Communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri signed the ICT Sector Summit Agreement between business, labour and community representatives in Pretoria on Thursday afternoon.
The agreement signed for the ICT sector is part of the overall social dialogue between government, business and labour on the development of the country, which is conducted through NEDLAC (the National Economic Development and Labour Council).
In the agreement, ICT stakeholders acknowledged that ICT was crucial to the development of the country and undertook to work together to ensure sustainable job creation and education.
Matsepe-Casaburri also cited the commitment of the stakeholders, including government, to improve the lives of people and communities through the use of appropriate technologies.
"There has been an accelerated growth in ICT in this country in recent years and we should use the opportunity this growth presents by consciously empowering historically disadvantaged people in this sector so that we actively participate in the growth of the economy and in the development of a global information society," the minister says.
"We need to ensure that we meet our national objectives of job creation, human resource development and universal access. This sector agreement paves the way for the current challenges that we face to be overcome and for these objectives to be reached."
She also noted that the agreement was signed on the eve of the World Summit on the Information Society and that everyone should be aware of the benefits that ICTs could bring in unifying people and communities, to achieve universal access and bridge the digital divide.
Share