Mediterranean Countries Synthesis of Update Memos - November 2000

1. Introduction

The following document summarises the development which took place during the last quarter in the field of IS promotional activities, such as IS national/ regional strategies, conferences, seminars and forums.

The population is getting more and more aware of the issues brought by the development of Information technologies. Many discussions have been organised dealing with the issue of electronic commerce and the Internet.

The most discussed topic on the governmental activities supporting organisational awareness in majority of countries is the government’s plans for e-government.

2. Governmental activities supporting organisational awareness of Information Society

The most discussed topic on the governmental activities supporting organisational awareness in majority of countries was the government’s plans for e-government. Thus the Lebanese government organised the conference on Electronic Government. During this conference, the Minister of Economy stated the following points which prove that big moves towards the development of IS in the country are on the way:

• Roll-out of the infrastructure (network system) is over
• Personnel was being trained
• Number of new laws have been passed (incl. the law related to the electronic signature)
• Decrease of import tariffs on computer hardware and software from an average of 24% to 6%

The Ministry for Justice and Local Government in Malta outlined the hot topic of e-government at the conference entitled: "Technology – Avoid it, embrace it or manage it?" On the occasion of the conference, a research study was published by Deloitte which set forth definitive stages that public sector entities would go through to achieve a true e-government.

The Moroccan Ministry of industry and the Minister of Finance would like to launch a "Technoparc project". The objective of this project is to create a location where information technology operators of different sizes can get together to develop the right conditions for mastering technology.

In Turkey, an initiative led by IT Group of parliamentarians in the Grand National Assembly drafted a law for the establishment of a separate Ministry to deal with information society and information technology issues. The draft law was submitted to the Prime Minister.

The e-government topic is discussed also in Jordan, where the Economic Consultative Council launched its first action plan for e-government. The project of e-government will involve services in government-to-business, government-to-citizens and government-to-government transactions. It is expected to set up special kiosks in schools and post offices across Jordan, to allow citizens benefit from the government’s future online services.

3. IS national/ regional strategies

The EUMEDIS Focal point for Israel was established in May 2000 with the main objective to support actions for the development of the regional Information Society and promote Israel participation in the EUMEDIS regional pilot projects as follows:

• Regional Tourism Project;
• E-learning: advantages, technologies and applications;
• Mediterranean Network of Ministries of Education in view to establish an ICT network of the Ministries of Education of the Mediterranean Region.

4. Non-governmental organisations and their IS activities

The communication group Cinamapresse Communication in Morocco, has decided to expand its borders to cover information technology with "Medi@ Online", a new sub-group concentrating on web material especially the development of a site for the GSM WAP from Ericsson, the R320.

The Syrian Computer Society (SCS) remains the main player in the field of IS in Syria. Thus, this society pursues its awareness efforts in collaboration with four different Ministries:

• Ministry of Education: National Programme for the dissemination of IT
• Ministry of High Education: Universities Programme on Informatics and society
• Ministry of Information: Television Programme on Informatics and society
• Ministry of Culture: Series of Lectures on IT and Applications

SCS has been officially nominated as a key contact for the EUMEDIS programme.

Besides this Computer Company, two additional Consultative Committees were established by the Council of Ministers in the field of IT: The GIS Committee, and the Management of Information System Committee.

In Turkey, two meetings were held by the Internet Higher Council about the reliability of the network between IS Providers and Turk Telekom.

5. Educational issues

A contract between the Ministry of national education in Morocco and the French multinational company VIVENDI has to be signed in the coming days with the aim to computerise national schools. This co-operation will involve providing both online and offline resources, the offline services in the form of CD-ROMs and teaching booklets, whereas online resources will manifest themselves as a biblioweb and possibly network products.

Israel was fully accepted as a member of the EUN – European Schoolnet (http://www.eun.org), which is a network established by the European Ministries of Education that connects the main national educational networks.

In Syria, the presidential decree for the year 2000 stipulates the creation of four faculties for Computer Science and Engineering in four Syrian State Universities. Moreover, the Ministry of Education intends to have 2000 Internet access points in public schools around the country, once the national backbone for the Internet is implemented (forecast for 1^st quarter 2001).

More than 80 professors from France, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria have participated at a Summer School 2000, focusing on Digital Communication, Communication networks and Industrial Computer.

