172. Objective 5 of the National Development Strategy is to “increase economic growth
and equitably distribute employment and income benefits”.65
173. There are three policy groups to achieve the above objective: an enabling
environment for private sector led growth (including by increasing opportunities
for trade, and increasing opportunities for employment); development of economic
growth centres (including measures to increase rural areas’ share in development);
and development of natural resource based sectors.66 As discussed in relation to
Objective 1, enhanced ICT use has the potential to contribute positively to
economic growth, particularly through private sector led growth.
174. Government strategies for economic growth which are likely to benefit from
enhanced ICT access and use include the following:67
Reducing the operating costs of the private sector and facilitating
efficient provision of goods and services.
Developing programmes to provide support to entrepreneurs in the small,
medium and micro-enterprise sectors, covering services in technical
training, entrepreneurial training and business planning.
Improving performance, governance, oversight and accountability of
SOEs.
Coordinating with stakeholders to strengthen national processes for trade
data collection and analysis.
Identifying opportunities for labour mobility overseas.
Promoting the sustainable use of natural resources.
Providing information on potential commercial crops and on downstream
processing and value adding.
Promoting family-based reforestation and providing technical advice and
information to growers.
Improving infrastructure and telecommunications services for tourism.
Strategies
175. Businesses in very many countries have demonstrated the ability of ICT to drive
economic growth and job creation:
Solomon Islands Government National Development Strategy 2011 – 2020 (2011) pp 23.
Solomon Islands Government National Development Strategy 2011 to 2020 (2011) p 27.
67
Solomon Islands Government National Development Strategy 2011 to 2020 (2011) pp 26 – 31.
65
66
Page | 61
Solomon Islands National ICT Policy