ICT Development Bottlenecks in LDCs and Possible Remedies

1. ICT Development Bottlenecks in LDCsand Possible Remedies Abdilghani Jama, Secretary General, Somali Telecom Amman, Jordan E-mail: jama@ties.itu.int

2. Summery • Internal Factors (Controllable) • External Factors (Uncontrollable) • Possible Remedial Strategies • Role of Regional and International Organizations • Brain-Drain Effect and Retention of Human Resources

3. General Bottleneck • Lack of Political will and Commitment on part of Leadership • Lack of conducive Legal and Regulatory Environment • Inadequate Infrastructure • Lack of Resources: Financial Constraints Human Resources

4. Internal Factors • Low Technical skills for rapidly changing Technologies • Human Resource Development deficiency • Inadequate administration and bad management of available resources • Lack of sub-regional/regional integrated approaches and strategies by governments

5. Internal Factors (Cont.) • Need for policies that stimulate competitiveness in ICT service provisioning • Need to cooperate with International Agencies involved in ICT development, especially the ITU/World Bank, UNDP • Coherence between economic and ICT development Plans

6. Internal Factors (Cont.) • High costs in setting up and running ICT businesses • Inadequate and appropriate Energy source • Dispersed Population in rural areas leading to poor economy of scale in service provisioning • Lack of Local Content (Internet content) • Weak media involvement in promoting ICTs and changing habits

7. External Factors • Institutional weaknesses in the area of High risk Investment environment (prejudices and perceptions) • The Private sector shuns LDCs as corrupt and badly governed

8. External Factors • Market size deemed small though could be rationalised as regional markets • Loss of qualified and experienced personnel to more developed countries • Limited fellowships and scholarships provided to LDCs • Global recession and Financial collapses limiting financial inflow into LDCs

9. External Factors (Uncontrollable) • Reduced ICT sector activities by companies because of the dot.com bubble burst • High level of LDCs indebtedness

10. Possible Remedial Strategies • Strengthen cooperation with International Organisations that have development programme experiences • Promote South-South and North-South cooperation in a triangular form • Governments should strategise Policies and leave ICT development to the Private Sector • Appropriate comprehensive human resource development policies right from primary education

11. Strategies cont’d • Need for improving competition in the sector • Holistic multi-sectorial development approach that can support the ICT sector e.g Energy • Use of appropriate policies and technologies that address the demographic realities of LDCs e.g GMPCS • Holistic approaches involving all stakeholder consultation for policy formulation and implementation

12. Strategies cont’d • Poverty alleviation that will make ICTs become priority areas • Effective monitoring and evaluation policies • Human resource retention policies and incentives • Favourable business environment for companies involved in ICT business e.g tax holidays and/or low custom dues on ICT goods

13. Strategies cont’d • Negotiate debt rescheduling, reduction and possibly outright cancellation • Encourage developed countries to provide Official Development Assistance (ODA) according to their commitments of not less than 0.07 of their GDP.

14. Role of Regional Organizations • To effect coordination policies for intra-regional traffic transiting. This would reduce costs as well as boost regional economies • Harmonize policies so that no duplication of efforts will be done thus reducing the number of initiatives • There are a number of benefits to be derived in Networking (network of experts) at the sub-regional, regional even before the International level.

15. Role of Organizations cont’d • Smaller countries feel not belonging because the ideas are not home-brewed so no support • The barrier of mistrust among and between neighbors should be dispelled. Trust between LDCs and developed countries should be as good as trust between the LDCs themselves.

16. Retention of Human Resources (Observations) • Career prospects slow in the Technical fields than managerial and accounting/Financial fields • Spending money on long-term training has been observed to be counter-productive. • Strategies should not be only about money but other job satisfaction issues (family health, promotions, participation of decisions) • Returning trainees from abroad find appalling situations in their home countries (Re-adjustment Policies should be adopted)

17. Retention cont’d • Political interference sometimes cause frustration among workers • Low salaries

18. Retention (Strategy Propositions) • Clear career paths for all categories of staff and effect promotions transparently • Adopt shorter-term training strategies • Use the Renewable ContractAward methodology for recruitment

19. Propositions cont’d • Create the sense of belonging (ownership of organization) among the employees and share profit accruing from the business. • Use of e-learning to discourage overseas face-to-face traditional training should be adopted whenever possible • Give recognition to returning employees from overseas training and ensure that they share the knowledge and experiences gained

20. Thank you for your Attention Abdigani Jama, Secretary General Somali Telecom E-mail: jama@ties.itu.int