The Ministry of Planning in Jordan carries out a $30 million project to enhance IT at Jordan’s state-run Universities and Community colleges. The project is part of the higher education development and the aim is to supply to students pursuing higher education with skills and know-how in state-of-the-art technology. This projects has 5 sub-projects:

• Financing and installation of standard-based information technology infrastructure including hardware, software and applications.
• Design and use of modern management information system in decision making actions
• Development of an inter-university library
• Support of training for individuals
• Financing of student faculty computers and networks, professional and end-user training, and educational technologies

6. E-commerce

In Morocco, the new Secretary of State has created the National Commission in Electronic Commerce. At the same time, the new discussion forum has been set up with the aim to deal with the issue of quickly implementing e-commerce into the Moroccan community.

In Syria, the Prime Minister has formed an e-commerce consultative committee. Moreover the Ministry of Economy and External Trade organised one day workshop: "e-commerce: prospects and opportunities". Following topics were discussed:

• Effective e-commerce in the world
• Economical and cultural importance of e-commerce
• Legal and financial aspects of e-commerce in Syria
• Impacts of e-commerce in the business world

In the last quarter, the main topic of discussion in the field of IS in Tunisia was the launch of the e-Dinar (electronic money). The Tunisian government has instigated this new currency for university students paying their tuition fees. Students can purchase e-Dinar within Post offices. Moreover, the three yearlong study on e-commerce conducted by the National Commission for Electronic Trade has been achieved. This study includes issues such as the transfer of electronic documents and signatures.

7. Seminars, Conferences and Workshops

The main promotional activity which was identified during the 3^rd quarter of the year 2000 in Cyprus :

• Educational seminar on the global information society and information society in Cyprus. This seminar focused on key areas such as:

• Latest global developments on Information Society Technologies
• EU efforts to reduce the informational and technological gap between European citizens
• The EUMEDIS initiative and the corresponding funding initiatives
• The possibility for funding Cypriot businesses and organisations through the European Research and Technological Development programme

Few initiatives took place in Egypt during the 3^rd quarter of the year 2000:

• Fair CompuAlex Alexandria 2000
• Communication Expo Vision
• Compu Knowledge

Jordan’s biggest telecommunications event was held on September in Amman. The theme

" An office without walls in a world without borders" reflected the tremendous advancements in various technologies for telecommunication and the big interest of Jordan to follow in time evolutions of new technologies.

The following conferences took place in Israel during the 3^rd trimester of the year 2000:

• The Internet as a tool for Managing Real State Projects
• Conference of the Third Generation Internet
• WAP-the Cellular Internet Age in Business
• Communications in the Broadband Age

Three important conferences and seminars are forecasted for October and November in Morocco. The first one is the conference on computer science which should emphasize on file engineering, techniques of artificial intelligence as well as the imaging and their applications. The two seminars which will take place in Morocco will be on the topic of XML (eXtend Markup Language) and the other one will focus on ASP (Active Server Pages) and Java Script.

Several events promoting the IS in Tunisia took place during the 3^rd quarter of the year 2000. The first was the conference on "Economic Challenges of New Technologies" conducted by the Ministry of Communications, on which the ministry pointed out his intentions of modernising and diversifying the infrastructure through the adoption of new technologies. The second important event to mention was the seminar on "The financial market in the Internet Era". The main topics discussed during this seminar were as follows:

• Emergence of the Internet in the financial market
• General framework of the electronic transactions
• Regulation and monitoring of the financial market in the Internet Era

The Ministry pointed out the establishment of an e-commerce committee in order to further develop electronic trade in Tunisia.

In Turkey the biggest event on promoting the IS was "Bilisim 2000" Fair and Conference. The fair attracted over 185 000 visitors, 800 companies. The main topic of the conference was e-Turkey.

8. Other actions promoting the Internet

The Ministry of Finance in Israel established a self learning site providing courses for making the acquaintance with the Internet, tips and tricks for using Microsoft software. The site is targeted to the Ministry’s workers and for public, too.

Several IT companies were established in Turkey like joint ventures of Turkish and Greek IT companies. This is a direct result of the Turkish-Greek IS Forum. The Turkish Informatics Foundation elaborated a draft law for the establishment of a National Information Security Council.

9. Statistics

A survey carried out by the Gallup Research Institute in the Jewish population of Israel indicates that 29% of households are connected to the Internet, the main users of Internet are youngsters (13 – 17 years old), 86% of youngsters have a computer at home. The survey indicates that Internet Zahav and Netvision with 33% each are the main ISP and Bezeq International is the third with 14,2% of the residential.