South African communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri attended a meeting of Asian and Middle East IT ministers in Bahrain last week, when the development of ICT in the regions was discussed.
"Focus was placed on enabling technologies and services for mobile worker communities and the reduction of costs and investments to meet the challenges of the digital society as well as transforming societies to fully benefit from the changes that ICT brings about," says Matsepe-Casaburri.
Other issues discussed included infrastructure - especially broadband, software applications, building the necessary social and technology infrastructure, e-government, security, domain names and financing.
Ministers shared their countries` experiences on different technologies, innovative solutions, research and development, business and economic growth and social development.
Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari, Pakistan federal minister for IT and telecom, said at the event: "Information sharing is just the first step in developing closer relationships between countries. However, in order for this sharing of information to materialise into something more meaningful, we must devise mechanisms that will allow us to collaborate on projects that are of mutual benefit to the emerging economies of the region."
A number of countries represented showed an interest in IT solutions in the areas of homeland security, such as machine-readable passports, border control systems and computerised national ID cards.
Matsepe-Casaburri says the Bahrain Declaration 2005 issued after the summit agreed that the issues of access, standardisation of ICT, digitisation of culture to ensure preservation of heritage, construction of a broadband network environment, Internet management, security and affordability, are all essential and need to be accelerated.
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