Tunis - Tunisia observes on May 17 of each year the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD). Tunisia strives in accordance with President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali's will to vitalize joint international action for the promotion of ICTs, to boost efforts of solidary development. The World Telecommunication and Information Society Day aims to help raise awareness of the possibilities that the use of the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICT) can bring to societies and economies, as well as of ways to bridge the digital divide.
World Telecommunication Day has been celebrated annually on 17 May since 1969, marking the founding of ITU and the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention in 1865. It was instituted by the Plenipotentiary Conference in Malaga-Torremolinos in 1973.
In November 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society, held in Tunisia, called upon the UN General Assembly to declare 17 May as World Information Society Day to focus on the importance of ICT and the wide range of issues related to the Information Society raised by WSIS. The General Assembly adopted a resolution in March 2006 stipulating that World Information Society Day shall be celebrated every year on 17 May.
Tunisia also endeavours to improve the indicators of the access to the telecommunication network and facilitate the adherence of all the social categories to the information society. Internet broadband, the generalisation of the access of all the regions and individuals, speeding up investment, setting up of technological spaces in all the governorates, the creation of technological centres and boosting of innovation are the main orientation of the next five-year period.
Tunisia also strives to Develop, modernise and make use of the new technologies, in order to establish a communications infrastructure that meets the needs of an economy increasingly based on knowledge, especially with the reinforcement and extension of fixed and mobile telephone infrastructures and the development of data transmission networks through the use of the available modern technologies.
It also reinforces the human, technical and technological capacities, by promoting research, academic training through a wide dissemination of the digital culture that contributes to the establishment of the information and knowledge society.
Besides, Tunisia strives to develop a network of innovative and high-performance enterprises with high added value, capable of achieving integration within the global market and of making Tunisia a regional technological pole of excellence.
Tunisia has been ranked, for the third year in a row, by the Davos World Report on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs, 2008-2009), first on the Maghreb and African levels, and 38th on the world scale, out a total of 134 countries.
With a 4.34-score, Tunisia has kept its regional standing, given the fact that the number of the classified countries went up by 12 in relation to the previous edition which counted 122 countries.
The report, an authoritative reference in matters of investment in the ICTs area, conducts its survey on three basic elements, namely the country's political and economic environment, its technological level and the degree of ICTs utilisation. In the report, Tunisia is ahead of such countries like Hungary (41st), Italy (45th), Greece (55th), Romania (58th), Brazil (59th), Turkey (61st) and Poland (69th).
At the African level, Tunisia keeps its leadership and is by far ahead of Egypt (76th), Morocco (86th) and South Africa (52nd). In the Arab world, Tunisia follows closely three countries: United Arab Emirates (27th), Qatar (29th) and Bahrain (37th). By sections, Tunisia has achieved excellent results on the world scale. Thus, it ranked third in terms of government success in ICTs promotion and 8th in government prioritisation of ICTs. According to the report, Tunisia is able to improve its ranking in the e-government section, given the determinant role of e-government in providing reliable and quality services made available to citizens and companies.
It is worth pointing out that the ICTs sector, a high added value sector, grew in 2008 at the high rate of 17.8%, bringing its GDP share up to 10% now, compared with 9% in 2007 and 5.9% in 2004.
Tunisia has bet on the ICTs sector to boost the socio- economic growth. It is within this framework that rests the project for the expansion of the El Ghezala Technological Park which will be carried out in several sections in the governorates of Ariana and Manouba.
This project provides for fitting out, at a first stage, several technological spaces covering an area of 100,000 square metres to host innovating companies and create over 5,000 jobs. The covered area of the whole project will reach approximately 500,000 square metres (including 200,000, in the area of Ennahli and 300,000 in Manouba).
To this area are added 100,000 more square metres for the extension of the technological parks of Sousse and Sfax.
© Agence Tunis Afrique Presse 2010
