He spoke as the Twelfth Ministerial Meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, entering its penultimate day in Accra, Ghana, held a round table on "Harnessing knowledge and technology for development", in which they weighed strategies to put the current information and communications technology boom at the service of poverty alleviation and sustainable development.
Hailing the Internet as "the great equalizer", owing to its lightning-fast ability to bring people together and efficiently transfer information on a global scale, Mr. Ntim said Governments in the developing world had an obligation to inject the requisite capital to establish and/or upgrade their telecommunications networks and enhance the capacities of universities and training centres.
The aim was "to be a creator, not merely a passenger" on the information highway, the Minister said, calling for Government-private sector partnerships to help stimulate and support technological research and development.
Ghana, which hosted some 29 Internet service providers with nearly 1.5 million subscribers, was building a fibre-optic network that would ensure nationwide access, thus boosting national development. The "e-Ghana project" placed special emphasis on helping local telecommunications businesses take advantage of the opportunities created by public-private partnerships.
He stressed that knowledge creation and the ability to translate telecommunication skills and knowledge into benefits for society were critical in enabling developing countries to take part in the information explosion, adding: "A country"s future is determined by the size and quality of its human capital." In order to achieve a truly knowledge-based economy, developing countries must prioritize skills training as well as research and human capacity-building.
"Ultimately, the growth frontier is now defined by access to modern communications and information technologies," said Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, in his opening remarks. Therefore, the developing world urgently needed access to knowledge and innovation, not only to improve livelihoods, but also to enhance capacity-building. Knowledge, technology and innovation now played a central role in the development process and were indeed critical to the achievement of internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals.
He stressed that, despite the existence of the new technologies required to address development challenges, poor countries lacked access to them. It was critical for developing countries to develop institutions, enhance education capacities and create supportive policy and regulatory frameworks at the national level, while making greater efforts to build capacities and create information and communications technology partnerships at the international level.
Distance learning e-business and e-governance technologies were all being placed at the service of development with spectacular results. Wireless innovation, which was literally transforming societies around the world, was critical today.
"If all stakeholders join hands in partnership, we can achieve real results," he said, calling on political leaders to live up to the commitments they had made at the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society.
In line with that Summit's outcome, it was estimated that, by the end of 2008, half the world�s population would have access to mobile phones if current trends held. However, much remained to be done, particularly sine the least developed countries had poor telecommunications infrastructures, lacked adequate resources and suffered from low literacy levels.
In a keynote address, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand said modern information and communications technology - and the knowledge to put it to use - was critical to achieving the goal of sustainable development for all.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Suleiman Mustapha
Quelle/Source: The Statesman Online, 28.04.2008
