Regional Initiative on Measuring the Information Society in Western Asia

Mansour Farah (farah14@un.org)Team Leader, ICT PoliciesICT Division, UN-ESCWA

www.escwa.un.org

2008 Global Event on Measuring the Information Society, Geneva, 27-29 May 2008

Current Status

Capacity-Building on IS Measurements

Adapting and Developing New Indicators

Advisory Services to Member Countries

Publications/Studies

Portal and Database

Outline

In most ESCWA member countries, core ICT indicators adoption and data collection are not institutionalized and often partial;

ICT sector/ICT goods statistics are practically inexistent; Egypt and Jordan are more advanced than the others; Recognition of the importance of ICT indicators at

decision making level is still weak; ESCWA tries to satisfy all requests for capacity-building

at the regional and national levels; Good collaboration at the regional level, particularly with

AITRS and ITU regional office, and at the international level with ITU, OECD, UIS and UNCTAD.

Current Status

Training workshops carried out at the regional, sub-regional or national level;

Collaboration with regional and international organizations (ITU, UNCTAD, UIS, OECD, AITRS*) and national statistics offices;

From awareness on core ICT indicators to hands-on training on data collection and analysis;

Household/business surveys constitute major components;

(*) Arab Institute for Training and Research in Statistics

Capacity-Building on Information Society Measurements (1/2)

Training course on compiling and displaying indicators using specialized software packages, February 2006, Doha, Qatar.

Capacity-Building Workshop on IS Measurements: Core Indicators, Statistics and Data Collection, December 2006, Amman, Jordan.

Capacity-Building Workshop on IS Measurements: Ready Statistical Packages, April 2007, Cairo, Egypt.

Capacity-Building Workshop on IS Measurements: Household and Business Surveys, June 2007, Cairo, Egypt.

Capacity-Building Workshop on ICT Core Statistics, April 2008, Amman, Jordan.

Training workshops on ICT indicators and statistics are planned for Iraqi Statistics Office, Syrian ICT Statistics Unit and GCC statistics offices in June-August 2008.

Capacity-Building on Information Society Measurements (2/2)

Adapting and Developing New Indicators (1/2)

Research related to the study of new indicators or adapting internationally agreed indicators to regional/local conditions.

Conferences and expert group meetings to discuss and agree on new indicators or review experiences in collecting and analyzing data.

Expert Group Meeting on ICT Indicators Adoption and Data Collection: ICT Indicators in Education and E-government, February 2007, Cairo, Egypt.

Participation in Dubai School for Government meeting on e-government (April 2007) to discuss the outcomes of above meeting.

Regional Follow-up on the Outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society, planned for November 2008.

Adapting and Developing New Indicators (2/2)

Advisory Services (1/4)

Advisory service to the Arab Institute of Training and Research in Statistics, June 2006, Amman, Jordan, regarding plans of action for collecting information society statistics and digital divide indicators.

Advisory service to the Central Agency for Information Technology (CAIT), December 2007, Kuwait, to assist the Kuwaiti government in the formulation of a plan of action for the collection data and computation of ICT core indicators.

Advisory service to the Ministry of National Economy and Information Technology Authority, March 2008, Oman, to: Provide technical assistance for defining relevant

indicators to reflect use of ICT in education and government;

Provide technical assistance for identifying the data required for building the relevant indicators.

Explore for existing data and assist in devising data collection strategies for additional data required for the purpose;

Provide technical assistance for framing questionnaire modules, instructions for data collection, and output table formats;

Assist in preparing a plan for capacity building for developing ICT indicators for Oman.

Advisory Services (2/4)

Advisory service to Qatar Statistics Authority, March/April 2008, Qatar, to: Present an overview of the coverage of ICT indicators

for the measurements of the Information Society;

Discuss with QSA their priorities in the selection of groups of ICT indicators that could be produced during 2008-2009;

Carry out visits of possible partners and sources of data for the measurement process;

Provide sample questionnaires and definitions of data to be collected for the selected groups of indicators;

Outline possible steps to be taken in the preparations for the surveys required for data collection.

Advisory Services (3/4)

Advisory service to Yemen, April 2008, to: Present an overview of the coverage of ICT indicators

for the measurements of the Information Society to the National Information Centre (NIC);

Discuss with NIC their priorities in the selection of groups of ICT indicators that could be produced during 2008-2009;

Carry out visits of possible partners and sources of data for the measurement process;

Provide sample questionnaires and definitions of data to be collected for the selected groups of indicators;

Outline possible steps to be taken in the preparations for the surveys required for data collection.

Advisory Services (4/4)

Guidelines for ICT Indicators Measurement, 2007.

Arabic Version of the ICT Core Indicators, 2007.

Regional Profile of the Information Society in Western Asia, 2005 and 2007.

Impact of ICT on Community Development in the ESCWA member countries.

Working manual for data collection and compilation of statistical tables for ICT related indicators, planned for end of 2008.

Publications/Studies

IS Portal Main Components:

Information Society Indicators Database Information Society Profiles Regional Action Plans Information Library Modern Online Tools for Collaboration

ESIS: Functions as a dedicated software package on the desktop and facilitates the distribution of indicators to policy makers and decision makers in the region through its Web component.

Portal/Databases

Thank you!