G20 meet focuses on safe digital economy

Bangalore: The Sultanate, represented by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology has participated in the meeting of Digital Economy Ministers, held in Bangalore, India, on the sidelines of the G20 Summit.

The meeting concluded to a number of recommendations focused on the general digital basic structures, the significance of establishing a safe digital economy and development of digital skills for building international power ready for the future.

The participants agreed , during the meeting, on establishing a joint framework for the general digital basic structures. The purpose of this framework is to develop, which framework would develop and showcase the general digital basic structures and to recognise the significant role of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the need for development of comprehensive curriculums that ensure safety through internet and protection of the privacy of children and their personal details, protection of human rights and development of cyber education and awareness tools for children and the youth.

The paticipants welcomed the initiative of development of Virtual Center of Excellence concerned with digital skills programmes practices, occupational criteria, and skills classification among other issues. The participants also agreed on development of tools for the design and introduction of programmes for improvement of digital skills.

They also agreed on a roadmap to facilitate comparison and understanding job roles, digital skills and qualification related to the members of G20 Group.

The Sultanate’s delegation was chaired by Dr. Ali bin Amer Al Shizani, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology for communications and information technology, who spoke on the national programme for digital economy and its various executive programmes including government digital transformation, the digital industry programmes and the cyber security industry programme.

He also spoke on the efforts of the Sultanate of Oman on enhancement of the regional and international cooperation in the field of cyber security. These efforts included the Sultanate’s hosting, management and operation of the Arab Regional Cyber Security Centre affiliated to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the national imitative of Makeen which aims to equip 10,000 Omanis with digital skills  by 2025.