EIRP Proceedings (May 2015)
Towards the Importance for Sustainable Development: Case Study: Albania
Abstract
Information has become an important element without which society cannot achieve its objectives. The term “information society” is increasingly used nowadays, because of the importance and necessity of information in today's dynamic environment. Western countries are convinced that the information society will result in economic and social benefits (Audenhove 2000). Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), notes that information infrastructures are expected to stimulate economic growth, increase productivity, create jobs, and improve on the quality of life (Gichoya 2005). It is for these reasons that many studies state that the role of ICTs as enablers of sustainable development is growing. The overall goal of this paper is to point out the importance of ICT market development for the sustainable development of all the economy and the final development of Information society, especially in developing countries, where Albania is the case study illustration. The first step of this research is to show the importance of studying ICTs in the light of building an information society. In fact, the efforts of a country to build an information society, in order to benefit in terms of sustainable development, are closely related to the efforts of building strong information infrastructures and a growing ICT sector. Many indicators related to Information society measurement deal in fact with the infrastructures needed and the products and services of ICT sector. But, failures to submit ICT in contexts which are contrary to techno-economic rationality are reflected in many cases in developing countries. Thus, a defining characteristic of this research is to understand the contexts that confront ICT and information systems development in developing countries in terms of their conditions. In fact the development of ICT sector, depend not only on the political, economic and social conditions of each country, but also on the phase of e-readiness of the society. Measuring the readiness of this society to enter in the information and electronic age is very important, in the context of sustainable development. The methodology of this research includes two steps: analyzing secondary data about Information society and ICT market development in Albania, analyzing questionnaires directed to ICT market firms about the most important factors that are affecting today the development of ICT sector. New emerging technologies, such as broadband, wireless networks, cloud computing etc., are always changing the environment of ICT sector and the infrastructures used. Financial forces and investments are playing an important role when speaking about the research in this field. But the future challenge, especially for developing countries will be the decision to better interaction between private operators and public policies, inciting the ICT sector or the private investments oriented through more services and infrastructures for developing successfully an information society.
