If we look back half a century ago, many countries represented here in this room today were facing the end of colonial rule and the new problems and challenges left in its wake. All of us looked forward to our new found freedom with a sense of idealism and as an opportunity to find our own path to success while making our own mistakes. Along the way some of us had to face periods of protracted ethnic conflict and sometimes destructive wars.

Today, the world is facing a whole new set of challenges and with it new opportunities to catch up on lost time. The knowledge economy is bringing new hope to all of us. Although initially the benefits of the ICT revolution largely accrued to the West, ICT is rapidly becoming a domain in which the East is claiming its share. A senior Indian minister once told me, that while the brain of the internet may have been in the West, that the soul resides in the East.

India is rapidly becoming an important global centre for IT and IT-enabled services. It has strategic partnerships with some of the most respected multinational ICT companies such as Microsoft and has set up some of its own very successful ICT multinationals as well. In fact, as we all know, many western companies big and small rely on the skills of Indian computer engineers who now lead some of the best and most innovative software companies.

We also have the example of Malaysia. At an early stage of the ICT revolution, Malaysia established a Multi-media Super Corridor to empower all the sectors of its society, from citizens, government and industry, to access and reap the benefits of ICT. In Korea we have another example of the benefits of wise and enlightened government policy. As a result of the government’s early adoption of broadband and related technologies, well ahead of many Western countries, it now has some of the highest internet usage in the world as well as some of the finest manufacturers of computer chips in the world. On the other hand, look at Japan, the sprightly grandfather of the revolution, who brought the digital age to many of us with its innovative and cutting edge technologies and products.

Over the past two decades or so, we have seen many exciting examples of the role Asians are playing in bringing about new innovations and contributions to ICT. The ICT revolution was built on the innovations of many individual Asian computer engineers and programmers. As you are probably aware, one third of all the ICT professionals in Silicon Valley are from India.

But increasingly over the years, Asian governments, local and national, who have grasped the potential, have been setting up the necessary infrastructure and incentives, bringing about the necessary reforms and setting up a climate conducive to attracting ICT professionals and companies to set up businesses in their cities, states or countries.

There has been much excitement and hype about the ICT revolution. Many writers and commentators swoon as they rhapsodise about how the ICT revolution will enable less developed countries to leapfrog and close the wealth gap and how ICT will create equal opportunities for all. Although we hear of cases where the digital revolution has reached the village--- where peasant farmers have become digital entrepreneurs or of cases where the internet and computers are bringing new learning opportunities to the less fortunate children living in urban slums and rural villages, we should not fool ourselves. These successes are still few and far between and are not a widespread phenomenon yet.

We cannot afford to live in a world of make-believe and we should not dwell on the hype. We have a long way to go. Although ICT presents us with great opportunities, there equally exists an added danger, the danger that existing income disparities will become further exacerbated and will result in a worsening digital divide. If we are not careful, only the privileged few in our societies will have access to this technology and we may find that we are in even a worse situation than we are at present .

Take Sri Lanka for example. Nearly 50% of our economic activity is centred in the Western Province where our capital is located. Yet this area accounts for 6% of the land mass and less than one third of the country’s population. Our challenge is to create economic opportunities and bring about prosperity in the remaining three quarters of our country, including the war-torn North and East.

When it comes to economic disparities, a similar situation also exists in many of the countries represented in this room today. In this context, if ICT is to have relevance to our respective societies, it must offer practical solutions to bridging this economic and digital divide.

Our Prime Minister’s initiative to take our country into the 21st century is an ambitious policy programme entitled: “Regaining Sri Lanka”. Regaining Sri Lanka consists of a package of policy initiatives to reform and restructure Sri Lanka’s economy combined with practical programmes to ensure that the benefits of economic growth reach the less privileged citizens and regions of our country.

The international community has pledged a significant amount of foreign assistance to help us achieve the goals outlined in ‘Regaining Sri Lanka’. It is not our intention to rely on aid indefinitely, but to ensure that this generosity assists us to stand on our own two feet. For it is ultimately foreign and domestic investment, coupled with an efficient and productive economy that will ensure a prosperous future for our nation.

For Sri Lanka, rebuilding our infrastructure will be a major part of that challenge. Without good roads, a ready supply of water, reliable electricity, ports, airports and an island-wide telecommunications network, we can achieve very little.

In the area of infrastructure, one of the most exciting projects, which is part of our Prime Minister’s vision is to build a bridge linking Sri Lanka and India across the Palk Straits. Satellite pictures reveal a sunken land bridge linking our two countries that would have been above sea-level thousands of years ago. I mention these matters in the context of ICT because without the basic infrastructure to do business we cannot take new technology out into the villages.

In this era of globalisation, it is essential for small countries like Sri Lanka to be linked to larger markets. Our strategic location could be ideally exploited to become the gateway to the Indian Subcontinent, which is expected to be one of the fastest growing regions of the 21st century.

