Prof Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, has bagged the prestigious Dubai World Trade Centre Leadership and Commitment Award 2022.
Prof. Pantami was given the international recognition at the end of a discussion on “Digital Inclusion: Aligning Regulators and Network Providers to Bridge Digital Divide” in which he participated at the ongoing Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (GITEX) holding in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Prior to the award, the Minister, who spoke on a wide range issues, took time to enlighten the audience of the unprecedented contribution of the Information and Communications Technology ICT sector in growing Nigeria’s Digital Economy.
According to the Minister, Nigeria has crafted a lot policies to close the digital divide in the country, which proved to be yielding positive, especially the contribution of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the second quarter of 2022.
“These Initiatives can be divided into two; the first is in the area of digital skills, which to provide digital skills to our citizens, and the second is accessibility and connectivity.”
“As a foundation, what the Federal Government has done is to come up with policies that will ensure connectivity, affordability and digital skills for Nigerians”, Pantami maintained.
The most important policy, the Minister noted is the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) for a Digital Nigeria which was unveiled and launched in November 2019 and Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020- 2025 which was also launched in March 2020.
“The Federal Government has been implementing these two policies out of many in order to ensure connectivity on one hand and digital skills on the other.
“With the initiatives under the policies and funds provided, the Federal Government is hoping to encourage and support the private sector to come in and leverage on government infrastructure and render services to our people,” the Minister stressed.
He explained in details other key policies and initiatives embarked upon by the Federal Government and the overall benefits to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Meanwhile, the Awardee was full of gratitude for the recognition as he said the award reflects the unarguably rapidly growing trajectory of the sector.
