14-pt proposal on ICT for Saarc summit agenda
UNB, Dhaka
Bangladesh working group on World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) yesterday proposed a 14-point recommendation on ICT for inclusion into the 13th Saarc summit agenda.Chairman of the group Syed Marghub Murshed, also the chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), sent the recommendations to Foreign Ministry Affairs Advisor Reaz Rahman. In its recommendations, the group said the regional e-strategy should consider the problems of implementation of ICT policy in the region and develop an approach to ensuring successful implementation of ICT policy at country level. The 14-point recommendation formulated and adopted in the recent South Asian Regional Meeting on UN WSIS after extensive discussion by participants from the government, civil society, private sector, academia and the media. "We expect that Saarc will include the 14-point recommendation into its agenda in creating an inclusive information society in our region," Marghub Murshed said. He said that Saarc undertake a study on the establishment of a regional Internet exchange to connect the national Internet exchanges to contain regional traffic within South Asia to promote equitable regional trade in services and save on the cost of international connectivity. The recommendations envisage consideration of establishing a regional registry for IP address allocations (SANIC) to ensure that IP addresses are fairly distributed in South Asia. Other recommendations said that South Asian member states develop a common approach to the issue of Internet Governance and Financial Mechanisms for ICTD during the second phase of the WSIS, which culminates in Tunis in November 2005. As part of this common approach to WSIS, consideration should be given to the transformation of ICANN into a multi-stakeholder body accountable to the global community. A Global Fund for ICTD should be established to support the goal of increasing access to ICTs by 2015 and this should be recommended by South Asian member states at the WSIS Preparatory Committee-2 in February 2005. Saarc should take inputs from member states, the private sector and civil society to formulate a regional e-strategy to implement the WSIS Plan of Action in South Asia as a whole.
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