GITEGA June 2nd (ABP) – The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Communication, Information Technologies (ICT) and Media, Mr. Anicet Niyonkuru, opened on Monday May 31, in Gitega (central Burundi), the work of the Retreat to assess the state of implementation of the National Information and Communication Technologies Development Policy of Burundi PNDTIC (2010-2025).
Organized by the ministry in charge of ICTs, that three-day retreat brought together representatives of national institutions and focal points from various ministries in Burundi.
In his welcoming address, the governor of Gitega said that the people of his province have made significant progress in terms of the appropriation and use of ICTs in everyday life. Many people own radios and are interested in listening to news and broadcasts.
Television sets have been distributed by the government to the headquarters of the zones, and a large majority of the people express an interest in television news. People are gradually taking an interest in telephone use, cash transfer practices, and information posted on the province’s WB site. He also indicated that the promotion of ICTs offers jobs to the people, especially young people. He therefore thanked the government for its commitment to ICTs and hoped for more progress to improve people’s access to those communication and information techniques.
In his opening speech, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry in charge of Communication indicated that the main goal of that retreat is to identify the state of the implementation of the PNDTIC within public institutions, collect, analyze data and produce an evaluation report. The framework will also be conducive to producing a roadmap for the effective implementation of the PNDTIC by 2025.
Mr. Niyonkuru recalled that Information and Communication Technologies are currently the engine of development all over the world and in Burundi in particular.
Given the obvious contribution of ICTs to social and economic development, many countries, including Burundi, have decided to integrate them into their cross-sectoral socio-economic development policies and strategies. It is with that in mind that the government of Burundi implemented the PNDTIC adopted in 2011. The government’s vision through that Policy is to achieve universal access to ICTs throughout the national territory to accelerate economic growth and become a center of excellence and a regional benchmark in the ICT sector by 2025.
That PNDTIC aims to appropriate the use of those technologies and to support the majority of the people in this new technology for industrial and social development. The intended results are, among others, the dissemination of ICT products and services in schools, the encouragement of young people, women, and the disabled and other components of society to use ICTs. It is also intended to promote the use of ICTs in research and development, the emergence of online public services, the securing of computer networks and the construction of the necessary infrastructure.
The retreat constitutes an adequate framework offered to the representatives of national institutions and to the focal points of the various ministries so that they assess the state of progress of the implementation of the PNDTIC and jointly adopt appropriate strategies and actions to accelerate the effective implementation of that Policy by 2025.