Situation analysis

Azerbaijan being a state in the process of dynamic development supports the idea of creation of the global information society with the civil society being one of the key components. A number of important decisions made by the country authorities within the last few years reflect the country's policy in this field - overall balanced development, application of e-governance, integration into the world information society. ICT have been successfully applied in different fields in the last years and this process has been continuously expanding.

However, despite a number of remarkable achievements made in ICT application, the overall situation leaves a lot to be desired. An issue of unequal access and divide in capacities of various state structures to harness ICT potential is becoming one of the main obstacles for development of sectors such as training and education, academic research and data exchange and civil society. Despite more and more entities have basic IT equipment, the access to Internet is limited by slow and frequently overfull connection. The existing infrastructure does not correspond to demand. In the meantime, the utilization of the existing ICT capacities needs to get optimized and streamlined.

The Project is expected to facilitate settlement of the mentioned problems bringing together all the key players and stakeholders to ensure mobilization of all the human, technical and financial resources (both those in place already as well as those to be established within the project) for development of transmission and exchange of database infrastructure. Given direct involvement of the Ministry, the project will make an effort to optimize utilization of capacities currently available both within the key project players, as well as from other institutions present in the field (NGOs both national and international, other international organizations).

The above is expected to contribute to the system of governance ensuring an enabling environment for development, poverty reduction, and respect for rights and freedoms with the special emphasis on the development in the regions - one of the current national priorities. This is linked to one of the UNDAF outcomes of the state improving its delivery of services and its protection of rights - with the involvement of civil society and in compliance with its international commitments

It should be noted that the current project is a model applied by UNDP and OSI-AF in a number of countries (Belarus, Uzbekistan). The above initiative has been under consideration in Azerbaijan for more than 6 years; however, given complexity of the sector as well as institutional obstacles, no agreement could be reached between the parties concerned at the earlier stage. The mere fact that the project preserved it's relevance through all these years proves importance of the subject for country's development agenda and for the institutions concerned in particular.

The project comes in line with the key objectives of the National ICT Strategy developed by the Government of Azerbaijan with the support of UNDP involving wide range of the relevant parties/entities both local and international (http://www.nicts.az) and approved by the Special Regulation of the President of Azerbaijan in February, 2003. Expansion of the project to the regions is expected to contribute to the concept of the regional development pursued by the country management and backed up by a number of the recent decrees and regulations. Focusing equally on the urban and rural areas, the project should contribute to prevention of the "digital divide" while this global phenomena is already present in Azerbaijan. The project intends to build on the experience and the existing technical and human resources of 11 Regional Information Centers established by NICTS project. In the meantime, the project corresponds to the concept of creation and efficient functioning of the unified State Data Transmission Network known as one of the current Government priorities in the field and the one of the United Nations Development Activities Framework.

Global experience shows that broad usage of ICT serves the overall development of the country, and these technologies are effective means in reducing poverty and solving socio-economic problems of population. World Summit on Information Society (www.wsis.org) also emphasized the importance of local content and local language development. Content that is relevant to the cultures and languages of individuals in the Information Society need to be provided through access to both traditional and digital information services. The WSIS also stressed that access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) was a cornerstone of the Information Society. The central role of Governments as lead actors and catalysts in promoting the use of ICTs by individuals, communities and local authorities has been emphasized at the Geneva stage of the Summit. It was crucial to develop national e?strategies that create an enabling policy and regulatory environment that stimulate local entrepreneurship and private investment. Strong political leadership was seen to be crucial to further progress in this area.

Objectives of the current project reflect and incorporate the milestone of the concept the Azeri Head of the State proclaimed during his statement in Geneva - conversion of black gold into human gold (country's natural resources to be placed at service of the population). It is furthermore believed that in case of successful implementation, the achievements of the project may become one of the success stories the country can display during the WSIS-II to take place in Tunisia in 2005.

From this point of view, the Government of Azerbaijan's recent decision on transformation of the Ministry of Communication into the new Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies is perceived positively as a part of the management reforms package. Apart from recognizing the linkage between communication and information technologies, this decision has the potential to strengthen Government capacity, contribute to reform, and streamline ICT sector enabling utilization of the immense human potential. It worth to mention that creation of the new state entity to deal with ICT as a sector has been one of the major preconditions for Azerbaijan's harnessing ICT potential.

It should be also mentioned that such a project would also contribute to the content of E-Governance since increased number of the qualified users aware of ICT potential and linked to the most relevant databases is an important step in ensuring backbone and sustainability of E-Governance initiatives at the later stages.

So, emanating from the aforesaid, this particular Project, will stress and foster the major achievements made within the framework of NICTS and other stakeholders in ICT sector of Azerbaijan, and also will implement the necessary changes in infrastructure, needed for creation the stronger IP network in Azerbaijan, network of Azerbaijan for research work, education and development (AzNet) in the meantime bringing potential of ICT to the regions.