The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved US$18.5 million for a scaled-down version of the government's ambitious information and communications technology project.

The project, now costing US$22.5 million compared to the government's initial expectation of US$50 million, is to be executed by a new unit within the Office of the President - the Information and Communications Technology Unit (ICTU).

Profile II of the project as posted on the IDB's website says US$2.2 million would be spent to beef up this unit so it could refine and implement the ICT development strategy now being designed, as well as the project.

The project aims to increase the use of ICT in the private and public sectors via well-targeted interventions and would allow for support in network connectivity and human capital development.

An ICT advisory board is to be set up to help oversee policy and strategy implementation. The board is to be chaired by the ICTU coordinator and will comprise a small number of advisors from the public, private and non-governmental sectors. A monitoring system would be established to measure the project's progress as well as other ICT initiatives sponsored by the government and other donors.

The government has identified implementing an ICT strategy as a national priority and coupled with the connectivity agenda, the project is seen as pivotal to improving governance, accountability and transparency, generate employment, develop human potential and strengthen national unity.

The just approved project provides resources to modify the legal/regulatory framework to facilitate electronic transactions and enhance the country's attractiveness as a site for electronic service exports. It is also set to increase public sector efficiency and facilitate citizen access to needed public services by making these available online.

But risks associated with the project include the high internet broadband connectivity rates; the brain drain of ICT graduates; sustainability of the project; and possible politicisation of the outreach programme. Of the US$22.5 million project, US$3 million is to be used to expand access to Internet services by citizens especially those outside the city. Financing will be used to expand Guyana's telecentre network to serve the needs of secondary school students and neighbouring communities.

The project anticipates that this connectivity backbone will stimulate a market-driven expansion in commercial telecentres mainly in high profit areas of the city and the outreach component would take telecentre facilities into rural areas.

"It [the project] will provide investment funding to independently run institutions that operate in the service of communities - i.e. IPED and Learning Centres to help them establish approximately 20 small (three-computer) telecentres. This programme will also help secondary school students gain access to ICTs," Protocol II specifies.

This component will also see a programme of small grants being administered to help finance social, economic and ICT export development initiatives to improve the welfare of communities. This will be done via a programme awarding matching grants of US$5,000 to US$30,000 to non-governmental, grass roots and community groups to foster effective use of ICTs. Possible projects in this category include training of youths in web page making and computer repairs for a well-defined market, long distance learning, community radio and training service workers for call centres.

US$400,000 will be used for legal and regulatory reforms, identifying laws which need to be revised to create the enabling environment for ICT development in Guyana. The United Nations Commission on International Trade's model law on this issue is to be studied.

The sum of US$2 million is to be used to promote ICT service exports, given the rapid growth in that market. This component will seek to increase the attractiveness of Guyana as a site for electronic service exports such as low value-added services like call centres to high value-added services such as programming. It is anticipated that initially most of the activities will be at the low end. The project will finance the services of a firm to evaluate the environment of Guyana for electronic service exports and to develop a plan to market Guyana as a site for electronic service exports and help in its implementation. This component is to be coordinated by the Guyana Office for Investment.

Export facilities Profile II said a number of investors considering Guyana as a site for establishing electronic export facilities have encountered difficulties in finding adequate sites for establishing these and the project will study the development of sites and services to encourage export-oriented ICT parks. The preferable option here, however, is to refurbish an existing building at the university.

An initial pilot programme would be financed within or in the immediate vicinity of the University of Guyana and locations outside the city would be in Berbice near to the campus there and at Linden. Resources are also to be provided to design a mechanism to encourage private sector investment in export-oriented ICT parks.

Human capital development will attract US$3.8 million of the project whilst connectivity will take US$4.3 million. In the case of the former, all of the project components require a variety of training and educational support. This component provides demand-driven training and educational services in support of all the components. This will include awareness campaigns for the public and private sector on the benefits of ICT and the importance of protecting international property rights; support for ICT academic programmes at UG including the establishment of links with a university with a sound ICT training programme; support for non-academic ICT programmes at UG including support for computer labs and connectivity and improvements in the data base at the library; establishment of a campus network to serve the university community and non-academic training for government officials on web page design, data base programming and network management. The project document said that the International Youth Foundation was considering supporting training geared at electronic export development with financing from the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF). This is to be carried out in partnership with local NGOs or UG. Training is also to be provided to 100 secondary school teachers to acquire and practise fundamental computer and Internet skills.