KAS and CICP hold a public lecture series on ‘Accelerating Digital Transformation in ASEAN ‘ on June 2. RY SOCHAN
The Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP) called on Cambodia to draft a policy to speed up digital transformation by selecting the most appropriate technology for use in digital infrastructure due to the country’s limited resources.
CICP executive director Pou Sothirak said Cambodia’s gross domestic product (GDP) is around $26 billion and that spending one per cent of GDP on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure annually would not be unreasonable.
“Therefore, Cambodia must have a sound policy for accelerating digital transformation emphasising the selection of the appropriate technologies to put our limited resources to better use,” he said.
He made the statements at a public lecture event on “Accelerating the Digital Transformation in ASEAN: The case of Cambodia” – co-organised by CICP and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) and held at the Cambodia-Japan Cooperation Centre (CJCC) in Phnom Penh on June 2.
Sothirak described what a good digital transformation programme that would enhance Cambodia’s ability to leapfrog into the digital age might entail because it would allow the country to accelerate its development using digital tools to minimise the economic and social dislocations that resulted from the pandemic.
He said Cambodia is facing the reality that it must accelerate investment in digital infrastructure to catch up.
“Based on Global Competitive Report 2019 published by the World Economic Forum, Cambodia’s digital connectivity and readiness ranking is 102nd worldwide, ranked eighth among 10 ASEAN countries,” he said.
He noted that digital transformation is a buzzword today and many countries have formulated programmes to speed it up.
The purpose of the transformation is to expand the use of digitised information and knowledge as a key factor of production across more areas of the economy to accelerate economic growth and social development, CICP said in a statement.
This would involve building an ecosystem with four key players, namely an enlightened government, well-educated citizens, a savvy entrepreneurial sector and good physical infrastructure in order to achieve digital transformation, it said.
“We look at the country’s digital environment and recommend the Khmerisation of beginning level digital education as the first step to mitigate the digital skills shortage problem. We also urge speeding up 5G deployment to help with the accessibility and affordability problems,” the statement said.
In May 2021, the government promulgated the “Cambodia Digital Economy and Society Policy Framework 2021-2035”, which sets out a long-term vision to build a vibrant digital economy and society by laying the foundations for promoting digital adoption and transformation in all sectors of society.
“I strongly believe Cambodia shall strive to achieve digital transformation and turn Cambodia’s economy and society towards a higher level of development,” Prime Minister Hun Sen said in the document.
Nguon Somaly, director-general of the Institute of Digital Governance (IDG) at the Cambodia Academy of Digital Technology (CADT), said at the event that her institute focuses on building the digital skills for the government in order to support the digital transformation, and that its programme teaches the digital skill essentials which focuses on educating government officials at all levels.
“They have to be skills that support their administration work and respond to the demands of the digital public services that the citizens need. Besides working as government officials and providing public services, they are also part of the digital economy because they live their daily lives on a digital skills basis.
“It’s impossible to do digital transformation without the experts, without the people with skills, because we are based on a digital platform and we need those people who can contribute to such processes,” Somaly added.
Henry Chan, a senior visiting fellow at the CICP, said at the event that providing recommendations to capture low-hanging fruits from digital and other modern technologies can benefit agriculture.
“Convince the rural population – constituting 75 per cent of the population – that a mindset shift towards modern science is important in order to achieve the national aspiration of becoming a high middle-income country in 2030 and a high-income country in 2050,” he suggested.
