ISLAMABAD: The U.S and Pakistani officials agreed to enhance bilateral cooperation in the fields of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and evolving a cooperation program for deploying socially relevant services using mobile phones and other IT platforms.
This was agreed during the meeting of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke Special Representative of US for Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Secretary Ministry of IT Telecom Naguibullah Malik here on Thursday.
Ambassador Holbrooke was accompanied by the country Director of USAID Robert Wilson and his other senior aides. Heads of cellular mobile operators were also present during the meeting held at Ministry of Information Technology.
The delegation was briefed on the state of development of the Pakistan Telecom and IT Industry infrastructure and it was mutually agreed that the state of the art has enabled development of innovative services which could benefit the country in terms of socio-economic development.
Particularly, the role of mobile networks, because of widespread access was highlighted for quick roll-out of services like mass information mobile banking and increased financial access, telemedicine and e-education came under discussion.
It was decided that for continued dialogue and identification of priority areas a joint working group consisting of diverse representation from both US and Pakistani sides will be instituted.
This working group will include USAID representatives, US technical experts, representatives of US Government o work together with Pakistan Government and private stakeholders to chart future road map for the collaboration and identification of projects. The cellular industry pledged their support to such a dialogue process for innovative service delivery to the masses.
