Training Course  I  KE Awareness Session  I  Readings

In addition to the main KE Training Course, the IDB had also invited the K4D programme to organize a knowledge economy awareness session in connection with their annual meeting convening the Ministers of Finance from their 57 member countries.

There were three speakers in the Knowledge Economy Awareness session, Ibrahim Al-Shatti, Minister of Communication, Kuwait; Aziz Rabah, Senior Adviser to the Moroccan Prime Minister; and Jean-Francois Rischard, Former VP for Europe, World Bank.

About 75 participants joined the session. The three presentations were different in scope. The Kuwait Minister emphasized his government’s broadband investment plans including a greater participation of the private sector in developing ICT services. Mr. Aziz Rabah stressed the increased opportunities and challenges of the emerging knowledge-based economy for development countries. Morocco is for example seeking to take advantage of the new technologies and the fact that the populations speaks French and Spanish to establish new service activities outsourced by French and Spanish companies. M Jean-Francois Rishard gave a broad overview of the characteristics of knowledge-based economies with many concrete examples from Ireland, Estonia, Finland, Chile, Korea etc. In terms of the implementation of a knowledge-based economy, he favored a bottom-up approach with many concrete projects to produce, disseminate and use knowledge in a better and more cost-efficient way rather than an implementation of a centralized “knowledge economy masterplan”.

A video transmission of the Knowledge Economy Awareness session is available on the following URL from the web-site of IDB’s Annual Meeting (select Knowledge Economy Awareness session 1-5):

http://www.idb31kuwait.gov.kw/eng/recordedvideo/RecordedVideos.htm