ICT

The two week training began today.

The key focus was to equip youth with ICT skills and knowledge to enable them to find more employment.

The government said the programme was a small step on the path to a "Digital Samoa".

It is being run by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development alongside the National University of Samoa.

The UN Development Programme was assisting with the initiative.

One of the issues was the formation of a Task Force that will look into the logistics of this bigger group meeting, such as confirming the list of invitees and determining the aims and objectives of the meeting.

The Task Force includes Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, University of the South Pacific, Asian Development Bank and Pacific Islands Telecommunications Association.

The CROP ICT WG is responsible for coordinating the different tasks undertaken by various players in the key areas in ICT.

The courses are sponsored by the Government of India and delivered by Indian institutions through the Indian Technical and Economic (ITEC) Programme. ITEC is part of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Third Country Training Programmes, which aims to build capacity in member countries by providing specialist training in key areas of development work.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Jobs in the Pacific has found that almost 10,000 jobs could be created across Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, with optimistic scenarios making that number as high as 27,000, representing more than 3% of GDP.