World Summit On Information Society 2018 Held in Geneva

This year's World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) Forum has taken place in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Summit provided an opportunity for information exchange, knowledge creation, sharing of best practices, identifying emerging trends and fostering partnerships, taking into account the evolving information and knowledge societies.

The forum also served as a strong platform for deliberating ICT roles as a means of implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets.

It was organized on the theme: "Leveraging ICT to build Information and Knowledge Societies for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals."

Speaking in an interview during a ministerial roundtable session, Hon. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Ghana's Minister for Communications, noted that, without the Information & Communication Technology (ICT) agenda, it would be difficult to achieve much in fulfilling all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Hon. Owusu-Ekuful disclosed that the Government of Ghana was, therefore, rolling out a number of initiatives in the ICT sector to help strengthen the economy of the country.

She said the initiatives included a robust e-education agenda, e-health and e-agriculture, among others, which, she said, would help improve the lives of the general public.

For example, she said, the benefits of e-agriculture were to deliver market information to farmers in terms of pricing of goods, accessing weather information and many more.

Hon. Owusu-Ekuful said government was also keen on promoting digital financial services as well as introducing very innovative ways of assisting people to move towards a cashless society, which would also help to reduce corruption at all levels.

She mentioned the introduction of a paperless ports system as another initiative with had considerably improved the turnaround time and efficiency at the ports and reduced, thereby, the frustrations that people went through to access services.

She disclosed that government was also focusing on giving women IT skills to enable them bridge the digital gender divide and that the Ministry of Communications, through its flagship program dubbed "Girls in ICT", had been training about 500 young girls annually from the remotest parts of the country and equipping them with devices to help them get involved in the digital revolution.

Report from the Public Relations and Communications Department, Ministry of Communications

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