On December 1, KISDI held the 2017 Workshop on ICT ODA Project Performance, with the cooperation of the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA), Korea Radio Promotion Association (RAPA), and National Information Society Agency (NIA), at the Seoul National University Global Convention Center.

This event was organized to share the results of the project with around seventy representatives from organizations and enterprises that participated in the Ministry of Science and ICT Europe Africa Cooperation Department's ICT ODA Project.

The Ministry of Science and ICT has been providing services through the organizations participating in the ICT ODA project, such as KISDI, NIPA, RAPA, and NIA. These services encompass ICT policy consulting, seminars by ICT experts, K-Lab setup and operation, support for improving broadcast environments, establishment of an information access center, and a collaboration program for overseas IT policy makers.

During Session 1 the participating organizations and corporations took turns to announce their results, and in Session 2 they debated approaches to improving the performance of the ICT ODA.

These programs are part of the government's official development assistance (ODA) for developing countries, the goals of which include contributing to reducing the global information gap through the dissemination of South Korea's experience and know-how with cooperating countries, and building a Korea-friendly policy environment and network in these countries as a base for overseas forays by South Korean companies.

In the past, the International Conference on Appropriate Technology was held as a separate event. But starting from this year, this workshop was organized so as to be held in sync with the International Conference on Appropriate Technology, which had been held as a separate event in the past. Consequently, the scope of the workshop was greatly expanded to include the overall achievements of the Science Technology ICT ODA project.

Since 2002, KISDI has conducted 73 ICT policy consultation projects in 27 countries. The workshop included an overview of KISDI's ICT policy consultation program, and a summary of the results of the program. In addition, the presentation included an explanation of the direction in which KISDI intends to take the program in 2018.

This workshop is expected to serve as an opportunity to collect the opinions of the private and public organizations that are participating in the ICT international development cooperation project about how to improve the effectiveness of the project and how it should be run in the future.

Inquiries: Researcher Yu Sung-hoon,
International Development Cooperation Group (043-531-4416)