Speaking to FutureGov, Singapore’s Minister for Communications and Information, Yaacob Ibrahim, shared, “Application of ICT in public sector is one of the key initiatives of the ASEAN ICT Masterplan 2015. But recognising that different states have different levels of development, ASEAN has left the implementation of these initiatives to the various states.”
“The most important step for us is to help build capacity and for the various states to decide which level of intervention in terms of ICT application they will be keen on.”
ASEAN is also looking to collaborate with its dialogue partners for ICT use in public services. The Minister added, “We have had a lot of discussions with the Republic of Korea about collaboration on projects that will help us enhance mobile applications towards the use of e-government, healthcare and transport.”
To continue enhancing regional cooperation in ICT, and make ICT a key engine of growth and enabler of regional economic integration, ICT Ministers of the 10 ASEAN countries met on 14-15 November in Singapore for the 13th ASEAN Telecommunications and Information Technology Ministers Meeting (TELMIN).
One of the key highlights of the meeting was the Mid-Term Review of the ASEAN ICT Masterplan 2015 or AIM2015. Minister Ibrahim, noted, “At this mid-point, two-thirds of the AIM2015 has been completed and we are well on track to implement it by the 2015 deadline.”
AIM2015 seeks to leverage ICT in six strategic areas - economic transformation, people empowerment and engagement, innovation, infrastructure development, human capital development and bridging the digital divide.
Around 60 projects have been undertaken by ASEAN TELMIN since the launch of the AIM2015 in 2011, including regional frameworks for cooperation and coordination in areas such as e-government and cyber security.
Speaking on the issue of cyber security, the ASEAN ICT Ministers emphasised the need to deal with it decisively through regional as well as global cooperation. Indonesian ICT Secretary-General, Basuki Yusuf Iskandar, said, “Cyber crime is not an issue faced by only a single country, so we cannot overcome it alone. We work together with our dialogue partners including Japan and China. Cyber crime has become a global problem.”
The ASEAN Cyberkids Camp is one of the key outcomes of AIM2015, looking to enable students to understand the safe use of internet and cyber security that will help them in their future workplace and daily lives.
Another key success of AIM2015 is to implement the Universal Service Obligation Policy for facilitating the provision of broadband to every school in ASEAN through development of policy, strategic framework and national statistics portal.
Drawing from the Mid-Term Review, the ASEAN ICT Ministers have highlighted the future steps in ICT cooperation through the Singapore Declaration. “TELMIN will continue the strong implementation of AIM2015 and also, start developing a post-2015 ICT vision for ASEAN. It is our hope that the Declaration will help provide a strong base for ICT cooperation in ASEAN,” concluded Minister Ibrahim.
The Ministers have agreed to commence planning and development of the next ASEAN ICT Masterplan for 2016-2020 and will continue these discussion in 2014 in Thailand.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Medha Basu
Quelle/Source: futureGov, 18.11.2013
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