Information and Communication Technologies
                                (ICT) Policy

November, 2003
1. Vision
To enable Afghanistan to further benefit from Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by becoming part of the global information society while preserving Afghanistan’s cultural heritage. To promote national goals as well as in order to achieve a tolerant and vibrant Afghanistan, Afghanistan will use ICTs to expeditiously improve Government and social services and foster the rebuilding process, increase employment, create a vibrant private sector, reduce poverty and support underprivileged groups.
2. Background
ICTs describes various technologies that make information and communication services available to a wide range of users. The term is used broadly to address a range of established and relatively new technologies, among which are the telephone infrastructure and broadcast media. An emerging and now critical use of some of these technologies is the Internet. Additionally, ICTs deal with the application layer, the systems that enable information to be collected and distributed, analysed and processed in a number of formats including text, images, sound and video. Over the last few years, in order to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by ICTs within a policy framework, many nations have developed objectives and proceeded with the formulation of an ICTs strategy as a part of the overall national development plan. A step by step process including a coordinated and multi-pronged strategy is essential to achieve development of the sector. In this, education, investment opportunities and infrastructure availability play a major role. A dependable information and communications system is also essential for efficient management and operation in the public and private sectors. This includes areas such as internal government information, citizen’s services, trade, banking, and international relations.
Recognising its critical importance, this document presents the objectives, policies and action plans for the development of the ICTs sector in Afghanistan. Afghanistan intends to use ICTs as a key, driving element for socio-economic development. This Policy aims at building a society fully benefiting from ICTs. In view of this, a nation-wide ICTs infrastructure will be developed to ensure that information can be used by citizens to facilitate their endeavours and enhance democratic values for sustainable human development. In addition to this document, the Ministry of Communications (MoC) has published the Telecommunications and Internet Policy, which communicates policies more specific to the telecommunications sector.

More>