CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM ON SOCIAL MEDIA FOR DEVELOPMENT & GOVERNANCE

Would you agree if we say that the day wouldn’t be complete without that daily dose of social media? Some say that it has the power to change governments. Your likes, dislikes, your thinking patterns, your friends, what you eat and everything else about your life is chronicled in 1s and 0s thanks to social media.

The previous week, we were at the Water’s Edge to attend a workshop on social media. It was aimed at increasing awareness and enhance capacities of members of parliament, government leaders, policymakers, GCIOs and other officers from various agencies and ministries of the Government on how to utilize social media for development and governance. Social Media for Development and Governance, a five-day capacity building program was co-organized by the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) and the United Nations Asian and Pacific Training Centre for ICT for Development (UN-APCICT).

The first day was dedicated for Government Chief Information Officers. With Mr. Sameera Jayawardena a Project Manager – ICT HR Capacity Building, ICTA welcoming the participants and the resource persons, the workshop officially commenced. He invited Dr. Hyeun-Suk Rhee the Director, UN-APCICT to make the opening remarks. She spoke about the importance of social media and the work that APCICT does. Here, she mentioned about the Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders Module 11, Social Media for Development. She also spoke about the WIFI (Women and ICT Frontier Initiative) program, an initiative of APCICT that aims to develop the capacity of women entrepreneurs in using ICT.

To read about each session: CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM ON SOCIAL MEDIA FOR DEVELOPMENT & GOVERNANCE