DCO to support regional digital economy

High impact: Digital Cooperation Organization welcomes Oman as founding member and launches several initiatives

The Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO), based in Riyadh, announced the joining of Oman and Nigeria, as founding members, joining Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.

Combined, the seven countries are an economic bloc of $1.2 trillion in GDP. The population base of the seven nations is close to 480 million, 80 per cent of whom are under 35 years of age.

Last week, DCO convened its first ministerial meeting, chaired by the Saudi Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Abdullah bin Amer al Swaha and was attended by ministers of the DCO countries.

The meeting also featured ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao; the president of world economic forum Børge Brende; the Secretary-General of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf Dr Nayef Falah M al Hajraf and representatives from other UN programmes.

During the meeting, an agreement was reached to launch five high impact initiatives. These initiatives aim at establishing a centre to highlight the importance of cooperation in relation to flow of data across borders, empowerment of women in the digital labour market, in addition to serving entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to grow and achieve a digital future.

The meeting discussed ways to promote cooperation in all areas driven by innovation and acceleration of growth of digital economy. They also discussed the organisation’s governance, organisational structure and future plans.

The DCO established in November 2020 as a partnership to pursue common values and goals in the digital economy, between Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan, and Jordan, that will promote shared digital aspirations among member nations for economic diversification and increasing social prosperity through the growth opportunities available across the digital economy, and public sector digital transformation.