Bureau of Lands and Survey Director Balkuu Kumangai and the President’s Press Secretary Fermin Meriang joined delegates from the other 13 Pacific Islands Forum countries at the conference earlier this month.
The 14-day intensive training focused on the eight internationally recognized modules used to gauze government transparency and information sharing through the use of information and communication technology (ITC). The workshop was held at the Sungkyungkwan University in Seoul and the The Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development in Inchon.
The training also included a roundtable session to discuss ways forward one-Government Applications, which the PIF e-Government Workshop participants completed and covers e-government concepts, principles and types of applications, as well as the risk factors in e-government implementation.
APCICT’s flagship ICT human resource and institutional capacity building program is designed to equip government officials and development stakeholders with the knowledge and tools to fully leverage ICT solutions for socio-economic development.
The two-week long PIF Officials’ e-Government Workshop was based out of Sungkyungkwan University and co-organized by the Pacific Island Forum (PIF), the Global e-Policy and e-Government Institute of Sungkyungkwan University, the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT), and APCICT.
The PIF e-Government Workshop was the third time APCICT has sponsored the event in collaboration with PIF, Sungkyungkwan University, and MOFAT. The workshops have been an integral part of APCICT’s work with Pacific island countries. Over the last two years, APCICT has also worked with the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC), now the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), to roll-out the Academy in the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu. Last year, SPC secured European Union funds in support of its ‘ICT Access for the Poor’ project, which aims to enhance the ICT capacity of legislators and policymakers in 14 Pacific Island States using APCICT’s Academy program.
“The continuance and growth of the PIF e-Government Workshop is a testament to the enthusiasm with which officials from the Pacific Island countries have embraced the use of ICT for national and regional socio-economic development,” said Dr. Hyeun-Suk Rhee, director of APCICT. “The lessons learned here today and throughout the workshop will help strengthen economic and social connectivity in the Pacific, and in particular facilitate the development and implementation of ICT related projects and the delivery of quality e-government services to citizens in Pacific Island countries.”
MOFAT took under advisement a request from this year’s delegates to continue the program, which was originally to end this year.
