4.0 POLICY OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGIES The primary goal of the ICT Policy and Strategy is to ensure that citizens of Somalia are able to take full advantage of the tremendous potential for ICTs to accelerate development, and to create new wealth and jobs. To achieve this mission and realize the vision for this policy, a number of policy objectives have been identified covering the sub sectors of telecommunications, broadcasting, postal, electronic payments, and information management sytems, as well as other cross cutting and emerging areas. 4.1. POLICY GOALS The broad goal is to provide an overarching framework and platform to ensure Somalia has opportunity to fully leverage the potential benefits of the information and communications revolution. The specific goals are: 1. To expand ICT infrastructure to all the regions of Somalia connecting all cities and sub-regional urban areas with reliable broadband connectivity 2. To ensure coordinated and harmonized deployment of ICT infrastructure avoiding unnecessary duplication and waste of resources To foster the development of efficient government E-services for supporting the growth of Somalia’s economy To boost the development of a vibrant E-commerce and digital finance sector To develop policy and procedures and active citizen protection and cybersecurity defense measures for all ICT infrastructure To promote co-ordination between ICT policy administrators in the public sector To foster local innovations in science, digital skills and technology leading to the rapid creation of many new jobs and wealth To drive inclusive development of women and marginalized groups To actively promote universal access to both voice and Internet using the most appropriate and up to date technologies and business models To ensure the country adequately participates in regional and international ICT agreements and fora in order to promote ICT development. This includes WTO and ITU membership, joining EACO and signing on to the international cybercrime convention, etc. To ensure the active adoption of ICTs in all sectors critical to the transformation of Somalia’s economy, notably in education, health, power, roads and transport, agriculture, trade, finance, industry and commerce etc. To enable citizens of Somalia take advantage of the full use of broadband services making them a competitive and well informed population and able to participate in the socio-economic development of the country. To reinforce government initiatives to boost innovation, support transparency, empower citizens, encourage accountability and improve the delivery of public services with Open Data. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 15