Under the Patronage of His Majesty King Abdullah II
First Conference on Electronic Commerce
“EBDA Conference”
Organized by
Amman Industry Chamber
In collaboration with
European Commission
Amman, Jordan
February 19, 2002
Opening Statement
By
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh
Bureau Member and Chairman,
Working Group on Human Resources and CapacityBuilding (HRCB)
UN Information and Communication Technologies Task Force (UN ICT TF) NY
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Chairman,
Commission on E-Business, Information Technologies and Telecoms (EBITT)
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Paris
Why is this Initiative Important for Enhancing Economic
Development?
By Talal Abu-Ghazaleh
Good Morning Ladies & Gentlemen,
Thank you for being here today. We all now live in the Information Age, an age characterized by:
-Practically instantaneous communication.
-Instant access to vast amounts of information.
-Drastic reductions in transaction costs for information and communication.
-Knowledge, knowledge management technology, and intellectual assets as the keys to economic competitiveness.
We all live in the Information Age but not everyone participates in it. Many are not even aware of the opportunities that characterize our present age. The Digital Divide is just as much a characteristic of our era as the possibilities of the Information Age. The information and communication technology revolution offers new opportunities to the poor and to the developing countries. But without extensive efforts and commitment, the new technological capabilities may only further broaden the gulf between the developed and the undeveloped countries.
“Digital Divide” is a broad term for a serious problem. It is a multifaceted challenge that must be overcome. Addressing just one problem or aspect of it will not work; a multi-tiered strategy is necessary to address all aspects of the problem. Such a strategy must, by nature, be of a broad participatory process including international and multilateral agencies, national governments, NGOs, and the private sector. Everyone has their part to play.
Multilateral organizations like the EC, World Bank, USAID, the UN, or other funding agencies provide funding, technical and policy expertise, and broad global strategies; national governments have a prime role to play, cutting taxes and regulation in the ICT sector, investing in basic infrastructure, devising creative (e.g. public/private) capitalization strategies, investing in education, and playing the role of the model ICT user itself.
NGOs have evolved into a powerful force in global society and have an important role to play in developing human infrastructure, providing guidance to governments, providing oversight, and other functions. And of course, the private sector has a key role as the true engine of development, and is the most important source of capital: human, financial, and technological.
The EBDA initiative is an example of such successful partnering between the EC, the Amman Chamber of Industry (ACI) (not- for profit, non- governmental organization), and of course, the broad participation of the private sector, which constitutes ACI’s membership and the beneficiaries of the project.
Often, when we think of the Digital Divide, we think of poor people, minorities, women, geographically challenged people, and developing countries in general, but not always about businesses. Yet the businesses, with their generally more adequate resources, are the best point to begin to develop many of the core requirements for information age development; these include the development of technical expertise and, equally important, a creative and satisfying outlet for the mental energies of new information age knowledge workers. Businesses also are important in developing the country’s human capital.
Maximizing the combined benefit from these manifold contributions requires coherent and authoritative global leadership. It was for this reason that the UN leadership established on November 2, 2001 the ICT Task Force, of which I am pleased to be the chairman of its human resources and capacity building committee, a member of its bureau, and its co-chair.
I am also privileged to announce that the UN ICT Task Force established its network for the Arab region with Amman as its node onJanuary 13, 2002, and elected me as its Chair.
The central idea behind the formation of the ICT Task force is that development initiatives may no longer be pursued without considering ICT as a key aspect of the overall development infrastructure.
This is significant because it means that in order to achieve economic development, we must make a commitment to ICT investments. No country or region, no matter what budgetary challenges it faces, may safely ignore the need for ICT investment.
In a move to correct a general trend toward unrealistic attitudes about ICT, many people have commented on the limitations of ICT. In a statement made by his Excellency Mr. Kofi Annan, which was delivered at the official launch of the UN ICT Task Force, he said that new technologies are not a panacea or a magic bullet, but they are, without doubt, enormously powerful tools for development. Not only are they enormously powerful tools, they are essential ones. To say that ICT is not a panacea is not to minimize its importance, but to highlight the complexity of the task which developing countries and development organizations face in balancing competing resource needs; it is the question of the traditional basic needs (e.g. food, basic literacy programs, basic health) versus the information age basic needs (telecommunications, computer hardware, software, connectivity, etc.). The hitch, however, is that both must be pursued simultaneously, not in parallel, but together.
