The Pacific Regional Digital Strategy is the action plan for the Forum Secretariat in pursuing ICT development in the region. It is acknowledged that there are barriers in the implementation of better digital communications and these include, the limited and unequal access to communications technology, high costs of equipment and services, insufficient telecommunications bandwidth, low investment in networks and the outdated and absence of sufficient regulatory frameworks at the national level. 

It is envisaged that under the Pacific Plan, the new impetus for the region, an overarching strategic objective under economic growth is for "improved efficiency and effectiveness of infrastructure developments and associated service delivery" and the initiative highlighted to deliver this is the "implementation of a regional digital strategy for improving information and communications technologies (ICTs)". 

Forum Leaders at their Special Leaders Retreat on 6 March 2004, in Auckland, New Zealand, agreed to the development of a digital strategy for the region, based on the 1999 Communications Action Plan. The Digital Strategy was developed and submitted to the 2005 Forum Leaders Meeting and was endorsed, along with a Digital Strategy Roadmap, by Forum ICT Ministers at their meeting in March 2006 in Wellington, New Zealand (see Wellington Declaration). 

The state of the ICT infrastructure in the Forum island countries (FICs) have bearing on the general deliverance and effectiveness of the media and communications in general. The basic telephony services and the mass media, and the ICT tools such as the Internet serve the same purpose, to deliver and facilitate communications. It is these mechanisms in light of the regulatory environment that exists to ensure that communication is undertaken freely and without due prejudice and harm. The Forum Secretariat has been engaged in regional media initiatives specifically through annual workshops at the Forum Economic Ministers Meetings (FEMM) and at the Forum Leaders. 

To effectively promote the development of ICTs, key coordination is important amongst the policy makers, the donors, the implementers and any other stakeholder identified for a particular project or issue. 

The Forum Secretariat has undertaken a range of regional cooperation activities supporting developments in the area of ICT. This includes developing a regional ICT policy and strategy, the Pacific Islands ICT Policy and Plan (PIIPP), which stemmed from a regional ICT Needs Assessment workshop held in August 2001, in Noumea. The PIIPP is a guiding document for regional ICT development and has been the basis of several FICs national ICT policies and plans. Forum Communications Ministers endorsed the PIIPP at their meeting in April 2002. Other key partners that have worked collaboratively with the Forum Secretariat include, the Pacific Islands Telecommunications Association (PITA), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Council of Regional Organisation of the Pacific (CROP) organisations via the CROP ICT Working Group. 


Pacific ICT Survey 2002

Forum Communications Ministers last met in April 2002, in Suva, Fiji, to discuss and evaluate the status and the ongoing development of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the region, and produced the Forum Communication Action Plan 2002. At the Communications Meeting, Ministers requested accurate, complete and updated data to improve understanding of ICT developments in the region and to enhance decision-making in areas of policy and programme development. Accordingly, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and the Pacific Islands Telecommunications Association (PITA) undertook a comprehensive data collection exercise: the Pacific ICT Survey 2002.