The role of information and communications technology (ICT) in development has been stressed by speaker after speaker at the World Telecommunications Development conference in Doha. Uganda's Minister of Works, Housing and Communications outlined the ICT reforms undertaken by his country with the approval of a National ICT policy and development of a model Universal Access policy on the one hand, and a major expansion of the ICT infrastructure and implementation of a comprehensive human resource development in the ICT sector on the other.
But he also said that his country, like the 21 other countries of the Eastern and Southern African region, are still facing infrastructure challenges because of their inability to be connected to a submarine cable. At the regional level, Uganda spearheaded the formation of one of Africa's most recent regional regulatory associations, the Association of Regulators of Information and Communications for Eastern and Southern Africa (ARICEA).
For the Doha Declaration and Action plan, to be released by the meeting today, its final day, he said Uganda sees the need to focus on strategies to: assist and guide countries in need of enabling environments; provide guidance and facilitation for the development of infrastructure in member countries; and facilitate a mechanism that will enable countries to transition seamlessly from current technologies to Next Generation Networks (NGN).
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