Endale Assefa
23 August 2007
Addis Ababa — Forging a strong partnership between all the stakeholders, government, the private sector, international agencies and the donor community was of paramount importance to provide adequate infrastructure and services to rural community, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told an international conference on ICT.
Prime Minister Meles, in his opening remarks to the conference, noted ensuring access to information technology and telecommunication services in Ethiopia has been "a daunting challenge" and the well-being and prosperity of Ethiopian society was what is primarily at stake.
Meles said his country registered encouraging results in ICT development like the school net program and will pursue its effort in improving access to information technology and telecommunication services regardless of the large sum of money the investment required.
"The investment required for building the necessary infrastructure, and for expanding and modernizing the education sector, are enormous, but will not, and should not deter Ethiopia from striving to overcome those challenges," Meles said.
Meles said the conference was of much help to Ethiopia in that it would offer opportunity for developing countries like Ethiopia to interact and share experience and helping cement global partnership for development with the view to attaining the Millennium Development Goals.
"Ethiopia draws enormous satisfaction from hosting this important global gathering bringing together various stakeholders in the ICT field from across the globe and organized in collaboration with the International Federation for Information Processing," Meles said.
ICT has been identified as a key factor that determines a country's ability to attain the Millennium Development Goals, such as eliminating poverty, combating serious diseases, improving access to education and providing equal opportunities to women.
Director General of the Ethiopian Information Communications Agency Debretsion told a press briefing held two day ahead of the international conference that specific advantage of the forum being held in Ethiopia was experience sharing as the major participants are experts acquire international knowledge and deeper understanding about ICT.
According to organizers, the forum has brought together over 700 participants from across the world including Ministers, senior policy makers, experts, the private sector, academics, non-governmental and governmental organizations engaged in ICT.
Deliberation and presentations on varied topics will be made by policy makers and ICT experts including representatives of organizations working on ICT who will chart to chart out a road map in addressing problems surrounding ICT.
Specifically it will confer on poverty, access to education, HIV and AIDS, environment, empowerment as well as other social, ethical and legal concerns in connection with ICT.
The conference is expected to discuss these issues and highlight the work of African governments, regulators and the private sector in providing universal access to information technology and telecommunication services.
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