National Profile of the Information Society – 3102 2013 UN-ESCWA UN-ESCWA United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia National Profile of the Information Society - 2013 Version 2 1 of 61 National Profile of the Information Society – 3102 2013 UN-ESCWA Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 4 1. THE ROLE OF THE GOVERNMENT AND ALL STAKEHOLDERS ........................................................................................................................................................................... 5 A. National information society policies and e-strategies .......................................................................... 5 B. Public/Private Partnership (PPP) or Multi-Sector Partnership (MSP) .................................................. 7 C. Role of Non Governmental Organization .............................................................................................. 8 2. ICT INFRASTRUCTURE ..................................................................................................................... 8 A. MARKET STRUCTURE AND REGULATORY LANDSCAPE .......................................................................... 8 B. PENETRATION OF ICT SERVICES ........................................................................................................... 9 C. INITIATIVES/PROJECTS FOR ICT INFRASTRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF NEW SERVICES .............. 11 D. ICT CONNECTIVITY ............................................................................................................................. 11 E. INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE ............................................................................................................... 12 3. ACCESSIBILITY TO INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE ......................................................................... 14 A. Public domain information .................................................................................................................. 14 B. Access to information and public information .................................................................................... 15 C. Multi-purpose community public access points .................................................................................. 15 4. ICT CAPACITY BUILDING ..................................................................................................................... 15 A. ICT in education and training .............................................................................................................. 15 B. Training programmes for capacity building in the use of ICT ............................................................ 16 5. BUILDING CONFIDENCE AND SECURITY IN THE USE OF ICTS ............................................................. 17 A. Use of electronic transactions and documents ..................................................................................... 17 B. Online and network security ................................................................................................................ 17 C. Privacy and Data protection ................................................................................................................ 19 D. Countering misuse of ICTs .................................................................................................................. 19 6. ENABLING ENVIRONMENT .................................................................................................................... 20 A. Legal and regulatory environment ....................................................................................................... 20 B. Domain name management ................................................................................................................. 22 C. Standardization in ICT ........................................................................................................................ 23 D. ICT investments and Government-supported facilitation measures .................................................... 23 7. ICT APPLICATIONS .......................................................................................................................... 24 A. E-government ...................................................................................................................................... 24 B. E-business ............................................................................................................................................ 27 C. E-learning ............................................................................................................................................ 28 D. E-health ............................................................................................................................................... 30 E. E-employment ..................................................................................................................................... 31 8. CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND IDENTITY, LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY AND LOCAL CONTENT ..................................................................................................................................................... 32 A. Use of ICT in support of cultural and linguistic diversity ................................................................... 32 B. Local and national digital content development .................................................................................. 32 Version 2 2 of 61 National Profile of the Information Society – 3102 2013 UN-ESCWA C. ICT software, tools, and R&D programmes in Arabic language processing ...................................... 33 D. Arabic domain names .......................................................................................................................... 33 9. MEDIA .................................................................................................................................................. 33 A. Media diversity, independence and pluralism ..................................................................................... 33 B. The media and its role in the Information Society .............................................................................. 34 C. Convergence between ICT and the media ........................................................................................... 34 10. INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL COOPERATION ............................................................ 34 A. Financing of ICT networks and services ............................................................................................. 34 B. Infrastructure development projects .................................................................................................... 35 C. WSIS Follow-up .................................................................................................................................. 35 D. Participation in Internet Governance activities ................................................................................... 37 11.BUILDING THE ICT SECTOR ......................................................................................................................................................................... 37 A. ICT Firms ............................................................................................................................................ 37 B. Government facilitation ....................................................................................................................... 38 C. Contribution of ICT sector in the national economy ........................................................................... 38 D. R&D and Innovation in the ICT sector ............................................................................................... 39 E. Investments in the ICT sector .............................................................................................................. 40 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................................. 42 ANNEX 1: ...................................................................................................................................................... 44 Table 1 - Core indicators on ICT infrastructure and access ..................................................................... 44 Table 2 - Core indicators on access to, and use of, ICT by households and individuals ......................... 46 Table 3 - Core indicators on use of ICT by businesses ............................................................................... 53 Table 4 - Core indicators on the ICT (producing) sector .......................................................................... 56 Table 5 – Core indicators on international trade in ICT goods ................................................................ 58 Table 6 - Core indicators on ICT in education ........................................................................................... 59 Table 7 - Core indicators on ICT in government ....................................................................................... 60 Version 2 3 of 61 National Profile of the Information Society – 3102 2013 UN-ESCWA INTRODUCTION In mid-2010, an e-Government strategy roadmap was devised by the Office of the Minister of State