ECA, STAKEHOLDERS LAUD NITDA ON ICT STRIDES

By Emma Elebeke
The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and stakeholders in the Information Communications Technology (ICT) have commended the National Information Technology Agency (NITDA) on its strides in ICT development.

The commendation was contained in a communiqué issued after a workshop on National Validation Workshop on SCAN-ICT in Abuja last week. The SCAN-ICT Nigeria project is aimed at measuring the impact of ICT on socio economic development in the country.

ECA and other Stakeholders were impressed by the activities undertaken by NITDA in the implementation of Nigeria Scan-ICT programme noting that the country in one single survey had embraced a large spectrum of core ICT indicators namely: Agriculture, Education, Government, Health, Household and Business.

The communiqué also said the ICT4D plan is the roadmap for IT development in Nigeria and its adoption of the ICT4D initiative as a major component of its Vision 20:2020 Agenda.

According to the stakeholders the joint partnership between NITDA and UNECA in formulating national e-strategies (NICI) is taking Nigeria into the knowledge economy noting that Nigeria is the first country to carry out Scan ICT under the third phase of the projects.

Though Nigeria joined the SCAN ICT initiative just a year ago it had made tremendous impact through the integration of ICT statistics in her national statistical system the communiqué noted adding that much progress is being made in Africa countries most importantly in Nigeria in the implementation of ICT4D programmes.

Nigeria through NITDA is committed to the promotion of the information society by embarking on the measurement of ICT4D, thus the implementation of the Scan-ICT project, the statement said. It added that Africa needs a common vision in its bid to bridge the digital divide.

It recommended that Nigeria through NITDA should put in place arrangements for ensuring the sustainability of the SCAN-ICT process and collect ICT statistics on regular basis for progress monitoring.

ICT penetration and use in the various governmental levels be continually pursued and strengthened towards her socio-economic development and that NITDA, ECA and other major stakeholders in ICT sector in Nigeria should continually partner in allocating more resources for the continuous measurement of detailed and comprehensive country wide survey of the impact of ICT in Nigeria.