Emerging Developments in the ICT Sector: Policy and Legal implications

Prof. Venansius BaryamureebaVice Chancellor,

Makerere Universityvc@admin.mak.ac.ug

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The Issues – Global Arena

• ICT- means of communication; & technologies which enable users to create, access, manipulate & disseminate information

• ICT is the fastest evolving sector globally • There is growing demand for universal access to

high speed broadband internet• Growth Opportunity in the IT-Based Services• Unprecedented potential of ICT as a

transformational enabler 2

The Context: The NDP Egg Analogy

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The “Purported” Relationship between ICT & Economic Growth

Economic Growth

Income Gains

Effective Markets

Information for Economics

Information Technology

The Purported relationship between ICT and economic growth, adopted from Eggleston et al. [2002].

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Policy and Legal Implications

• In the use of ICT for service provision and production: There are policy and legal implications Need to identify gaps in policy Need to identify gaps in legal frameworks/

acts

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Service Areas whose delivery can be enhanced with ICT

• Health: Maternal &child health, Telemedicine, national health data bank, Electronic patient management, National drug distribution monitoring, etc

• Education: Management and administration of institutions; online academic programmes (e.g. E-learning, E-supervision, e-assessment); Student management; monitoring and regulation of teaching activities

• Agriculture: Pests & disease diagnosis, Livestock movement management, Delivery of advisory services, Market information, National Agriculture data bank, M & E, etc.

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Service Areas whose delivery can be enhanced with ICT

• Governance: Revenue collection, Visibility for the country & its products & services, Law & order, Election management, National planning data bank, mass mobilization, sensitization and awareness, Citizen participation and empowerment, etc

• Business: E-business, hospitality, out sourcing, teleworking, e-shopping, etc

• Communication (mass media): Attitude & behavior change, Mass mobilization, sensitization and awareness, facilitate efficiency of other service sectors e.g. education, health, business, etc

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Production areas whose delivery can be enhanced with ICT

• Trade & Industry: Automation of production processes, Quality assurance, Security provision, Marketing, etc.

• Business (Process) Outsourcing: Customer care, Software development, Marketing, book keeping, Call centre services, etc

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Strategy for Achieving desired Impact on Service delivery & production

• Mainstream ICT into the country’s production & service sector– so that all actors can appreciate, value and act

their part e.g. investing in ICT, allocating adequate funding, etc

– national collective responsibility and acceptability of ICT as a conventional part of service and production ventures

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Strategy for Achieving desired Impact

• National Literacy in basic ICT skills e.g. Kenya’s public servants are required to have ICDL certification

• Strengthening research in ICT – research in ICT is not given the kind of attention and

support it deserves

• Adequate funding for ICT sector growth• An enabling environment for knowledge transfer

partnerships with big ICT companies like Microsoft and Google

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Strategy for Achieving desired Impact cont...

• Utilization of local talent to address national challenges through strategic public-private partnerships

• Support cross breeding in capacity development with more ICT developed countries such as India, China, South Africa, Netherlands

• Support ICT Innovation Centres • Support local content development, etc.

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Achievements to-date and their implications:

• Liberalization of the Telecom Sector has brought down communication prices – But more ICT enabled services are needed. Promising developments

such as mobile money, mobile agriculture by Applab (NGO),mobile health by Health Child (NGO in Jinja), etc.

• But incentives for the development of more ICT applications in service and production needed e.g. a content strategy to guide and stimulate content development for education, governance, health, etc

• The nation wide access to high speed internet through the national backbone needs to be backed by content strategies for it to be beneficial to the country

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Achievements Cont’d

• Acts: Passing into law several ICT bills– need to identify the gaps

• The number of service providers has increased• More Ugandans accessing higher education

with opportunity for specialization• Infrastructure development

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Issues to ponder upon

• What is the status of ICT usage/deployment in Uganda?

• What is our National ICT Agenda at integration level?

• What informs our procurement and deployment at national level?

• Where is government’s single source of information----National Database?

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Issues to ponder upon

• What specialty areas need urgent attention? Like IT-Legal experts, Forensic Audit Experts

• Who is who in the sector and how can they be accessed?

• What systems are in place to support decision making in a timely manner?

• What is the PR strategy for promoting ICT as a service and production enabler?

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In Conclusion• We must manage our information to support

quick decision making Appropriate Information Systems are required

• We must support Content Dev’t; Content is critical to drive use and adoption

• Need for Research; Research gives direction and continuous improvement

• Need for Technical Expertise; Invest in training technical persons to support sector growth

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CIS AT A GLACE

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CIS BLOCK B-10,000 SITTING CAPACITY BUILDING

The Facilities at CIS

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THE 800 SITTING CAPACITY LAB

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NEW TECHNOLOGY-THIN CLIENT COMPUTING LAB

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RECORDING STUDIO TO SUPPORT E-LEARNING

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REACHING OUT TO THE COMMUNITY-UPDF BEING TRAINED IN ICT SKILLS

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