Education - ICT integration, training, education, skills retention, capacity-building

ICT Content and Applications Development - service delivery enhancement, e-government, local content, partnerships

Infrastructure - connectivity, universal access, reliability

Legislation - legislative and regulatory framework

Economy - niche information technology (IT) enterprises, software development, IT Parks

This summary is part of a research project carried out between March and October 2006 in support of the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), one of The Communication Initiative (The CI)'s partners.

Guyana’s National Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Strategy is seen as a vehicle to dramatically increasing the country’s social and economic wealth at individual, organisational and national levels. The strategy aims to enhance Guyana’s human resources, innovation, education, infrastructure and information technology to accelerate national prosperity and well-being. The policy promotes opportunity for all Guyanese to fully participate in the information and knowledge society in every sphere of activity including economic, employment, social services, health, education and cultural development.

Although there is currently a lack of adequate infrastructure or suitable enabling environment, President Bharrat Jagdeo himself has directed the development of the strategy and has offered full support and endorsement of the government. Transparency and inclusion and a supporting regulatory environment are seen as key elements in ensuring the policy has a major impact on development. Guyana’s Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) identifies ICT as a pivotal tool to improve governance, accountability and transparency; generate employment, especially for women and youth; develop human resource potential; and strengthen national unity.

The overall goal of the policy is to construct a strategy to accelerate growth and social development in Guyana. The specific objectives include:

• Development of ICT services and businesses to increase job opportunities and the larger economy.
• Improved delivery of, and access to, government and public services.
• Development of existing and new industries.
• Increased international competitiveness.
• Development of appropriate infrastructure to enable access to information and knowledge including legislation, policies and regulations.
• Creation of a new generation of ICT literate citizens to take part in and capitalise on the information age.
• Modernisation of Guyana’s public administration, industry, commerce and communication sectors.

Human capacity, infrastructure and enterprise as well as support for fair competition are all important aspects of ensuring that the potential of ICT in Guyana is realised.

Financing to implement and sustain the strategy looks at several primary sources of income.

• Sale of .gy domain
• Fees for the use of the Internet Exchange
• Fees of the Payment Gateway
• Fees for utilisation of the ICT Parks.

Other financing will be through a Universal Access Fund (UAF) whose revenues will be from licensed service providers as well as international institutions and donors. Funding and credit will be made available through encouraging foreign and domestic venture capital, establishing micro-finance opportunities, and partnerships with the private sector to develop critical infrastructure.