1. The Country Perspective: TURKEY
H. İbrahim AKÇA
State Planning Organization
March 26, 2004

2. Outline
e-Transformation Turkey Project
ICT Indicators of Turkey
WB Financed KE Projects
Invitation to the KE Forum IV in Istanbul

3. Urgent Action Plan of Turkey (November 2002)
Public Administration Reform Program
Economic Transformation Program
Social Transformation Program
Democratization and Judiciary Reform Program

4. e-Transformation Turkey Project
- Government’s Urgent Action Plan urges public institutions to take necessary measures in order to remedy long-term problems.
- Under the Public Administration Reform Program, information society is declared among the highest priority issues.
- e-Transformation Turkey Project is aiming to foster the evolution and to coordinate information society activities.
Given Previous comparisons, Turkey is lagging behind with respect to Information Society. Thus, we have to leapfrog.(?)
That is why Government has launched this ambitious project.

5. Objectives of e-Transformation Turkey Project
Aligning ICT policies and regulations with the EU acquis and adopting eEurope+ Action Plan.
Enhencing participation of citizens to decision-making process.
Transparency and accountability for public management.
Good governance principles in government services.
Promoting ICT diffusion.
Avoiding duplicated public IT projects
Guiding private sector according to the above-mentioned principles.

6. e-Transformation Turkey Project Administrative Framework
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State
(e-Minister)
Executive Board
Advisory
Board
State Planning Organization
e-Dönüşüm Türkiye Projesinin yürütülmesi sorumluluğunu üstlenen DPT’nın bağlı bulunduğu Devlet Bakanı ve Başbakan Yardımcısı, projenin en üst düzeyde koordine edilmesinden sorumlu siyasi iradeyi temsil etmektedir. DPT bünyesinde oluşturulan Bilgi Toplumu Daire Başkanlığı doğrudan bir Müsteşar Yardımcısına bağlıdır.
Projenin yürütülmesinde diğer kamu kurum ve kuruluşları ile sivil toplum kuruluşlarının üst düzeyde katıldığı ve genel politikaları gözden geçirip, öneriler getirmek üzere DPT Müsteşar Yardımcısının başkanlığında toplanacak, 10 adedi sivil toplum kuruluşları temsilcilerinden oluşan 41 üyeli bir Danışma Kurulu teşkil edilmiştir. Projenin katılımcı bir yaklaşımla sürdürülmesine yönelik bir diğer mekanizma da çalışma gruplarıdır.

7. Short Term Action Plan STAP consists of 73 actions and;
8 action lines:
- Information Society Strategy(2)
- Technical Infrastructure/Information Security(5)
- Education and Human Resources(8)
- Legal Infrastructure(13)
- Standards(1)
- e-Government(23)
- e-Health(15)
- e-Trade(6)
Developing Information Society Strategy
Disseminating ICT usage throughout the country in all aspects and segments of the society
Improving legal infrastructure needed for KS
Ensuring effective provision of electronic public services
Improving social infrastructure particularly in human resources and health by using ICT
Providing a suitable environment for the development of e-trade

8. ICT Indicators
Decreasing PSTN subscriber numbers and a growing GSM market has affected Turkey like all the other countries. In voice transmission service that is provided by the incumbent telecommunications operator in the market, Turk Telekom, the number of subscribers is decreasing. In 2002, only 10 thousand people subscribed to PSTN service, but since the first quarter of 2003, the number of subscribers has been decreasing, and this trend is not different for other candidate countries
Since 1994, GSM market has grown very rapidly. At the end of 2002, the number of GSM subscribers has reached to 23.4 million. This figure is bigger than the number of GSM subscribers in each EU candidate country and Turkey has the sixth largest mobile market in EU.
The biggest obstacles against diffusion of internet usage are Turk Telecom’s monopoly position that it enjoys in the backbone, low speed at internet access and high access prices in terms of purchasing power parity. Besides, insufficiency in the number of sites that provides digital content in Turkish and of value added services delivered on the internet are some of the main reasons for having lower internet penetration rates in Turkey compared to other EU candidate countries.
Despite the indicators regarding infrastructure and market values that positions Turkey behind EU member states, Turkey gives high priority to information society projects considering its market potential and the importance of the concept.

9. e-Readiness Among 82 Countries, Turkey ranked 50th in overall.
POSITION
COUNTRY
POINT 1
Finland
5.92 2
USA
5.79 3
Singapore
5.74 24
Estonia
4.69 39
Poland
3.85
In Network Readiness Index by the world economic forum has been used to assess the comperative progress of eighty-two countries along different dimensions of progress in ICT. Turkey with a poor performance gets the 50th rank. 50
TURKEY
3.57
Among 82 Countries, Turkey ranked 50th in overall.
Source: World Economic Forum Global IT Report

10. Knowledge Economy Projects in Turkey Financed by the WB
1993: Informatics and Economic Modernization Study
: Technology Development Project
1998: Basic Education Project
1999: Industrial Technology Project
2004: Health Sector Reform Project
2005: Knowledge Economy and Innovation Project

11. Technology
Technology Development Project: improving the Turkish technology infrastructure and services.
Industrial Technology Project: harmonizing technology infrastructure to be WTO and EU compliant, and upgrading technology services to firms.

12. Education Basic Education Project: The objectives of the Project:
providing training for ICT trainers and inspectors,
introducing computer-aided learning,
computer education in over 3,000 basic education,
* First Phase: Ministry of Education provided 2,800 schools with computer laboratories and Internet access.
* Second phase: 4,000 more schools.

13. Selective Indicators of the Basic and Secondary Education in Turkey
General Figures
13 million students
580 thousand teachers
59 thousand education institutions
ICT Infrastructure
125 thousand computers
6,400 computer laboratories
6,000 internet connected schools (42 thousand schools will have broadband connection until 2005)
67% of teachers are computer literate

14. Health
Health Sector Reform Project includes national health and insurance information systems.
The project will be initialized in the second part of 2004.

15. Knowledge Economy and Innovation Project
The project has four core areas:
- Supporting enterprise innovation;
- Developing information society;
- Developing skills for the knowledge economy;
- Strengthening the knowledge economy environment.

16. We invite you all to KE Forum IV to be held in İstanbul.
Hope to see you in this beautiful city
in 2005.

17. State Planning Organization
Thank You...
H.İbrahim AKÇA
State Planning Organization
March 26, 2004