INTERNATIONAL FORUM ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES COMMENCED IN BAKU
The forum organized by the government of Azerbaijan and UNDP has gathered representatives from Western Europe, central Asia and Caucasus. The event, which is a part of the preparation to the world summit on information society to be held by UN and International Telecommunication Union on December 10-12 in Geneva, was opened by Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Azerbaijan Elchin Efendiyev.
Welcoming the participants, he mentioned the role ICT place in development of society and stressed that sphere of its influence covers state structures, society, science, education and culture. E. Efendiyev announced that in the framework of the project, the “National strategy of Azerbaijan for information and communication technologies for 2003-2012” and “National program of activity for ICT development” had been worked out, and noted these documents had been widely discussed in the international arrangement and given a positive assessment and that, according to the experts fully, completely meet the world standards.
The Deputy Prime Minister underlined that the government of Azerbaijan highly appreciates that UN’s support and its ICT program. He expressed confidence that the forum participants would more thoroughly familiarized themselves with the projects prepared in our country in the sphere of ICT application, and that present event will contribute to the work of the world summit of information society.
Chief of the department for humanitarian policy of the Presidential administration Fatma Abdullazadeh has read out a message of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev to the forum participants. Director of UNDP’s ICT development program Steven Brawn and head of the UNDP representative office in Azerbaijan Marco Barsotti dwelt addressing the forum on the activity of UN working group and the work carried out in certain countries, including Azerbaijan in the sphere of ICT, and pointed out significance of creating information society.
National coordinator of the joint project of the government and UNDP “ National strategy of Azerbaijan on information-communication technologies and its implementation in initial phase” Maleyka Abbaszade has delivered a detail report on the work being done by working groups in our country in the framework of the project, and on successes achieved and accumulated experience.
Dwelling on the main goals of national strategy, M. Abbaszade noted that this ones lie in promoting development of democracy in the society by widely ICT using and ensuring creation of information society in the country.
The forum as well has widely discussed the following topics: “Experience accumulated during process of preparation of national ICT strategy of Azerbaijan, “ Importance of the national ICT strategies for development and transition period”, and “ Instructions for strategy of national information society”.
Participating at the forum also are representatives of various state organizations involved in the sphere of ICT and administration, UNDP’s programs and projects, scientific and non-governmental organizations carrying out activity in this sphere, and international experts. In all, the event gathered representatives from 24 countries and 10 international organizations.
The forum continues its work in separate working groups.
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