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ICT Policy Section Focus Areas
Other Activities of the Section
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ICT Policy Formulation
While the importance of enabling
ICT policies and strategies was emphasized at the
World Summit on the Information Society at the highest
political level, the formulation and implementation
of a systematic, comprehensive and articulated policy
and regulatory framework have reached an advanced
stage in only a few countries in the region.
Regulatory Framework and its relationship to national development plans
The experiences
of these countries demonstrate that such a framework
should be integrated fully into the national economic
and social development plans. This framework should
give due regard to the participation, rights and obligations
of all stakeholders while maintaining economic incentives
and ensuring the trust and confidence of businesses
and consumers. Furthermore, policymakers should have
the capacity and instruments, such as ICT indicators,
to monitor the impact of policies on social and economic
development and make appropriate revisions if required.
Unfortunately, the lack of a coherent and integrated
policy in many developing countries, especially, the
least developed countries, countries with economies
in transition and Pacific island developing countries
contributes to the inefficient use of resources and
uncoordinated efforts by various government agencies
and stakeholders.
ESCAP's focus in the region
Recognizing the need for policy and regulatory frameworks
conducive to the adoption and diffusion of ICT in
the ESCAP region, the main focus of the ICT policy
component of the subprogramme has been on increasing
the capacity of members and associate members, especially
the least developed countries, countries with economies
in transition and Pacific island developing countries,
to create enabling policies and a regulatory environment
for the development of national and regional information
societies and the achievement of the Millennium Development
Goals.
Training and Advisory Services
Towards this end, a number of training and advisory
service activities to assist countries in creating
an enabling ICT policy and regulatory framework were
organized. A training module of ICT policy and strategies,
an e-business primer and a model of international
management standards for ICT development for policymakers
and representatives of the private sector have been
developed. It also assisted countries with economies
in transition to build their capacity to address intellectual
property rights in the development and application
of ICT. Such a work will be continued as part of the
future activities.
The process of identifying an internationally agreed
framework of ICT statistical indicators at the global
and regional levels has already commenced and ESCAP
is contributing to this global effort as an active
partner of the Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development,
recently, formed by a number of United Nations agencies
and programmes, United Nations regional commissions
and individual national statistical offices.
Preparations for the WSIS
The Geneva phase of the World Summit on the Information
Society recognized that there are differing views
on the suitability of the current institutions and
mechanisms for managing processes and developing policies
for the global Internet. For this reason, they requested
the Secretary-General to set up a Working Group on
the Internet Governance (WGIG) with a view to preparing
the ground for negotiations during the second phase
of the WSIS (Tunis, 16-18 November 2005), culminating
in the Summit.
In order to provide input and views of the Asia-Pacific
region to the WGIG and WSIS Tunis phase, a number
of events in cooperation with other partners, such
as UNDP-APDIP and ITU. They included subregional and
regional preparatory events for the WSIS organized
in Bishkek, Suva, Bali, Kathmandu, Bangkok, Tehran,
and open regional dialogues on Internet governance
(ORDIG).
Internet Governance
The WGIG established by the Summit concluded that
Internet governance extended beyond merely the technical
domain to other significant public policy issues.
Unfortunately, many developing countries do not have
sufficient capacity to participate effectively in
global Internet governance or to have an understanding
and awareness of public policy issues. A work to assist
selected developing countries and countries with economies
in transition in building their national capacities
for formulating and implementing public policies on
and effective participation in global and regional
Internet governance will be done as part of the future
activities.
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