‘Amman Communiqué’ released as first Digital Mashreq Forum concludes

AMMAN — The World Bank’s Digital Mashreq Forum, hosted by Jordan, came to a close on Sunday with the Kingdom committing to support the growth of its digital economy and education in ICT.  

The forum brought together officials and business representatives from Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon to discuss the future of the “Mashreq” (eastern Arab world) region’s digital economy and formulate an inclusive strategy for growth, the communiqué released at the conclusion of the meet said. 

Digitalisation is shaping the present and future of economic activities as it brings about higher productivity, efficiencies and quicker inclusion of lagging economic and social groups, such as women and youth, the communiqué read.

The Mobile Gender Report for 2018 lists a gender gap in mobile ownership among women in the region of up to 20 per cent. However, this gap is only 2 per cent in countries like Egypt or Turkey. Bringing this gap to less than 4 per cent everywhere in the Mashreq would bring income opportunities for women in the region, and broadband access is estimated to increase employment among married women by as much as 4 per cent in high income economies, the World Bank said.

During the forum, the government of Jordan committed to further developing access to Internet broadband to reach 100 per cent penetration rate by 2021, the communiqué noted, adding that the government will open the National Broadband Network (7,000 kilometres of fibre) for public-private partnerships.

On digital payments, the government committed to increasing country-level cashless payments from 33 to 50 per cent by 2020 and to digitising 80 per cent of government to citizens payments by 2021.  

Jordan also plans to launch a regulatory reform process and digital transformation action plan by the end 2019 to improve the Kingdom’s business environment and build on recent changes at the Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship, according to the communiqué. 

The second high-level Digital Mashreq Forum is planned for Beirut in June 2020.