Minister of Communications and Information Technology Dr. Tarek Kamel received Egypt’s Ambassador to Uganda Mr. Sabri Mohamed Magdy.
During the meeting, Minister Kamel and Ambassador Magdy discussed means of boosting cooperation between Egypt and the Nile Basin countries through putting into force the mechanisms of the Egyptian Initiative for Developing the Nile Basin Countries.
The initiative is carried out in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of International Cooperation.
A high-level delegation from Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) led by Dr. Kamel will visit Uganda next month.
A technical team that consists of Egyptian engineers and technicians will also visit Uganda to figure out the country’s needs of information and communication technology (ICT).
On his part, the Ugandan Minister of Communications and IT will pay a visit to Egypt soon.
The Egyptian initiative aims to transfer the country’s expertise and make use of its distinguished experience in ICT to the neighboring Nile Basin countries as well as opening an ongoing dialogue with these states.
Another purpose of the initiative is to understand the technical problems facing these countries and to overcome them, which achieves integration with the Nile Basin countries and establishes the principle of common interests.
A delegation of Egyptian engineers and technicians will head to Uganda in the coming period to figure out the main technical problems there and help solve them.
Dr. Kamel stated that the fields of collaboration adopted by the Egyptian initiative and the Nile Basin countries focus on several ICT-related areas.
These fields include deriving benefit from the Egyptian expertise in establishing two training centers in two countries in the region, one English speaking and the other French speaking.
The Egyptian expertise will be also used in building smart buildings that are prototypes of the Smart village.
The fields of cooperation also involve boosting investments, building human potentials that are related to the frequency spectrum, contributing to the development of regulatory and the legislative frameworks of the communications policies in the Nile Basin countries.
In addition, such goals will be achieved by facilitating IT tools through contributing to the establishment of IT clubs and mobile internet units in villages and remote areas in the Nile Basin countries.
Other means of realizing these goals include building the human skills through specialized training programs in cooperation with National Telecommunication Institute (NTI), Information Technology Institute (ITI) and Egypt Post.
Egypt will also cooperate with the Nile Basin countries in the fields of developing e-content, cyber security, preserving the heritage of the region and forming IT security centers.
