Liberia. Aside from the development of e-government services, the government will promote the production of cultural, educational and scientific content and the development of local cultural industries suited to the linguistic and cultural context of the users. 5.13 Investment and Funding 5.13.1 Policy Objectives 1. To create an enabling environment and facilitate foreign direct investment as well as national private sector investment in the ICT industry; 2. To further increase competition in the ICT sector; 3. To encourage public-private partnerships for the development of ICT; 4. To provide funding of government ICT projects through appropriate budgetary allocation; 5. To explore new and emerging sources of funding e.g., crowd-sourcing. Investment and funding are critical to the success of any national ICT development plan and programs. Typically, sources for such funding would include Government, the private sector, as well as international organizations. Government has the critical role of creating an enabling environment that will attract investment and funding from these various stakeholders and will foster a conducive environment for the functioning of impactful and sustainable PPP initiatives. Although the ICT sector has witnessed increased investments over recent years, the current policy and regulatory framework could be improved to address the uncertainty that tends to discourage investors, consequently depriving the sector of the necessary funding required for ICT improvement and expansion. 5.13.2 Summary of Strategies 1. Partnerships between the government and the private sector have tremendous potential for the qualitative delivery of ICT infrastructure projects, innovation, skills acquisition, and outreach of government services to Liberians; 2. Private sector participation has been identified as a major catalyst in ICT development across the globe. However, often times, there is confusion as to the roles, levels of contribution, and rules of overall engagement thus leading to fragmented outcomes. Liberia is therefore yet to take full advantage of the enormous potentials inherent in public-private-partnership in ICT development. The necessary enabling environment should therefore be created for the realization of these benefits. 45