Ethiopia is
in the process of economic transformation through Agriculture Development Led
Industrial Strategy. The macro-economic structural adjustment program was
designed to create a market driven economy and encourage trade and investment.
However, national infrastructures necessary to bring about a fast economic
transition should be in place in order to exploit the existing and potential
resources of the country. Thus, the development of national information
infrastructure (NII) is considered as one of the national strategic components
to make change and improve the determinants in socio-economic performance.
Thus, in order to hasten the capacity building in
the domain of NII and thereby appropriately exploit the untapped national and
international information resources a coherent national policy and strategy on
ICTs becomes imperative.
This policy document, therefore, covers Vision and
Missions (policy directives) of the NII, Policy statements, National strategies,
and Priority programs.
This
policy considers the convergence of computing, telecommunications and
broadcasting technologies, which generally forms the present information and
communication technologies (ITCs), and the need for a systematized organization,
access and preservation of information.
Building
up and exploitation of an integrated ICTs infrastructure, resources and services
and enabling the socio-economic development endeavors of the country to utilize
multidisciplinary information as one of the most important tools for planning,
management, operations and international competitiveness are the prime concern
of this policy.
The
objectives of the ICT policy are for ensuring:
·
the optimum
exploitation of the role that ICT plays in national development programmes, and
·
the building
up of the required capacity of national ICT infrastructure.
It
is to exploit ICTs for the enhancement of efficiency and effectiveness at the
civil services, optimization of the flow of information at all levels, and to
maximally facilitate connectivity to the global information infrastructure and
lay a firm foundation for e-business by the year 2010.
1.
The establishment and development of national ICT
resources and services as an integral part of the national development plan
shall be promoted;
2.
Cooperative
spirit and practice among the stakeholders as well as the necessary coordinating
structures shall be established ;
3.
The
indigenous generation of information, and improve the quality of information
content and services shall be strengthened;
4.
Access to
public and private sector information resources shall be supported;
5.
Standard
information processing methods and facilities to ensure compatibility for the
optimization of the availability and reliability of data/information shall be
developed;
6.
The
development of human resource in information and computer sciences shall be
promoted and supported;
7.
An effective
legal and regulatory framework which enables to integrate, speed up and monitor
the development of national information infrastructure (NII) shall be provided ;
8.
Programs on community based information services
through support of information and communication infrastructure development
shall be strengthened;
7.
NATIONAL STRATEGIES
1.
Design a
national work plan for the development of national and institutional ICTs
resources and services as an integral part of the overall national development
plans;
2.
Promote
regional, sub-regional, bilateral and multilateral co-operation in ICT;
3.
Formulate a
set of national legal frameworks development of information resources and
services and integrate it in the national development policies;
4.
Adopt
methods and procedures which would ensure that the government institutions
contribute and provide support to the development, operation, and coordination
of national information system;
5.
Promote the creation of bilateral and multilateral
relations and cooperation with organizations which are involved in ICTs
activities and those promoting the development of ICTs infrastructure and
services;
6.
Institute
programs and activities that ensure the integration and support of ICTs in
institutional strategic development programs;
7.
Provide a separate ICTs budget line in all
projects, programs organizational, sectoral and national development;
8.
Establish
high level inter-sectoral national ICTs Council;
9.
Coordination of national ICTs activities through
the preparation of sectoral ICT implementation, monitoring and evaluation
guidelines and manuals;
10.
Encourage the private sector investment by creating attractive
environment through introducing appropriate and implementable incentives;
11.
Develop partnerships between government and the private sector in
developing and exploiting the national information infrastructure;
12.
Facilitate the participation of diaspora and civil
societies/communities in the ICTs development process;
13.
Develop effective and productive use of national frequency and spectrum
resources;
14.
Ensure
the availability of legal measures against misuse, negligence and for not
adhering to the prevention and recovery standards and procedures set at
national/sectoral/institutional levels;
15.
Encourage affordable acquisition, production and mass distribution of
educational materials, basic electronic media, contents and facilities.
In
view of the need to put in place a strong basis for a national information and
communication infrastructure, the national ICT policy gives priority to the
following areas:
1.
Ensuring the
establishment of a reliable, secure and affordable national information network;
2.
Provide
leased lines for value added service networks and public information gateways;
1.
Ensure the
establishment of in-house (sectoral/ institutional) network infrastructure in
the different sectors of the economy;
2.
