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health centres and government departments, and to adapt the school

curriculum to meet the challenges of the Information Society.

It was observed that with extensive efforts, most of the other

goals were achievable. In particular, adopting school curricula to

the requirements and challenges posed by the Information Society

would require a major initiative and commensurate resources.

The target of ensuring that all people have access to radio and

television services was considered difficult though it would be

relatively easier to achieve that than in the Pacific where half of

the respondents viewed it as impossible.

The target of developing content in all local languages was also

considered difficult as the sub-region had many languages in use,

and a large amount of financial as well as human resources were

needed to realize this target. Respondents expressed pessimism

over the feasibility of ensuring that more than half the world’s

inhabitants have access to ICT by 2015. One respondent thought

that it was impossible to eliminate poverty and therefore, there

would inevitably be marginalized people without any ICT in their

reach.

In general, the most fundamental issue was adequate funding

for infrastructure to enable connectivity and access and thus meet

many of the targets envisaged.

South and South-West Asia

The views expressed by most of the respondents indicated that

it would require substantial efforts to realize the goals of connect-

ing villages with ICT and to establish community access centres,

and these targets posed major challenges in being met by many

of the countries in the sub-region. It was also considered diffi-

cult to attain the target of connecting universities, colleges and

schools, especially in providing connectivity to all schools.

Geographical conditions (i.e. mountainous areas) and the lack of

power are among the barriers for attaining this target. A dearth of

resources, for example, shortcomings in human resources and

funding, have also been considered formidable barriers to provid-

ing connectivity to schools.

The survey results pointed out that connecting scientific and

research centres with ICTs could be achieved relatively easily by

2015, yet sufficient efforts would be required to achieve this. The

views of many respondents suggested that the target of connect-

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ing all local and central government departments had been either

achieved or was considered easy to achieve. However, many

respondents expressed their concern over the pressing need for

requisite human resources development in achieving this target

and considered a lack of skilled manpower as a major barrier.

Progress has been made in adapting school curricula to the

Information Society. ICT was already an important subject in

some countries in 2005. The target was therefore expected to be

achieved by 2015. Most respondents felt that the target of ensur-

ing TV and radio services was achievable but only with extensive

efforts. Satellite broadcasting was deemed an appropriate option

if affordable reception equipment was available on the market.

Different views were evident on the achievability of the target

related to content development and technical conditions for the

use of all world languages on the Internet. More work was required

in local language computing due to language barriers. It was consid-

ered unlikely that this target would be achieved in some countries.

Respondents considered it rather difficult to ensure more than half

the world’s inhabitants would have access to ICT, just as in the

surveys for South-East Asia and the Pacific.

The foregoing results indicate that although the respondents

generally held the view that most of the targets were easy to achieve

or could be achieved with extensive efforts, there were some targets

such as developing local content in all languages and ensuring more

than half of the world’s inhabitants had access to ICT that were

considered especially difficult. The target of providing access to

radio and television services to all people was also considered

unlikely to be achieved. Lack of resources, such as the availability

of funding and proper technical/skilled manpower, was considered

a barrier towards achieving these targets. Geographical or topo-

logical conditions, such as remoteness or mountainous terrain were

cited as other reasons for the constraints. The analyses of the

responses to the questionnaire have been taken into account in the

formulation of the Regional Action Plan towards the Information

Society that identifies specific measures at the national and regional

levels which would facilitate the achievement of the WSIS targets.

The meaningful and timely implementation of the Regional Action

Plan will, therefore, require close cooperation of all stakeholders

including the public and private sectors, civil society and the inter-

national and regional community.