Following the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis last November, Ghana`s Ministry of Communications is collaborating with the World Bank Country Assistance Strategy to push for growth in the country`s ICT sector.
E-Ghana commits the government to establishing IT-enabled services (ITES) training centres in conjunction with the private sector, re-privatising Ghana Telecom and remedying the lack of technology-savvy personnel in government. It also commits the state to renovating the existing government portal infrastructure to reduce costs, improving the security of databases and making it easier for channel partners to plug into government databases for delivery of citizen service.
The project is aimed at attracting ITES investment, the communications ministry states, particularly business process outsourcing, promoting the development of local ICT businesses through quality certification and university software-testing facilities, and achieving greater efficiency and transparency in certain government departments.
Ghana`s minister of education and sports, Yaw Osafo-Marfo, recently stressed the importance of ICT development projects, saying he is "committed to the deployment of ICT-based tools and systems to facilitate the process of improving the quality of education, training and sports at all levels".
So far, he added, the Computers in Schools project has trained 550 teachers in basic ICT skills and 840 students in Web development skills.
The World Bank would work closely with Ghana`s Ministry of Communications to improve on ICT policy and regulation, and would also look at developing ICT applications to governance and to private-sector businesses, Mats Karlsson, country director for the World Bank, told Ghanaian newspaper The Daily Graphic this week.
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