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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.