The government has a number of policy objectives:
Objective 1: Raising awareness
The government is dedicating itself to the creation and expansion of public awareness of ICT programmes. This awareness will protect the public interest in the areas of policy formulation and development, and regulatory and licensing mechanisms. The government would like to enable both public and private sector participation in promoting ICT awareness.
Objective 2: ICT literacy and capacity building
In order to advance ICT literacy and human resource capacity, the government intends to: focus on the integration of ICT into all educational curricula; to develop and manage technical training within schools, business/industry and international institutions by promoting private-public partnerships that encourage repatriation of international-based Ugandan ICT professionals; and to establish incentives for capacity development for all sectors of society.
Objective 3: Infrastructure
The government of Uganda intends to promote appropriate strategies for affordable access to infrastructure for development by coordinating sectoral policies and regulations that address the public’s need for access to the internet. This will be done via accessible digital national information portals at all levels of government. Expanding access to rural communities is also a policy objective.
Objective 4: Funding and public-private partnerships
The funding and creation of public-private partnerships to develop and expand ICT is a stated goal. Governmental budgetary allowances, in conjunction with private sector incentives, will be developed to create an environment that encourages fair competition and pricing for domestic development and participation.
Objective 5: Innovative financing strategies
Essentially, the government intends to set up a national ICT fund that will encourage tax incentives and public-private partnerships, with contributions and “innovative financing schemes” where available, from developmental partners and the private sector.
Objective 6: Creating, developing and disseminating domestic information
Within this objective, the government intends to create an appropriate legal framework for protecting indigenous and foreign intellectual property rights while ensuring public access to information. The government intends to encourage public-private partnerships, including both independent public and private sector participation, in the creation, storage and dissemination of domestic-oriented material.
Objective 7: Facilitating public access
Within the larger rubric of legal mechanisms, the government intends to codify public accessibility, and create governance structures and regulatory bodies for maintaining an appropriate level of affordable accessibility for all citizens. These bodies and regulations will focus on removing barriers to access, strengthening formal institutions (libraries, archive and information distribution centres), and create mechanisms for redressing shortcomings in ICT policy.
Objective 8: Accessible media plurality
A plurality of media is desired for distribution and participation. As such, the government desires to create a legal and “regulatory system that will prevent a mono-media, or cross-media concentration [including]…mergers.” This objective intends to focus on creating and disseminating diverse programming that will reflect an appropriate level of diversity for all citizenry.
Objective 9: Promoting information for minority groups
Language accessibility is the central theme of this objective. The government intends to encourage public private partnership collaboration that focuses on language barriers within ICT. Similarly, the creation of local content and participation will be encouraged, especially for disadvantaged and special needs groups.
Objective 10: Gender issues
Despite gender issues being addressed within the previous objectives, the government specifically intends to ensure that the gender information gap within ICT development has a separate mechanism for advocacy.
Objective 11: Establishing legal framework
The government will seek the input of both stakeholders and user-groups, which will be followed by legislation to ensure accessibility and security of information. The legislation will be designed to conform to local needs as well as international standards.
Objective 12: Research and development (R&D)
The government will establish, support, promote and coordinate R&D by national professionals in cooperation with local universities and technical institutions, in order to maximise nation-wide accessibility.
Objective 13: Enhance intellectual assets
In order to prepare for the transition to a knowledge-based society, the government will promote and enhance policies and innovative initiatives that will encourage value and rewards for intellectual assets.
Objective 14: Enhancing domestic and international collaboration and co-ordination
This objective recognises the need to increase domestic cross-policy coordination, in order to effectively and efficiently maintain the stated goals outlined in the Strategic Framework for National Development Vision 2025. The government intends to achieve this domestic goal by establishing an information management system that will avoid policy duplication and address multi-sectoral needs, all of which will be coordinated with development partners and organisations.
