4.2. KEY PRIORITIES The key priorities for the ICT sector in Somalia are driven by the development challenges as outlined in the National Development Plan (NDP), and taking into account regional and international goals, in particular the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the government strategy to “Create a vibrant, robust and competitive private sector that contributes to the sustainable economic development of the Federal Government of Somalia”. Based on these, the following are the priority policy action areas to be completed by 2024 under this policy: 16 1. Extension of the national backbone infrastructure to connect all major urban centres with redundant/duplicate links (to ensure reliability), as well as addressing last mile challenges to ensure universal access to broadband including efficient interconnection and expansion of 3/4G mobile coverage 2. Building the foundation for fiber networks in each Federal Member State in the post 2024 period 3. Establishing a Government Data Center with offshore / cloud backup facilities 4. Telecom operators take part in infrastructure sharing and dig-once policies, supported by other utility network development 5. Ensuring critical infrastructure is protected - establishing a Cybersecurity and Privacy group to oversee the development and enforcement of national cybersecurity policies, and develop a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) 6. Facilitating the increased role of women, youth and persons with disabilities in ICT 7. Establishing online e-government services and Open Data systems 8. Developing the use of ICTs in the key sectors of health, education, research, agriculture and industry 9. Ensuring all laws reflect needs for promoting e-commerce, ensuring online data privacy, child protection and admissibility of electronic evidence in court.