Message from President, Islamic Republic of Pakistan

The World Telecommunication and Information Society day celebrated on 17th May, 2011, is indeed a landmark in the global community's efforts to involve all stakeholders including special people, in the development of ICT sector in various countries of the world.
This year, the theme selected by ITU is "Better Life in Rural Communities with ICTs" to promote ICTs in rural areas to contribute towards a better life. The aim is to ensure that ICTs will add value to an improved future for rural populations. For this a holistic approach is required and sustainable national policies will have to be promoted which would enable the deployment of telecommunication networks and services for isolated and undeserved areas. Inputs and ideas from this information deprived remote communities can further help the technology development in the communication field.
The stakeholders including policy makers, regulators, operators, and industry have a moral duty to support ongoing work aimed at developing standards that will help the deployment of ICT infrastructure, broadband connectivity and e-applications in rural areas. The increased participation and access to the information society will ensure enhanced opportunities to the people in remote places suffering from poverty, illiteracy, illness and hunger.
Today, the world is full of opportunities and access to ICT tools and resource centers can serve the cause of taking the persons living in remote areas into the mainstream urban life style. The awareness building measures of ICTs with specialised training can transform the lives of people living in isolated areas, who can then connect, contribute and benefit from ever growing internet population in the capacity of an individual as well as a community. Particularly, the institutions, such as schools, which are hubs of information sharing in such areas and are part of an already developed education system, can be interconnected for knowledge sharing. The information age encompasses home-based job opportunities and e-business opportunities through ICT tools that need little or no-mobility of human resource; hence there is room for many small-to-medium scale business opportunities in the underserved populations.
I hope that Pakistanis living in rural areas will find equal opportunities soon at their doorsteps through the use of ICTs services and applications, which is only possible through the promotion of long term sustainable policies and establishment of the state-of-the art telecom infrastructure in such areas. Our efforts would be further strengthened with the backing of international community, particularly the assistance and guidance of multilateral agencies such as ITU.