The Kingdom of Swaziland through its Government Computer Centre has initiated various successful and ongoing ICT projects. The enabling environment has led to a flourishing private sector in ICT. Swaziland has the largest Internet Service Providers per capita in Africa. The first national workshop on ICT policy that was organized by the UNDP, UNESCO, ECA and the Swaziland National Association of Journalists (SNAJ) in November 2000.

Following a workshop organized in 2001 by ECA, UNDP and UNESCO, UNDP offered to assist the country in developing an ICT Policy with a strong Media component. Unfortunately, the draft Policy which was tabled to the Cabinet by the Minister of Public Service and Information in 2004 was rejected because of its bias towards the Media and its weakness on the information technology side. The Cabinet noted that the draft policy did not take into account neither the ICT situation of the country nor the Government’s major socio-economic development frameworks such as the Vision 2020 and the National Development Plan.

It was in this state that the process revived when a mission was undertaken from 31 May to 2 June 2004 following a request from the Government of Swaziland, which solicited technical assistance from the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in for the development of a national Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Policy. The main objective of the mission was to discuss with the Swaziland authorities a strategy for the formulation of an ICT Policy and Plan in accordance with the National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI) Plan development framework.
In consultation with the relevant ministries and key stakeholders, the ECA mission reviewed the draft ICT Policy and provided recommendations on the way forward.

An inter ministerial Committee to oversee the ICT Policy development process was established by the Swaziland Cabinet to to reverse the situation and to have coordinated and sustained efforts towards the formulation of an ICT Policy and Plan.

The draft National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI) Policy was discussed by stakeholders at a validation workshop on 26 January 2006. The workshop resulted in the adoption of the final draft policy which would be presented to the cabinet for approval in February 2006.

The NICI process started in May 2004, when the Government requested technical and financial support from ECA to develop an inclusive National Information and Communication Infrastructure Policy and plan for the country to address specific objectives. In order to ensure inclusive stakeholder participation and coordinated/sustained efforts in the formulation of an ICT Policy and Plan, the Cabinet established an inter-Ministerial Committee (ICT Task Team) to oversee the ICT Policy development process. The Policy was finalized and validated by stakeholders in January 2006. The policy was adopted by Cabinet in September 2006. The development of the implementation plan will start in 2007..

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