Setting up an environmental scanning for the information society in the ECO

 The Regional Cooperation for Development was established in 1964, this organization has being faced with a lot of environmental change such as the Collapse of the Soviet Union and the extension of the member state. One of the most environmental change was the entrance of the global community in the digital era, and ECO members have tried to use information and communication technology to develop their country and enhancing cooperation with each other. In this regard first meeting of the ICT Minister of ECO was held in November 2012 in Tehran. In that session delegations of member states had discussed ways and means for development cooperation among themselves in this area such as cooperation of regulators, ICT services, Telecommunication infrastructure, and expansion of fiber optic between member states, Mobile Network Operation, production of software, and hardware, and cyber security. But one of the most important decisions that were approved was a feasibility study to identify of needs of the development of digital ECO member states and increasing digital integration between them. THE second ICT Minister Summit was held by Azerbaijan in December 2017 in Baku. In this meeting document of” 2025 ECO Regional Strategy for Information Society Development’’ that was prepared by the ECO Secretariat and ITU was agreed by relevant authorities. The regional theory has believed that success in one aspect of cooperation between countries in a region leads to another cooperation, in my opinion, cooperation in each aspect of cyberspace has been led to another field of cooperation in and through cyberspace and greater information society weight of the ECO member state in the world.

 But little knowledge of the ECO member state from the potential of the ECO organization and other member states is the most problem to enhancing cooperation among the Eco member state in the field of information technology. Because this technology has been changed from time to time and it is very dynamic also the member state has had a little dialogue with each other about this topic.

In my opinion, one of the best ways to overcome this challenge is by setting up an environmental scanning program and participating in all member states in this program. In this process, the member state could identify internal and external opportunities and overcome challenges for developing an information society. And analysis factors such as economic, political, and social issues in internal and external of the ECO region that affects the information society. As well as the process provides new information about technological development in the field of ICT such as Big Data, IoT, and other technology.

Information society cooperation is one of the best ways to developing cooperation between ECO member state, but poor information of member state from the potential of cooperation in the region is the most important cause that the cooperation in this field haven’t come up to expectation. For this reason, an environmental scanning system should be set up to recognizing of opportunity and challenge of cooperation to the development of information society in the ECO region.

Source:

https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/regional-integration/overview

https://carleton.ca/ces/eulearning/introduction/what-is-the-eu/extension-what-is-regional-integration/

https://www.weforum.org/press/2016/06/digital-economy-has-the-potential-to-drive-asean-integration/

http://www.eco.int/general_content/86475-Memoranda-of-Understanding-MoU.html?t=General-content

Article by: Mahdi Pourhasani, expert in international relations