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The Qatar delegation at the ongoing World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva is being led by HE the Minister of Information and Communications Technology Dr Hessa Sultan al-Jaber. |
A high-level meeting opened yesterday to review progress on the outcomes of the previous WSIS sessions, held in Geneva in 2003 and in Tunis in 2005.
Policy-makers, including ministers and leaders from civil society, academia, business and international organisations will focus attention on implementation of the outcomes of the summit for next year’s 10-year review during the WSIS+10 High-level Event that kicked off yesterday.
Dr al-Jaber delivered a policy statement about Qatar’s efforts towards becoming an information society. “Qatar’s leadership focused on the ICT sector as essential to transforming Qatar into an information society, fuelling both social and economic good. We opened up the telecommunications market and made the decision to invest heavily in building and securing a world-class infrastructure with the capacity and speeds to set Qatar apart in the region and around the world,” she said.
She also highlighted the recently-launched Qatar’s e-Government Strategy 2020, Qatar National Cyber Security Strategy and the Inclusion through Technology Mada Strategy.
“Driven by Qatar’s National ICT Plan 2015 and Qatar National Vision 2030, today, Qatar ranks 23rd among 148 countries in the 2014 World Economic Forum’s Networked Readiness Index and 4th in the world in government usage of ICT in that same report. And Qatar’s ICT market is expected to grow 10% annually and reach QR24.7bn by 2016,” she said.
Earlier, ITU secretary-general Hamadoun I. Touré, said: “World leaders at the WSIS in 2003 agreed to promote the use of ICTs for the achievement of internationally agreed development goals and targets. Today almost everyone on earth lives within reach of a mobile cellular network and nearly 3bn people are online; we must now ensure that everyone also has access to broadband connectivity. We are here to pave the way for the future and set the roadmap for sustainable development in the post-2015 era.”
With special attention to developing countries, 10 targets were adopted at WSIS with the aim of encouraging connectivity in villages, schools, libraries, post offices, national archives and governments, as well as adapting school curricula to meet the challenges of the information society, support the development of multilingualism and content on the Internet, and ensure ICT access to more than half of the world’s inhabitants.
One of the highlights at the WSIS+10 High-level Event yesterday was the launch of the Final Targets Review, a report prepared by the Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development, of which ITU is a founding member. The report indicated mixed results on the achievements of the WSIS targets and called for strengthening the role of ICTs in the post-2015 development agenda.
According to the Final WSIS Targets Review, significant progress has been made in increasing mobile cellular coverage with all rural communities in the world likely to be covered by 2G mobile cellular signals by 2015.
However, Internet connectivity remains a challenge and access to broadband continues to be unequal, with penetration rates around four times higher in developed countries as compared to developing ones.
While some countries have successfully integrated computers in schools, less than 10% of schools in many of the world’s poorest countries are connected to the Internet. The proportion of teachers trained to use ICT in the classroom is increasing, but fewer than 10% of teachers in low-income countries have been trained to effectively use ICTs in their classrooms.
Scientific and research centres with broadband Internet access is close to 100% and the total number of national research and education networks has improved significantly, with the majority of universities and research centres being connected.
While libraries, museums and archives are important providers of online content related to culture, a lot remains to be done in terms of digitising cultural heritage and making it available online.
There is a growing divide in broadband access between enterprises in developed and developing countries and it is clear that within developing countries themselves, there are wide differences in ICT use between large and small companies, between enterprises in different industries, and between rural and urban enterprises. Mobile phones have become the most commonly used ICT tool among micro and small enterprises, and in the informal sector.
The number of websites has grown exponentially between 2003 and 2013, and the number of webpages even more substantially, with developed countries in Europe, the Americas and parts of Asia generating the majority of web content.
More than 300 languages are now available on Wikipedia and more than 100 on major social networks, while the proportion of Internet users whose primary language is English has fallen significantly as access to the Internet has become more widespread.
Results show that ICT is becoming central to the effective operation of health systems and services although progress is uneven across countries. The WHO Global Observatory reports that the number of countries with e-health strategies is showing a steady rise.
In 2014, central governments in all 193 UN Member States have an online presence, with online information and services increasing three-fold on government portals in the last decade.
