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This is the National Action Plan which was formulated at the National Youth Forum in October, 2003 and deliberated and adopted at the First Dili International Youth Forum in November, 2003. National Action Plan for Youth and ICT 2004-2006, Timor-Leste
CONTENTS: Summary of 6 ICT Projects proposed for implementation, 2004-2006 As a new nation in the process of establishing itself, and looking to lift its citizens out of the grip of endemic poverty, Timor-Leste must look to role models. With respect to economic development, one doesn't have to look far. There are those in the region, such as India, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, who have orchestrated remarkable transitions in their economies over the last 30 years. As we examine these role models, we find that one of the common themes has been the leading role of Information Communications Technology (ICT). From high-tech manufacturing in Malaysia and Thailand, to the knowledge workers of Singapore, to the great outsourcing centers of India, ICT has been an engine of growth for the region. The National Youth Council of Timor-Leste therefore believes that the need to take advantage of ICT is therefore indisputable. The question now is what approach makes the most sense, given the countries unique history, environment and socio-economic situation. An Action Plan is therefore called for in order that Timor-Leste gears up to become a part of the global information village. It will need to cover both human development and infrastructure needs, in partnerships that take advantage of the world-class knowledge and facilities available in the region, and progressively bring those resources to bear within Timor- Leste. These partnerships will include organisations in the public, civil, educational and private sectors. This Action Plan will need to be realistic and implementable, with clear objectives, timelines in place, and targets to meet. As this is the first plan of its sort to be formulated, it will need to be flexible and adaptable to new learning and changing circumstance. The National Youth Council is committed to regular reviews of this Plan in an open forum that seeks to constantly develop and improve plans. That Information and Communication Technology be used to improve the educational and economic opportunities for Timor-Leste youth and society at large. 1. Increasing the knowledge base of Timorese society-at-large of the potential of ICT for workforce development and employment creation. 2. Developing effective ICT capacity building projects and programmes for youth during the period 2004-2006 in Timor-Leste. 3. Developing a strategic plan and timetable to enable multi-track knowledge sharing on ICT programmes, funding and technical assistance that can be used to develop Youth and ICT projects and programmes for Timor-Leste. 4. Promote the creation of intra and external partnership building between youth and youth service provider organisations, governments, inter-governmental organisations and non-governmental organisations to develop effective ICT Youth capacity building programmes and initiatives for Timor-Leste. Achieving a Relevant National Action Plan The critical success factors for ICT development include:
The National Youth Council of Timor-Leste therefore believes that a National Action Plan for Youth and ICT in Timor-Leste, should focus on the the following aspects:
Guiding Principles of the National Action Plan 1. Access, Participation and Partnerships Timor-Leste is characterized by its young and dispersed population, limited financial and human resources and institutional capacity. As a result, opportunities for participation in sectorial applications are very limited at this current stage of the country's development process. Thus, improvement in access and usage, awareness, human resource development of ICT for its youth population is required in order for the country to fully capitalize on the benefits of the information era. The National Youth Council of Timor-Leste identifies the following guiding principles as the basis for any Youth and ICT Policy or Action Plan for the country. They are as follows: a) ICT should be utilized to inform and connect the Timorese population; b) That leadership from Government and partnerships with youth organisations, community organizations, non-governmental organizations, religious, the private and the community-at-large are required to facilitate participation in the knowledge society and to make the country part of the global knowledge economy; c) The Government, Youth, non-governmental and Community based organization and the private sector should invest in ICT capacity building programmes to develop appropriate skill-set of youth and society-at-large for workforce development and employment creation; d) Awareness of the benefits of ICT and computer literacy should be promoted while safeguarding existing social, religious and cultural values; e) Strategies should be formulated and regularly reexamined in order to facilitate the development and strengthening of ICT capacity building programmes and projects for youth at all educational levels and especially in rural and remote communities; f) Everyone should have equal opportunity and access to ICT without barriers to women, the disadvantaged, the disabled, under represented minorities, the elderly and those in rural and remote communities; g) That tri-sectorial partnerships should be encouraged when designing and implementing ICT Action Plans for any section of society; h) That ICT Action Plans should be actively monitored and evaluated by all stakeholders to identify their impact on local and national development. i) That ICT projects and programmes developed for youth should be done in consultation with and involvement of the targeted beneficiary group and that "top-down" project and programme design should be avoided as much as possible. j) That all businesses operating in the field of ICT infrastructure development be required to deliver services and infrastructure to under and not served areas including marginalized and vunerable groups. 2. Dissemination & Acquisition of Information We are now living in an information society where information is an asset and facilities to access and retrieve information is an essential requirement. Governments, the trade, commerce and financial sectors, researchers, teachers and students all need such facilities. While the commercial world has access to international networks such as the airline system, and banking system, the development of a general information system has been slow. With the availability of INTERNET we are now in a position to rapidly provide for this need. INTERNET allows us to link up to almost all library and information services globally from our own office to search and retrieve information world-wide. The CD ROM based data bases have also enabled us to reduce the cost of using the printed material. a) The National Youth Council of Timor-Leste call for easy and affordable access to information would not only bring about a literate nation but also ensure good governance and efficient services. b) In addition, IT related value added services provided to remote clients through communications networks should be encouraged. c) Multi-lingual (Portuguese, Bahasa Indonesia and English) software should be used to provide for greater utilisation of IT. 3. Human Resources Development and Youth Workforce Skill-set Building There is a shortage in quantity and quality of IT manpower to serve both export and domestic demand. a) The National Youth Council believes that introducing Computer Education in all schools remains a distant dream when more than half the schools do not have power supply. However, as an alternative, the youth council call for the government to investigate the possibility