1. Regional Initiative on Measuring the Information Society in Western Asia Mansour Farah (farah14@un.org) Team Leader, ICT Policies ICT Division, UN-ESCWA www.escwa.un.org 2008 Global Event on Measuring the Information Society, Geneva, 27-29 May 2008

2.  Current Status  Capacity-Building on IS Measurements  Adapting and Developing New Indicators  Advisory Services to Member Countries  Publications/Studies  Portal and Database Outline

3.  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

4.  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)

5.  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)

6. 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.

7.  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)

8. 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.

9.  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)

10.  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)

11.  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)

12.  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

13.  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

14. Thank you!