The ICT initiatives within the ‘Regaining Sri Lanka’ programme, come under the aegis of the “E-Sri Lanka” programme, which was set up for the purpose of enabling our country and citizens to reap the full benefits of the new digital economy. E-Sri Lanka provides a combination of policy and deregulatory initiatives and sets forth targeted projects in the areas of governance, learning, expansion of connectivity to rural areas, citizens services, etc. Projects related to governance, which might interest many of you here, include proposed projects entitled: E-Parliament, and E-Cabinet . The international donor community, along with the World Bank has pledged significant resources to help make E-Sri Lanka a reality.

In order to enable the E-Sri Lanka policies and plans to be put into effect, our parliament recently passed a bill to establish a new ICT Agency, which is a sort of super agency set up to cut through the bureaucratic tangle that could impede progress. The ultimate mandate of this agency is to spearhead the way to creating a new digitised Sri Lanka.

One major recent deregulatory initiative undertaken to underpin E-Sri Lanka,directly lead to the reduction of international telecommunications costs. Before this initiative, Sri Lanka had some of the highest international call charges in the region. We have managed to reduce these by 80%. As a result of this, a number of foreign companies are showing interest in establishing call centres here in Colombo.

Another interesting development in the area of telecommunications has been that there were only 12,000 terrestrial telephones in the war-torn North and East of the country. However, since the Cease-fire Agreement between the Government and the LTTE was signed nearly 18 months ago, it is now estimated that there are nearly 50,000 mobile phones in that region. In fact, the Telecommunication sector growth contributed significantly to national GDP growth over the last 18 months.

Another initiative connected to telecommunications meant to complement the reduction of telecommunications costs is the “Vishwa Grama Fund” . This fund provides incentives to companies who are prepared to invest in rural telecommunications networks.

A further initiative we have launched is to bring e-kiosks into the villages. This is a project which enable our people in the rural areas to experience at first-hand the benefits and possibilities that connectivity can bring to them in their day to day lives, in education and in their vocations. We hope to help set up 500 e-kiosks before the end of 2004 on a pilot scale.

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, we are also focusing on introducing computer education into our schools. In this context, we are also exploring private-public education partnerships. This will help create a new computer literate generation able to take advantage of ICT. Our universities are already looking into distance learning and we are in the process of designing an internationally and nationally networked multimedia university as a means to maximise scarce human resources as well as to make higher education available to adults of all ages.

A Centre of excellence programme will also play a catalytic role in showcasing the benefits and capabilities of ICT. Several of these will be established on a pilot basis and will have all of the basic infrastructure needed to establish software and hardware opportunities for new companies. We will actively encourage local and foreign companies to invest. Already Sri Lanka has many world class local ICT companies and we hope that E-Sri Lanka will help multiply this number.

As mentioned earlier, the E-Sri Lanka initiative also covers the area of governance. In Sri Lanka we have a public service which has suffered greatly over the past fifty years. It is slow and unresponsive, not because the public servants are bad but because the systems and procedures are antiquated and have in many cases not been changed since independence.

Our e-government plans will hopefully change all of that. We intend to create a lean and effective government service which will provide a fast and efficient service to citizens and investors alike as well as bring about transparency.

At the present time it can take many months to process the simplest of applications. With e-government we expect to simplify such procedures and through better integrated systems to speed up the process to hours rather than days and cut down on the paperwork.

Initiatives such as e-procurement should also bring about faster more effective and transparent procedures which will benefit everyone, even the public servant, who will have the benefit of seeing the fruits of his labour, renewed respect in the eyes of the public.

In conclusion, the E-Sri Lanka initiative is a vast programme and its benefits will not reach all overnight. Any new initiative, needs to go through a process of planning, setting up, testing and final implementation. Therefore, as part of the programme, the government hopes to quickly roll out a series of pilot projects during the coming year. This feature we hope will have a demonstration effect which will show the many ways in which ICT can benefit the lives of ordinary citizens and transform government, the economy and society. Many ordinary people may not fully understand what ICT can mean to their lives and may believe that ICT only benefits the privileged. These pilot projects will help them see concrete examples of how ICT can be the door to expanded horizons, opportunities, and an improvement in the quality of their lives. For it is important that the ordinary citizen can quickly see that others like them can use these technologies and see that it can be done—that others like them have benefited. Otherwise, they may lose hope.

As far as E-Sri Lanka is concerned, we have the political will, the necessary legislation and the institutional structure in place and the commitment of the international donor community. But is this enough? Many Sri Lankans may tell you that they have heard this all before—more grandiose ideas, more political promises and hype. Ours is a traumatised society which has been plagued by decades of civil strife, political divisiveness and an economy which has suffered from many false starts. Our population by and large has understandably grown disillusioned and cynical. Hence, we in government have an immense challenge before us to prove to our people that E-Sri Lanka is not just a pipe dream. We must have the courage to break with the past and have the political resolve to change mindsets and take the necessary risks to implement the course we have charted. In fact, it is our Prime Minister who in a recent policy statement made during the Tokyo Donors’ Conference who said that his three priorities were: implementation, implementation and implementation. And implement is what we must do.