Monthly Indicators September 2003
• Communication & information Technology
o Number of established IT Companies (943 Companies)
o Capital issued ( 1844 Million)
o Capital Investment ( 3116.9 Million)
o Labor Force (27759 Job opportunities)
Monthly Indicators July 2003
• Communication & information Technology
o Number of established IT Companies (922 Companies)
o Capital issued ( 1830.4 Million)
o Capital Investment ( 3099.6 Million)
o Labor Force (27429 Job opportunities)
Ministry of Communication & Information Technology – Egypt- October 2003
The above stated monthly indicators are just a sample of the progress of communication and Information Technology in Egypt with a range of two months, these are just some statistics in quick glance showing some of the progress in the Egypt’s Information Society Initiative, which is a proof for one of the real applications of development towards establishing an information society which was is one of the Egyptian national goals since 1999.
Creating an information society is a major priority for the Egyptian government. Through it, the government hopes to give every individual, business and community, the opportunity to harness the benefits of the new information world. But this guide us to an important question which is for how far can information and communications technologies (ICT) achieve a major outcomes and reliable contributions in development specially in developing countries? There is no doubt that the amount of information about the uses of ICT has been more obvious and grown enormously during the last few years, this beside the international trend of international organizations towards ICT as the World Bank’s new approach to development is based on the assumption that “Poor countries – and poor people – differ from rich ones not only because they have less capital but because they have less knowledge” (World Bank 1999:1). Thus, a lack of knowledge causes markets to collapse and children to die of diarrhea. When poverty is the result of lack of knowledge or the right kind of information, so development is the result of economic growth, which requires a solution to the problem of the lack of knowledge, this gives us a beam of light on the role of knowledge in development processes which is the result of new understanding about the relationship between economic growth and application of knowledge. As Maja Vander Velden mentioned in the paper presented at the “Third International Conference on Cultural Attitudes Towards Technology and Communication 2002” in Montreal, Canada; “this assumes that knowledge is neutral, manageable commodity that can be shared freely and easily, and that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can provide the appropriate tools for accessing, archiving, transferring and communicating information and knowledge. In this approach, the onus is on the timely transfer of knowledge from where it is available to where it is needed, hence a focus on the sharing and management of knowledge ”.
So now we agree about the importance of knowledge and its management but how to achieve this and how much will be the bills of the developing and least-developing countries to achieve this, to talk about this from one of the developing countries this requires to build on information society and continues work towards bridging the digital divide, which must be applied by drawing out a comprehensive framework that lays the foundations for information society in few years as to match the running of the whole world in ICT, this framework requires national plan to achieve several objectives. Some of these objectives is building telecommunications infrastructure, hundreds of information centers, an expanded pool of IT has to be created, and information systems and databases to be established among governmental, private and civil society organizations. In parallel each developing country has to put in consideration the aim behind developing an information society which is to build and develop an ambitious information society and establish a strong oriented industry to integrate in the new global economy change businesses processes, the functioning of government and the relationship among citizens, businesses and the government, to advance the economy and bring about prosperity and new opportunities. To apply the management of knowledge in the information society framework, this requires three major pillars, namely making information technology accessible, providing the applications that will make an information society possible and promoting the export potential of the industry. This framework should revolves around some main issues, like the electronic access, which entails that all citizens should have easy and affordable access to the opportunities by new technologies. Should also stress the importance of increasing awareness and availability of ICT and making it affordable, to do that the governments have to pledge that to expand state – of – the – art communication services all over their states, providing equal opportunities to access, and insure the sustainability of this. The governments should create a leading industry on the national levels and developing investments in the telecom industry.
This framework should also aims at providing improved services for the citizens through a huge E-government project, which means a modernization of the governments’ operations as well as access to information and transparency. This also requires developing the education systems and promoting for the e-learning, making an initiative towards E-Businesses aims at boosting economic growth with the creation of new technology-based firms. Improving health systems, putting the ICT applications to serve the environment … etc.
Now we get back to our question which is “how much will be the bills (costs) of the developing and least-developing countries to achieve this!”; obviously and personally I’m not an expert to decide how much exactly will be this, but I’m ending this article by some words written by Dr. Richard Curtain in his paper entitled “Information and Communications Technologies and Development: Help or Hindrance?” – he said that “ - Great but as yet unrealized potential of ICT in development -Modern information and communications technologies hold great potential for helping developing countries to overcome the tyranny of distance, they able to do this by providing low cost and accessible means for many people to communicate easily. However how best to do this is still an open question. The benefits of any new technology stem from how it is applied”.
Abdallah Sobeih
Alexandria, Egypt.
October 2003
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