The World Bank currently supports the e-Sri Lanka project – an initiative to improve access and use of ICT (information communications technology) by citizens, businesses and government – with a 53 million dollar credit.
"We have received a request for additional funding for the ICT Agency (ICTA) e-Sri Lanka initiative," Naoko Ishii, country director for Sri Lanka said on Friday.
"We are currently formulating the country assistance strategy for 2009-2012 and in that a second phase is not included."
The World Bank funded project is implemented by the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka, a state agency.
The government of Sri Lanka will have to prioritise its development activities, Ishii says, to ensure continued funding for the ICT initiative for the next three years. The World Bank’s Country Assistance Strategy is not yet finalized.
The five year e-Sri Lanka project was launched in 2004 to re-engineer government departments and develop ICT policy, improving ICT education and setting up regional telecom networks and information technology booths, called telecentres.
ICT Agency says it is confident that the project will receive added funding, given the success of the project to date.
A second phase will look at improving efforts in e-governance as well as growing the information technology and IT enabled services market, Reshan Devapura, Chief Operating Officer at ICTA, said.
ICTA has supported development of Sri Lanka's outsourcing industry, set up a network of telecentres in rural areas and has also begun addressing skilled worker shortages in the industry.
It has introduced pilot e-governance initiatives in state agencies such as the Department of Immigration and Emigration.
Computer literacy is also up from 9.7 percent in 2004 to over 16 percent today and the IT and IT enabled services sector is also the fifth highest export earner at 213 million dollars in 2007 from negligible activity five years ago.
But five years of work has made no discernible impact on improving the overall efficiency of government services however, says Rohan Samarajiva, head of think tank LirneAsia in his column 'Choices' on Lanka Business Online.
Sri Lanka slipped in the UN e-government rankings from 94th place in 2005 to 101st place in 2008.
He outlines the successes of e-Sri Lanka but also points to questionable outcomes such as the proliferation of unsustainable tele-centres and slow progress in ICT expansion.
The World Bank will continue to support capacity building at the regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Commission, between 2009 and 2011 to strengthen responses to convergence.
Convergence refers to a combination of telecommunications services being provided by a single operator such as fixed line, mobile, internet and even cable and television services.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Zainab Ibrahim
Quelle/Source: Lanka Business Online, 04.12.2009
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