establishing a programme to provide schools, with a Centre of Modern Educational Technology including a Computer Resource Centre should be investigated by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sports in collaboration with the Ministry of Transport, Telecommunication and Post, the Department of Labour and Solidarity, civil society organizations and the private sector. b) The National Youth Council calls for a master plan to progressively introduce computer studies in all schools must be formulated and it should be made possible for computer studies to be offered as a subject in schools in the medium and long-term in Timor Leste. c) In the medium and Long-term that National Youth Council encourages the Government to introduce computer studies as an optional subject for high school students. This will serve as an encouragement for students to enter the computer field. d) In addition the Government should investigate the viability of promoting ICT training for those who opt for vocational education programmes in Timor-Leste. The long-term goal of the Government should be to adopt a Youth ICT capacity building strategy that enables all young people from different educational backgrounds to develop knowledge and build skills. e) The National Youth Council also calls for the introduction of Computer Science in schools will ultimately depend on the availability of suitable teachers in the field. The present shortage of teachers in the IT field should be met by organizing a Diploma and a Postgraduate Diploma for teachers employed in the State sector. Such a course could be organized with the assistance of the public and private education Institute that are promoting IT skill-set building courses and training programmes. f) Although there are several excellent courses offered by some of these institutions at the lower levels of training, the quality of training offered is presently uneven and there are no standards or schemes available to certify the competence of such personnel. To change the current situation, youth of Timor-Leste call-upon the government to examine the possibility introducing regulations to maintain quality of ICT education and training programmes. The government should also consider introducing detailed syllabi to enable public and private institutions for ICT courses and training programmes for youth. g) The National Youth Council of Timor-Leste believes that it is important for the government of Timor-Leste and donor agencies to support ICT Training of Trainers for community outreach programmes and capacity building in the country. These training programmes should be cross-cutting to add-value to and also to up-date the knowledge of existing trainers. The National Youth Council of Timor-Leste believes that it is essential that Research and development activities are undertaken within Timor Leste, however difficult it may be to do so keeping pace with the changing technology. Timor-Leste should have the capacity to assess the technology and its trends even if we are go depend entirely on imported technology. Thus, it is essential that R & D in IT be promoted, at least in the Universities so as to create Centres of Excellence in IT. These should be either within the Universities or closely associated with the Universities in order to make maximum use of the scarce resources such as the research facilities, staff and equipment available. Research in IT and in other fields would be promoted by providing full Internet connectivity to the R & D community. 5. Communications Infrastructure The integration of computers, communications and mullet-media technologies and the use of the resulting synergy of IT is an essential requirement for national development. The slow development of the telecommunications infrastructure in the past has delayed the progress of IT. The recent steps towards liberalisation is showing signs of improvement. It is essential that a national and international backbone be established for high bandwidth data communications. There need to be very close collaboration between the IT and Telecommunications sectors. Appropriate changes to the existing legislation, introduction of new legislature and the development of the necessary infrastructure are urgently needed to obtain maximum benefits from IT. The general public in Timor-Leste have a limited understanding that knowledge of ICT and in particular IT. There is also a lack of awareness on the use of IT for improved efficiency and competitive a dvantage. While many of the young people have some awareness of computers, many of the older generation have no knowledge and perhaps even a phobia towards computers. Resistance to introduction of IT in institutions is often fuelled by the unfounded prejudices of senior employees who by virtue of their seniority are often the decision-makers in these institutions. Several institutions have found that conducting computer awareness courses to all their employees has resulted in improved productivity in general, at the work place. IT awareness should be provided as a priority by the following: a) Media - Both the print and the electronic media need to be fully exploited to provide IT awareness. This should not be left to the reproduction of material published overseas but more so to the reporting of local developments, achievements, information and to cater to the local needs. IT ages/supplements should be introduced on a regular basis in the print media and programmes introduced through the electronic media. b) Exhibitions - IT exhibitions which serve as a window to technology need to be held frequently and also taken to the regions. General exhibitions should be used to introduce IT to the rural community. The use of mobile unit will enable computer awareness to hundreds of thousands of visitors at locations in all parts of the island and such schemes could be replicated with improvements such as providing access to INTERNET. c) Awareness Courses and Seminars should be introduced to engage youth who have no knowledge and access to ICT skill-set building programmes. The National Youth Council in partnership with government, NGOs and the private sector should regularly organise seminars and workshops to promote awareness and community development on the use of ICT for skill-set development. The introduction of ICT has taken place in Timor-Leste in an ad-hoc manner, often as an automation of an existing manual system without proper systems design and the exploitation of the technology and re-engineering of the processes involved, This has been further compounded by the development of computerisation in vertical compartments without any horizontal integration. These have often been the result of a total lack of coordination of efforts by the various players. The National Youth Council of Timor-Leste call for the adoption of a national Implementation Strategy to set up the necessary structures to achieve the above objectives by: a) Conducting proper research and needs analysis of ICT policy and meeting the future needs for policy change is a major requirement. b) Identification of thematic areas where ICT programmes and projects can be used to build capacity of youth and society-at-large such as:
c) The establishment of a National Committee for Youth and Information Communication Technology with representatives from the Government, Non-governmental and private sector. The National Youth Council suggests the following structure for this:
d) The allocation of resources, financial and human, to assist with the implementation of the National Youth Action plan and the 6 ICT Youth capacity building projects for 2004-2006 by Government, Bi-lateral Aid Agencies, Multilateral Development Agencies and other donor organizations. *** END *** Summary of 6 ICT Projects proposed for implementation, 2004-2006
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