WESTERN ASIA PREPARATORY CONFERENCE FOR WORLD SUMMIT ON INFORMATION SOCIETY DISCUSSES KEY ISSUES ON ICT FOR DEVELOPMENT

                                                            PI/1458*

                                                            5 February 2003

Western Asia Preparatory Conference for World Summit on Information SOCIETY

Discusses Key Issues on ICT for Development

(Reissued as received.)

BEIRUT, 5 February (UN Information Service) -- The Western Asia Preparatory Conference for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), organized by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), resumed its deliberations for the second day at the United Nations House in Beirut.

Three morning workshops were held concurrently on Information Communication Technology (ICT) Applications for Socio-economic Development; Capacity-Building in ICT; and the Role of Government, NGOs and the Private Sector.

During the first workshop, Lubna Al-Kasimi, Director of Information Systems Division at the Port Authority of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, elaborated on the benefits of e-commerce.  She said that developing countries should invest in children by attracting their interest to the Internet.  “They are the next generation and they should be integrated in the Information Society”, she underlined.  Ms. Al-Kasimi also noted that only the ignorant were against the Internet usage, claiming that they did not care about technology.

Ziad Abdul-Hadi, Head of the Computer and Biometrics Services at the Syria-based International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), said that agriculture constituted 5 to 25 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP)in Western Asian countries.  In his lecture entitled “ICT and Agriculture: the Challenge”, he said that 50 per cent of the population of these countries depended on agriculture, and that ICT had so far a very low impact on this sector. He noted that the digital gap was evident in those rural and agricultural areas, adding that ICT would play an important role in agriculture, if technology were successfully transferred to farmers.

In the second workshop, which was chaired by Ibrahim Hajj, Dean of Engineering and Architecture at the American University of Beirut (AUB), a number of experts debated the feasibility of strengthening ICT in educational institutions in the region.

Ahmad Sartawi, a professor at Al-Quds University in the Palestinian occupied territory, delivered a lecture about ICT human resources.  “Developing a competitive information-based economy requires policies, regulations, institutions, infrastructure and people”, he said.  He noted that a human

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*      Yesterday’s Press Release REC/107 should have been issued as PI/1457.

resources development framework should be based on a national development plan and a proper work environment.  “Along these lines, objectives would be:  improvement of government practices; development of the educational system; creation of linkages with the private sector; and raising society awareness about ICT”, he underlined.

Speaking at the third workshop, Manuel Rincon, Industrial Development Officer at ESCWA, gave a presentation on “Delineating Roles for Partners in the Development of Information Society”.  “I do not believe that ESCWA countries should import what worked out in other regions for it might not work out here because of cultural differences”, he said.

During discussions, which followed, AUB professor Toufic Mezher said that government corruption undermined the efficiency of the private sector.  “We put an action plan and place the government on the top of the pyramid without taking into consideration corruption, which undermines what the private sector does for the development of Information Society”, he pointed.  Mr. Mezher expressed his disapproval of the relation between the development of ICT and that of the economy.  “In several Arab countries, we have seen growth in usage of mobile phones and Internet, while the GDP has gone down”, he argued.

Ahmed El-Oteify, Vice-President of the Egyptian National Telecommunications Corporation, talked about partnership initiatives for regional integration.

Mr. El-Oteify also discussed the growing worldwide competition in the aftermath of the terms of the World Trade Organization (WTO).  To this end, he encouraged the different companies to merge so that they would be able to face the increasingly competitive market.

The afternoon sessions consisted of another three workshops on the Arab Digital Content; Development of the ICT Sector; and Regional Cooperation.

Speaking at the first afternoon workshop, Tarek Shawki, Communication and Information Regional Adviser at the UNESCO office in Cairo, said that his office worked hard on preserving rare Arab and Islamic manuscripts and digitalizing them. “We faced two problems.  First, the Egyptian manuscripts were scattered worldwide and outside this region; and second, archiving the digital documents on the Internet was not an easy job”, he noted.

During the workshop on “Development of the ICT Sector”, Hassan Sharafeddine, professor and information technology adviser at the University of Sanaa, said that Arabs could not benefit from Western sciences, which have been available for

50 years.  He, therefore, questioned whether Arabs were able to exploit the current technology.  Mr. Sharafeddine also noted that Arab States found out that “regionalization” is their way out of poverty.

The Beirut Conference, which was opened yesterday under the auspices of the President of Lebanon, is expected to conclude tomorrow by a series of recommendations regarding policies, preliminary plans and initiatives that address the key issues and tackle the identified problems in building the information society.  The Conference final document will be presented at the Second Intergovernmental Preparatory Committee meeting to be held in Geneva from 17 to  28 February 2003.  The second preparatory meeting will discuss the agenda of the Summit and the elements to be incorporated into the final document for the World Summit on the Information Society.

For more information:  www.escwa.org.lb/wsis

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