Jordan's national Information and Communications Technology (ICT) initiatives have the potential to establish the country as an ICT developmental model and position the country to build economic prosperity around technology, stated a new report from McConnell International.
The report, entitled The National E-Readiness of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan – A Global View of Jordan's Competitive Advantages was commissioned by the Information Technology Association – Jordan (int@J). In a comprehensive review of Jordan's key ICT strengths, weaknesses and challenges, the report concludes that while Jordan faces hurdles in its path to building economic opportunity based on ICT development, the country also has a number of fundamental strengths and is addressing its challenges appropriately.
“McConnell International believes Jordan will not remain in the middle position of E-Readiness for long. If it heeds lessons learned from today's leaders, capitalizes and promotes its advantages and implements timely and efficiently its forward-thinking program, Jordan will become a model country for ICT development,” the report asserts.
The McConnell report identifies four major areas of strength in the country: leadership, public/private sector co-operation, the young, well-educated population and regulatory and legal reform. The leadership role of King Abdullah II and the work of the government's ministers, along with public/private sector initiatives such as Jordan's REACH strategy, are identified as highly successful components of Jordan's ICT industry development.
By no means uncritical, the McConnell report outlines a number of key areas in Jordan where more focus is required, including the development of stronger Internet use, currently weak government ICT-related spending, a lack of strong tax incentives for people to purchase IT equipment, and the need to strengthen work on information security and intellectual property. It also identifies a number of strong initiatives that are currently underway to address these and other issues in the country.
McConnell International is a global technology policy and management consulting firm that specializes in E-Readiness, technology policy and information management problem solving for governments, multinational financial organizations and global businesses. One of over 20 E-Readiness assessments conducted by the company, the Jordanian E-Readiness assessment was derived from in-country visits, research work and interviews with over 50 stakeholders in and outside Jordan. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
