The Governing Council of United Nations - Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Technology for Development APCICT has appointed APCICT's representative for Sri Lanka and Member of the Board of Directors of the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), Ravi Senanayake, as Chairman of APCICT.

Ravi Senanayake

The appointment took place at the fourth session of APCICT's Governing Council held in Incheon, Republic of Korea recently. Mr. Ravi Senanayake's appointment was unanimously approved by the 14 representatives of the member countries present at the session.

The APCICT, a regional institution of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), was set up in the Republic of Korea in 2006. The role of APCICT is to strengthen the efforts of the 62 ESCAP member and associate member countries to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in their socio-economic development, through human resource and institutional capacity building.

APCICT's work is focused on three inter-related pillars, Training, Research and Knowledge Sharing and Advisory Services in an integrated approach towards ICT human capacity building. The core activity of APCICT is the "Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders". This is APCICT's flagship programme that includes a comprehensive coverage of the ICT for Development curriculum.

The academy was conceptualised, developed and implemented adopting a participatory and inclusive approach where the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka, during the curriculum development stage, contributed with its experience in capacity building programmes for senior government officials. There are currently eight modules available in the Academy in three languages (English, Indonesian and Russian) and two new modules are being developed on "ICT for Disaster Risk Reduction" and "Climate Change and ICT", based on demands from member states.

The integration of the Academy into ICT Agency's capacity building initiatives for Government officers in Sri Lanka is underway and the ICT Agency has plans to customise the curriculum to suit the current advances in the Government sector in ICT. Mr. Senanayake's new appointment will be of benefit to APCICT and ICTA as this will promote the support of both organisations for continuing to deliver high-impact outcomes through regional and national ICT capacity building programmes.