Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders - Training of Trainers for National Training Institutes

In an increasingly digital and inter-connected global environment, policy makers and many other government officials are indispensable in creating and sustaining the type of environment that fully utilizes the potential of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D). Among the difficulties that governments face in formulating ICT policy is their unfamiliarity with the technologies that they are harnessing for national development.

To address this issue, the United Nations Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development’s (UN-APCICT) developed, through a multi-stakeholder consultative process involving policy makers, experts in ICT4D and educators, a training programme entitled, the Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders.

With a core curriculum of eight ICT4D modules, the Academy aims to equip government officials with the knowledge and skills they need to fully utilize the potential of ICTs to achieve national development goals and bridge the digital divide.

The Academy will be launched at the OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy on 16 June 2008, which is also APCICT’s second anniversary. Subsequently, APCICT will be organizing the Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders - Training of Trainers for National Training Institutes in the Republic of Korea from 16 to 28 June 2008 for over 40 trainers from 30 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

The training sessions will focus on the linkage between ICT applications and development, ICT policy-making processes, e-government applications, and ICT project management and funding. In addition, specific sessions will be held on instructional design to train participants on the appropriate teaching methodology for the Academy modules. There will also be sessions on how participants could customize the training content to best suit their local environments.

A number of national training institutes and regional development agencies from across the globe have already begun to proactively indicate their interest to partner with APCICT in localizing the Academy modules and are adapting the modules as part of their training curriculum for policy makers. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT are committed to incorporating the modules in their training programmes and will be participating in the Academy Training of Trainers for National Training Institutes Workshop.