Despite having a population of approximately 350 million, The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has a relatively low level of Information Communication Technology (ICTs) penetration compared to most of the world. Given how ICTs can improve the standards of living by contributing to development in several areas such as governance, poverty alleviation, education, health, environement and community, fostering digital capacities can contribute to achieving sustainable social and economic development.
With that in mind, this workshop aims at exploring ways to raise the level of ICT penetration in the region by discussing challenges, weaknesses, strengths and opportunities in :
- Capacity building in the educational and vocational sector.
- Global and regional partnerships for development of the internet economy &
- Internet Governance and implementation isuues.
Given that education is at the core of any development policy, ICT capacity building in education is vital and can be achieved by connecting schools and promoting digital content, access, inclusion and gender equality, so that educators and students could benefits from the opportunities that internet provides. Fostering the digital skills of the youth through additional vocational trainings is also likely to have a long-term positive impact on all walks of life.
Exploring ways to establish and strengthen regional and global partnerships is needed to ensure synergy and coordination among different stakeholders, and it is a conerstone for future viable economic growth, Further, given the complexity of the cross-disciplinary Internet governance issues, its valuable to discuss thoses matters to identify effective approaches to deploy IG in the region based on improving the multistakeholderism and buttom-up models in the decision making process.
Moderator
Walid AL-SAQAF
Confirmed Speakers
Aboulyazed, Hisham
Al-Araj, Nadira
Boujemi, Hanane
Cherkaoui, LEGHRIS
Idlebi, Nibal
Oumrane, Fatma
Saraswat, Mohit
Yahmadi, Hafedh
Online Moderator
Said Bensbih
A remote hub will be organized in cooperation with Hassan II university of Casablanca
The session will be held in room 2
Rapporteur
Michael Oghia, ISOC IGF Ambassador
