NETWORK ECONOMY
ICT Employment Opportunities: Stage 3
Investing in the ICT sector in Uganda is vital to drive the growth of the industry, and of the country as a whole. For this, Uganda showcased ICT technologies, advancements, innovations and investment opportunities to the event’s uniquely influential global audience presented at ITU Telecom World 2013 with a National Pavilion. The Uganda pavilion was accompanied under the theme of “Uganda – Unleashing the opportunity for ICT”
Uganda was focused on development are a series of ICT Technology Parks to boost the development of this business process outsourcing and encourage innovation incubation.
Uganda is faced with the problem of youth unemployment currently standing at 83 per cent unemployment a situation which has continued to affect Uganda’s development process.
The Norwegian Tech-Firm based in Uganda offered employment opportunity to the students who graduated with first class degree in Information Communication Technology (ICT). This was the step to promote the ICT employment in the country.
The ICT sector contribution to Gross Domestic Product increased to 6.2% (GDP 2012) from 2.5% in 2006 and is considered as a major contributor to national revenue. The sector had attracted an investment in excess of US $73 Million employing over 1 million people.
The Ugandan ICT market is growing at a cumulative annual growth rate of over 25% with significant growth seen in areas of mobile devices, computer applications, information processing, storage and dissemination as well as mobile finance, e-finance, global connectivity and online trade. The growth changes have had a profound impact in the whole Ugandan economy, making the ICT sector an important part of the economy – between 2007 and 2009, over $1bn was invested in this sector.
E- Government: Stage 2
Uganda’s road to e-Government began with the ICT Policy of 2003 which mainly emphasized the need to build ICT infrastructure countrywide.
In 2006 with assistance from the Chinese Government, Uganda embarked on development of an e-government infrastructure countrywide. This was done in 2 phases. The first phase covered all central Government Ministries in Kampala and Entebbe and also covered towns of Bombo, Jinja and Mukono. The second phase has covered the eastern, northern and western part of Uganda and will be operational by end of 2011.
The ICT infrastructure developed by the private sector was used for e-Government services. The Uganda government web portal act as a gateway to government services with linkages to the business sector. A good feedback mechanism in an e-governance program is a tool to provide the local levels with information, and the improved information position of the officers at the local government levels enhances their commitment to the introduction of e-governance.
Business to Business and Business to Consumer - Stage 2
Uganda in many ways, is still traditional when it comes to shopping and with the number of malls spurring up in every corner. Though there is presence of eight telecom companies and the promise of faster internet, the costs and speed is not upto the par. That is one of the reasons why Uganda’s e-commerce sector lagging behind.
Uganda's growing youthful presence and the majority of mobile internet users are the youth, mobiles becomes a prime target for the online platforms to form strategies to get their attention. The most famous application used in Uganda are OLX (OnLine eXchange) - it allows users to host their classified ads for free and get in direct touch with the buyers, Cheki.com - online application to sell cars, Hello Food- partnered with MTN and deliver any takeaway and food from the well-known restaurants in Kampala to the customer.