Time for Arab countries to be on cybermap - October 2001

Tuesday, 23 October 2001: The time has come for Arab countries to prepare vigorously for the global information society to benefit from greater productivity and services such as tele-medicine, wired classrooms, community Internet access and e-government.

Rima Khalaf Hunaidi, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Regional Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States, conveyed this message in a keynote address to GITEX 2001 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates last week. The largest information technology event in the Middle East, GITEX 2001 also heard from former US Vice President Al Gore.

The Arab region has 5 per cent of the world's people, but only half a per cent of Internet users, just a tenth of the level of use in Southeast Asia, according to the UNDP Human Development Report 2001. "That single statistic underscores the wide disconnect between Arab society as a whole and information and communications technology (ICT)," said Dr. Khalaf Hunaidi.

The Arab countries entered the new century burdened with 70 million illiterate people, most of them women who could otherwise be empowered by ICT, she said. The region needs "nothing less than a complete paradigm shift towards a culture of learning in the classroom, on campus and in society," she pointed out.

Other pro-ICT measures include investment incentives and more progressive regulatory frameworks, investment in research and development and support for technical education and vocational training.

Four Arab countries-Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates-are far ahead in the region in harnessing ICT for development, she noted. Others, including Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, "are moving rapidly in the direction of e-readiness and have acquired important experience in managing ICT for development."

Jordan, for example, is using IT Community Centres to empower disadvantaged women in remote communities with practical education in livestock breeding, health, geography and law. The Moroccan ministry of finance and planning halved preparation time for the national budget by integrating computer databases. The Dubai Ports and Customs Authority saves time and money for thousands of companies by offering online customs clearance services.

Dr. Khalaf Hunaidi called for greater regional cooperation to promote ICT for development and pointed to UNDP-supported initiatives that help countries move onto the digital highway, including the Digital Opportunities Task Force, hosted by UNDP and the World Bank, and a new UNDP thematic trust fund for ICT.

For further information, please contact Omar Gharzeddine, UNDP Communications Office.

For more information about the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS), a global program that places ICT volunteers from various countries into projects in developing countries.