Ms Takai,The US Department of Defense Chief Information Officer Meets with Amirzai Sangin Minister of MCIT

On Monday, 21 November, H.E Ms Takai, the US Department of Defense Chief Information Officer, and LTG Pollett, the Director of the US Defense Information Systems Agency, met with H.E Eng. Amirzai Sangin Minister of Communications and IT and the Deputy Ministers.

The intent of the visit was to give her an appreciation for operations in Afghanistan as well as an understanding of the impacts and challenges of ICT in this environment.  Ms Takai and Minister Sangin discussed the criticality of the ICT infrastructure, specifically the optical fiber ring, to support the growth of government as well as socio-economic development.  They also discussed the success in the last 10 years of the growth in cellular service.  The exponential growth is primarily due to the public-private partnership between the government and the cell providers.  Cell phones are playing a role in the daily lives of Afghans.  Ms Takai offered her support to the Minister and to Afghanistan through the Telecommunications Advisory Team to continue the success of the ICT sector.