Djibouti’s president endorses national digital strategy

Djibouti’s president endorses national digital strategy

Friday, 4 April 2003: President Ismaïl Omar Guellah of Djibouti is supporting a national strategy to move the country, strategically located on the Horn of Africa at the mouth of the Red Sea, into the digital age by 2010 to promote development and reduce poverty.

UNDP provided support to the Ministry of Communication and Culture in preparing the information and communications technology (ICT) strategy. It indicates that access to new technology can boost economic growth, improve the quality of the work force and encourage private investment.

Djibouti’s economy relies mainly on a free trade zone and its role as transit port for the region and international transshipment and refuelling centre. With unemployment high and nearly half its population below the poverty line, the country sees ICT as offering new economic opportunities and improvement in essential services.

Speaking at the recent launch of the strategy in the capital (also named Djibouti), President Guellah said he wants to enable as many citizens as possible to take advantage of ICT to empower the workforce, an essential step to promote the country’s development.

He also appealed to donor countries and agencies to support the strategy, which includes a proposed budget of US$13.7 million over seven years.

The strategy includes the overarching plan of putting an ICT infrastructure in place, including a legal framework and a national ICT agency, and modernizing the telecommunications sector.

Other priorities include setting up Internet access around the country and building ICT education, training and research capacity, including strengthening the country’s Cisco Networking Academy.

The strategy calls for using ICT to modernize public administration, the judiciary and the health sector, including the Ministry of Health and the country’s main hospitals. It lays out plans for promoting ICT in the private sector, including creating a regional ICT hub and an international financial services centre.

The strategy also maps steps for raising Djibouti’s visibility on the Internet, with content in Arabic, Somali and Afar, and using ICT to strengthen the national response to disasters such as famines, including an early warning system.

Several steps have already been taken to lay the ground work for national ICT access, including reducing telecommunications charges by 10 per cent to 60 per cent, a reform measure that split off the national telecommunications agency from the postal service, and awarding a license to a global cellular phone service provider. Because one third of adults are illiterate, another priority is to strengthen basic education so that all Djiboutians can take advantage of the power of ICT.