In some particular cases, there may be a conflict between old and new. But in large part, the new ICT needs and the basic needs are mutually enabling. This point was noted by the 0-8 DOT (Digital Opportunity Task) Force in their Genoa Plan of Action in which they remarked that “ICT can provide new and more efficient methods of production, bring previously unattainable markets within the reach of local producers, improve the delivery of government services, and increase access to basic social goods and services. Therefore, there needs to be no trade-off between investment in ICT and the achievement of development objectives.”
The G8 DOT Force is one of the global leaders in seeking to bridge the Digital Divide and formulate strategies, plans, and actions to assure that the benefits of the ICT revolution are available to all. In their Okinawa Charter on Global Information Society, the 08 agreed to create the DOT Force and they spelled out their vision and commitment to a world in which all people are able to take advantage of the power of ICT to advance their unique individual capabilities.
Among their broad outline of vision and strategy, they stated that “the policies for the advancement of the Information Society must be underpinned by the development of human resources capable of responding to the demands of the Information Age. We are committed to provide all our citizens with an opportunity to nurture ICT literacy and skills through education, lifelong learning, and training...Measures aiming to offer support and incentives for small-to-medium-sized enterprises and the self-employed to get online and use the Internet effectively will also be pursued.”
The EBDA initiative can therefore be looked at in terms of its context as part of a broad range of programs being implemented which, taken together, represent a concerted onslaught against the Digital Divide under the global leadership of the UN ICT Task Force, with the tactical support of the G8 DOT Force and with the mobilization of a broad coalition of international and national stakeholders. Within this matrix, the importance of strong leadership by national heads of state cannot be overlooked or minimized, and we are fortunate to have the vision, leadership, and commitment of HRH King Abdullah to guide and support this effort to tie Jordan into the global knowledge economy.
In ICT and Development in the New Millennium, a book published by UNESCO, Danny Quah notes that a UNU/WIDER study of OECD countries finds a strong correlation between investment in computers and software and economic growth. On the other hand, he points out that there has been no corresponding correlation in a sample of developing countries. This, he says, seems to indicate that “developing countries have not yet invested sufficiently in physical infrastructure and human capital to make ICT investments worthwhile.” These statistics also seem to show the importance of developing human capital through education and training. As Mr. Quah concludes, “It is the use of information technology, and not its production, which matters for economic development in this new century.”
This I found to be a particularly interesting point. Of course, we still need to invest in the telecommunications infrastructure, build and buy computers, and develop software, but it is the use of all this which is critical for economic development and it is the education of our businesspeople, students, and all of our people that is the real key.
Jason Dedrick and Kenneth L. Kraemer of the Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations have also noted that while ICT investments have not yet resulted in production increases in developing countries, “it is likely that sustained investments in ICT and in complimentary assets such as human resources, physical capital, and telecommunication infrastructure will lead to productivity gains over time in developing countries as they have in developed countries.”
My own feeling on this issue from a personal experience is that this impression is correct. It takes time for investments to reach a critical mass, and be translated into clear statistical productivity gains. However, from my experience with my own company and organizations, I have no doubt that we have seen productivity gains over the last 8 years since we began the first tentative steps toward e-business. Even now, I know that my own company has not reached a point where it fully utilizes the potential of ICT. While it does take investments in hardware and connectivity that not all companies could readily afford, it is most clearly the human resources component that can hold us back. While many employees would feel unable to function outside a networked office, there remain some groups that have not fully embraced the new technology, and there are some that even resist it.
It is the human resources that are the most important issue in my mind. Expanding human capacity is what the Information Age is all about, and is the aspect most likely to hold back progress. Providing education and encouraging people to use and benefit from ICT is one of the most important steps that we can take. That is why I am especially excited about my leadership of the UN ICT Capacity Building plans.
This is also how we can see the significance of the EBDA initiative. Getting businesses on line and into the arena of economic commerce is one of the first steps that we must take in developing what the DOT Force Genoa Plan of Action refers to as a “virtuous circle”. Using, again, an example from my own company, I have hundreds of employees and many of them first used a computer when working for Talal Abu-Ghazaleh & Co. Now, many have their own computers at home and utilize them also for their own social and cultural interests, and of course other members of their households learn and use them also.
Businesses as a starting point for developing and spreading ICT knowledge are important. Also, it is really quite a simple matter to get businesses to begin profiting from at least the basic types of e-business; it is also becoming essential. Even technologically simple industries are utilizing e-business to organize chains of supply and production, and a failure to integrate into these networks means being shut out of the future, and out of business.
EBDA is a role-model project, and in parallel with similar other initiatives that are being implemented it, is a crucial link in the overall coordinated global project to bridge the Digital Divide. Economic development and ICT development are integrally related in the Information Age. This is the real significance of EBDA.
Thank you.
Talal Abu-Ghazaleh