Identify and
support potential areas manageable to develop local capacity for manufacturing
of ICT equipment;
3.
Libraries or
information centers should establish network to share their resources by using
electronic delivery mechanisms; and
4.
Support all high schools and higher education
institutions to have internet connectivity.
1.
Formulate
and implement a national ICTs personnel development strategy;
2.
Establish an
ICT excellence center where intensive, practical and quality training courses
will be provided, and to re-engineer the existing professionals with relevant
background from public and private sectors;
3.
Re-orient
engineering and other ICTs related courseware to accommodate new developments in
the field of ICTs and geared towards greater responsiveness to industry needs;
4.
Establish
career structure for the ICT professionals at national level;
5.
Encourage
and support professional associations in the field of ICTs and maintain
collaborative relationship;
6.
Identify and
encourage distance learning programs for ICT;
7.
Provide the
necessary institutional set-up to support ICTs exploitation within the public
service operational structure as a strategic reform program;
8.
Develop
national programs to encourage computer literacy at all levels;
9.
Prepare ICT
oriented national curriculum for ICT education;
10.
Establish ICT vocational or polytechnic institutes;
11.
Improve the educational delivery system through the application of ICTs;
and
12.
Attract nationals in Diaspora and develop programs to transfer their
knowledge and skills.
1.
Adopt
nationally integrated and, sectorally and regionally distributed content and
access structure;
2.
Strengthen
data warehousing for promoting trade and commerce, and for enhancing delivery of
government services;
3.
Enable
public and private sectors homepages publishing and/or linked to standard back
end applications to facilitate wider public access and transactions to
information on key policies, programs, products and services;
4.
Localize the existing global knowledge and contents
for indigenous utilization;
5.
Promote the
digitization of the existing indigenous hard copy information resources, with
cultural and permanent heritage value, for the purpose of preservation and
effective utilization;
6.
Develop
innovative, high impact and deployable sectoral and national applications and
encourage inter-sectoral and inter-regional collaboration in information
exchange and;
7.
Support
professional associations for advanced ICT training programs in producing
analytical research outputs;
8.
Support electronic media backed archive management, presentation,
disposal and utilization.
9.
Support the print and publishing industries targeted to community based
information content production and development;
10.
Support and encourage local language based contents
and applications development initiatives.
11.
Encourage and support multimedia-based contents and
application development, mass communication and information delivery.
2.
Organize
ICTs advocacy program, as well as
extensive and more focused trade mission to promote investment on ICTs;
3.
Develop
public information kiosks systems;
4.
Encourage
social groups to participate in the provision and dissemination of ICTs based
services and products;
5.
Facilitate the establishment and strengthening of
ICT promotion and technical support
centers, and community information
service centers in Regional States;
6.
Continue to support the establishment and
strengthening of public libraries, reading places at various localities across
the country to develop reading and information seeking behavior of the society.
7.
Educate and
protect internet users, particularly the youth from accessing resources which
would degrade cultural norms and moral values and,
1.
Ensure the set up of data security standards and
procedures, supported by the necessary hardware and software, to maximally
prevent systems and data failures and effective recovery of the same that
satisfy the required level of system and data integrity and quality;
2.
Access rights and systems security structures
through ICTs should incorporate features that cater for different user profiles,
data categories including transitory data organization;
3.
Ascertain the rights and consents of individuals in
the collection, transfer of and access to any personal data
and that individuals have the right to learn about the purpose, accuracy,
completeness and up-to-dateness of their personal data.
1.
Develop and
ensure the implementation of primary information collection, sectoral and
institutional information processing formats and procedures;
2.
Create
standards for interconnectivity and interoperability of computer networks;
3.
Establish
standard public security key and implement it in electronic data
interchange and,
4.
Introduce characters setting and keyboard layout for local language
computerization and adopt UNICODE technology.
5.
Ensure the
standardization of the quality of information presentation using ICTs and the
media carrying such information, and create as system for so doing;
6. Encourage quality management system for systems development procedures and strategies;
1.
Encourage
the participation of professionals to conduct research and development
activities on practical problem areas in all phases of the information system
development cycle;
2.
Ensure that
research projects and programs are aimed at solving local problems, meet
national needs and enhance the development of professional knowledge in the
field, and the dissemination of their output;
3.
Encourage
that R&D should also focus on high-value added ICTs products and services as
well as on product creation, design and improvement in software development.