The Third ECO Ministerial Meeting on Information and Communication Technology (ICT), preceded by the Senior Official Meeting was held on 12-13 July 2023 in Tehran, hosted by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology of the Islamic Republic of Iran in collaboration with the ECO Secretariat. The Ministers and high level officials from the Member States, Republic of Iraq, regional and international organizations namely D8 and APT also participated in the meeting.
The meeting was chaired by H.E. Mr. Eisa Zarepour, Minister of Information and Communications Technology of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Minister Zarepour underscored the expansion of regional cooperation in ICT and commended the Member States for rapid development of their ICT infrastructure and enhanced penetration of ICTs into all spheres of life which is becoming one of the key factors in the economic and socio-political development.
The ECO Secretary General Ambassador Khusrav Noziri extending his warm welcome to the participating delegations, highlighted the importance of implementation of the “ECO Regional Strategy for Information Society Development and its Action Plan” that is inter alia, aimed at promoting sustainable connectivity, socio-economic growth and favorable climate for fair competition at all levels and acknowledged the role of ICT development as the cornerstone of development in all the fields of human life regionally and internationally. He also stressed the need to further and enhanced regional and international cooperation to harness the potentials of emerging technologies and also addressing the challenges arising from the ICT developments.
Ambassador Noziri further briefed the Meeting extensively on the actions that the Secretariat has taken to realize the recommendations of the Regional Strategy and ensured the Member States of continued efforts of the Organization for materializing the objectives.
The Ministerial Meeting after in-depth and detailed discussions adopted the Tehran Declaration that outlines the policies and course of action for future development of ICT cooperation within the region.
Further to note that the first and second ECO Ministerial Meeting on ICT were held in November 2012 and December 2017 in Tehran and Baku, respectively.
