safeguarding fundamental human rights, protecting privacy, promoting electronic services and promoting competition. 1.3 Methodology The National ICT Master Plan development methodology was highly consultative in nature. All key stakeholders in the ICT sector in terms of their interest, power and influence were identified in order to involve them in the development of the National ICT Action Master Plan. The participatory and consultative approach to the assignment has ensured full ownership of the outputs. The specific participatory methods that were employed to achieve thorough consultations were an initial diagnostic workshop followed by key informant interviews, focus group discussions and plenary workshop sessions, with a representative of a purposively selected sample of internal and external stakeholders comprising officers in government Ministries and Departments, interest groups from public, private and civil society, among others. These methods were used systematically to identify strategic issues, needs, problems, challenges, opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses that informed clear and realistic strategic themes/pillars, objectives and strategic outcomes for the National ICT Master Plan. Since not all national citizens were able to participate using the above proposed approaches, further ways of getting people’s voice utilized social media interfaces such as facebook and internet communication using emails. The approach comprised the following key steps: 16