This was the general message which was sent by Dame Billie Miller, Senior Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, while speaking at the opening ceremony of a two-day Commonwealth Connects workshop on e-Business and e-Government for the Caribbean region, held at the Grand Barbados Beach Resort, yesterday.
Making reference to the drafting of Barbados National ICT strategic plan, the Senior Minister noted that two fundamental goals have been at the heart of such a plan.
One such goal is to develop the islands human resources in a manner that will equip all citizens to compete at the global level. The second goal is to modernise the operations of Government, thus improving efficiency and also expediting service delivery, Miller said.
With regards to the first goal, Miller noted that Government has invested significantly in the countrys youth through the Education Sector Enhancement Programme or EduTech, which has fully incorporated computer literacy into the curriculum, for the benefit of every school child. Such a programme holds that every child of primary school age must be computer literate. Dame Billie also spoke highly of the complementary Community Technology Programme, which seeks to provide effective access to information technology and the Internet to the wider community, by turning community centres into ICT-equipped resource centres.
Numerous Barbadians have been trained at these centres since the programmes inception in 2005, Dame Billie acknowledged. With regards to the second goal, Government has applied ICTs to streamline the management of its financial, procurement and payment processes, she added.
With the above in mind, the Senior Minister remarked that the Barbados Government was indeed looking forward, with great enthusiasm, to the hosting of the Commonwealth Connects workshop, which will allow Caribbean partners to share and discuss vital information to further promote the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for development, by enhancing the use of electronic commerce and governance.
The Government, she also stated, was also eager to learn of the Malta experience. Malta is currently known as the ICT destination and technology haven in the Mediterranean.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): (RS)
Quelle/Source: The Barbados Advocate, 04.12.2007
