Ghana ICT Policy and Plan Development Committee

The National ICT Policy and Plan Development Committee had its first dialogue session with the National Development and Planning Commission as part of its nation-wide consultative process aimed at developing an ICT-led socio economic development plan.

Policy experts of the NDPC and the Ministry of Economic Planning and Regional Integration attended the dialogue session. Prof. G. Baffour of NDPC and Prof. Clement Dzidonu, Chairman of the ICT Committee made presentations at the meeting.

To ensure public ownership and endorsement of the policy development process, stakeholder’s consultation process across board would be essential.

Reward for performance should be considered in order to change people’s attitudes towards work and national development.

The planning process should endeavour to incorporate monitoring and evaluation mechanism.

The issue of equity would need to be taken into account in drafting the ICT for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) and corresponding plan.

There is the need that the NDPC visioning process to come out with the socio-economic development framework for Ghana and the National ICT Committee’s ICT4AD process to be seen as complimenting each other.

Ghana needs to learn from countries that have used ICT to facilitate their socio-economic development process. Education has been identified as a key factor in countries that have used ICTs for their socio-economic development.

There is need to consider ways that the use of ICT can facilitate poverty reduction.

There is the need not to spend too much time evaluating the positive and negative aspects of technology but to embrace it.

Next - Public Lecture at the University of Ghana Legon