships with concerned agencies will be very difficult.”
“The Department of Information and Communications Technology [DICT], which we are pushing for in the Senate, shall coordinate with various public and private agencies to facilitate different government initiatives, such as the e-government objectives, in particular, and national objectives, in general,” he said.
He said the E-Government Fund, which shall be created for the department, would serve as a special fund for cross-agency and government-initiated ICT projects.
“The fund will be used to support and cofinance projects that enable the government to expand its ability to conduct activities electronically and provide frontline services through the development and implementation of innovative uses of the Internet or other emerging technologies.”
DICT, he said, will be the primary policy, planning, coordinating, implementing, regulating and administrative entity of the Executive branch of the government for ICT development.
“Through the establishment of DICT, we hope to further promote ICT in the country as a tool to create jobs, improve government services and empower Filipinos. During this particularly difficult period, we need every advantage that we can get. ICT is one way for us to have that advantage,” Angara said.
“The data and information, if we are able to utilize them properly, will allow us to make faster and better decisions, and react to crisis better, whether it be financial or health related, or weather and crop forecasting.
“The possibilities of a unified ICT system in the country, led by the DICT, are endless,” he added.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Butch Fernandez
Quelle/Source: Business Mirror, 04.01.2010
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