Here - SAARC Human Resource Development Centre

IntroductionIntroductionInformation and Communication Technology (ICT) plays a vital role in connecting people and communitiesat national, regional and global level. ICT is also being used to combat poverty, support development efforts,enhance economic growth, promote good governance and develop human resources in the developing world.Efforts are being made by the governments and international agencies to incorporate ICT policies into themainstream development policies. Despite the efforts, around one billion people in developing world haveyet to be connected using ICT. The situation has led to 'digital divide' at global, regional and national levels.ICT have reciprocal relationship with Human Resource Development (HRD) and governance. On one hand,ICT is used in the domains of administration and politics as a source of empowerment for the people andengine of e-governance. On the other hand, governments and individuals play significant role in promotingICT. The use of ICT in HRD and governance processes has mostly been emphasized keeping in view ICTapplications and solutions to streamlining government's operations, reducing transactional costs, andincreasing transparency and accountability in public and private institutions.In SAARC Member States, education is linked to whole batch of human development indicators. Forinstance, effect of education can be seen on health, family size, mortality rates, individual's earnings andwomen empowerment. There are, however, many obstacles to timely delivering education to the largepopulation which include lack of trained and qualified teachers, buildings, books and instructional material,and handful resources to meet these challenges. Employers also prefer to train their staff through efficient andflexible modes of training without bearing the cost of taking away the people from their jobs. In this scenario,use of ICT is encouraged to deliver education and training. Many schools, universities and organizations arealready using ICT to reduce the cost of developing human capital and improve the efficiency ofadministration.The concept of e-governance or online governance has taken shape since the end of the millennium. Severale-governance projects have been initiated, especially in India, to minimize the processing cost, ensuretransparency and accountability, and improve the reach of the facility to a common man. State Wide AreaNetworks (SWAN) has also taken off to facilitate electronic access of the citizens, particularly those living inthe villages, to the state and district administration services. These initiatives have changed the dynamics ofboth political and administrative systems. Resultantly, demand for responsible and effective governance hasbecome order of the day. The demonstration of ICT power in the rural setting of India can be taken asreference models for future e-governance projects implementations in other SAARC Member States.In terms of decision making hierarchy for ICT, this is not new for the governments in the region. There arenational agencies serving as ICT decision making bodies such as: Ministry of Communication & InformationTechnology in Afghanistan; Ministry of Communications and IT in India; High Level Commission for ICT inNepal; and National ICT R &D Fund in Pakistan. Existence of agencies in charge of ICT reflects realizationof the need among the Member states but the effectiveness of current arrangements has yet to be ensured.There is also a need to develop an ICT governance framework at regional, national and local levels so that ICTcan be used even more productively for promoting HRD and good governance.The workshop titled “Role of ICT in Promoting Human Resource Development (HRD) and GoodGovernance” was organized in India by SAARC Human Resource Development Centre (SHRDC)Islamabad, Pakistan in collaboration with the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human ResourceDevelopment, New Delhi, India.1