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| A word to the G8 |
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| Written by Victor van Reijswoud & Amy Mahan | |
| Monday, 04 June 2007 | |
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Page 9 of 11 Edward BaliddawaMember of Parliament - Uganda I have been privilaged to be one of the pioneers of advocates for ICT in Uganda and now seeing how ICT has become a national agenda in Uganda, I can't help but feel more optimistic than ever about the central role ICTs can play as catalysts and eneblers in the national economic growth. I am therefore cognizant and appreciate both the infrastructural and policy problems that ICT uptake in the rural areas do face. However, in my view I still think that for the developing countries such as Uganda, the burden of popularising the use of ICT in the country will to a greater extent lie with the government. In most of our less developed economies, our governments are biggest consumers and thus the largest uptakers of ICT services. If governments make it a deliberate policy to actually leverage ICTs in their activities in order to ensure less government public expenditure and increased delivery of services, the use of ICTs in these countries will increase tremendously. I would like to challenge our government to go an extra mile apart from making strong proclamations of their support for ICT, but also to actively use ICT in whatever they do. It won't be unsual to find that in most countries in Africa very few top government executives know how to open and send an email. To many of us now, sending an email is basic, but still unknown to many decision makers. |
