'e-Asia 2009 energized SA's ICT community'

World Bank Sri Lanka Director Naoko Ishii said that e-Asia 2009 had energized the ICT Community of South Asia very well. The World Bank Head in Sri Lanka said so while introducing the South Asia launch of the World Bank's 2009 "IC4D" at a track session of e-Asia 2009 held at BMICH Colombo recently.

While congratulating the organisers of e-Asia 2009 Naoko Ishii expressed her personal amazement at how much ICT could do for development: "I have witnessed the innovative use of mobile technology in helping farmers to get better prices for their crops. I have also seen a schoolchild in a rural village here chatting with his friend in Korea through the internet and a small scale entrepreneur selling his craft to business partners abroad. ICT has empowered the Sri Lankan rural population and connected them with global markets and knowledge without the need to come to Colombo".

In a succinct overview of the "IC4D Report" entitled "Information and Communication for Development: Extending Reach and Increasing Impact" Naoko Ishii underlined the econometric analysis introduced in the report. Accordingly the report says that a 1.3 percentage point increase in economic growth takes place per every 10 percentage point increase in the penetration of broadband services.

A number of positive developments that took place in the ICT sector in South Asia during the past five years are spelled out in the report. Now promotion and private sector investment in the ICT sector are on the rise in the region thanks to improved regulatory frameworks. South Asia has taken on a pivotal role in the international information and innovation economy.

India has reached high standards in information technology and IT-enabled sectors while Pakistan and Sri Lanka have become potential fields for offshore services. With regard to areas of improvement in the ICT sector in South Asia the report mentions, inter alia, access, affordability and the quality of internet and mobile services.

The report has also assigned to each of the South Asian countries scores of 3 or 4 on a scale of 1-10 depending on their overall ICT performance in access, affordability and adoption, besides others. The report reminds that there is much to be done for fully realising the ICT impact in the region.