Software development support for Uganda

The pact was signed by Uganda's Minister of Information and Communication Technology Dr. Ham Mukasa Mulira, Dr. Geoffrey Mariki, the UNIDO representative for East Africa and Louis Otieno, the Microsoft general manager for East and Southern Africa.

"By forstering information and communication technology innovations and solutions, the signatories hope to enhance the role that Ugandan software developers and ICT graduates can play in the development of the country's economy," said a statement issued after the signing ceremony held on Friday at the Serena hotel in Kampala.

The signatories also believe that local ICT capacity building enables the development of solutions that are tailored to local needs and are presented in local languages. This in turn creates new opportunities for innovation, business processing, outsourcing services and industrial development.

Dr. Mariki said the developments are being built on a memorandum of understanding signed by UNIDO and Microsoft in July this year in which both partners agreed to pull their respective expertise to support small and medium sized enterprises and to foster innovation and competitiveness.

The partnership recognizes the importance of harnessing ICT for promoting sustainable industrialization as a means of improving livelihoods in developing countries particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

"Information and Communication technology is a key development tool as it contributes to increased productivity and helps stimulating a competitive knowledge based economy.

"More public-private partnerships are needed such as the one established with Microsoft to bring Africa closer to achieving the Millennium Development Goals," said Dr. Kandeh Yumkella, the UNIDO Director General.

Over the past years UNIDO in close cooperation with local public and private sector representatives and with funding from the Austrian Development Agency has developed a network of pilot district business information centres in the Ugandan districts of Arua, Jinja, Mbale, Soroti, Masakaans Kabale.

"Their main objective is to use ICT to help local entrepreneurs by increasing their productivity and competitiveness of the local private sector."

Microsoft supports this initiative in order to develop relevant ICT related services and training for the rural business community including awareness building on the benefits of ICT tools through its digital literacy programme and small and medium enterprise relevant training curriculum.

A series of training programmes and solutions are being offered through the district information business centres.

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