?The Information Technology Department’s (ITD) main role is to ensure OPEC’s IT resources are utilized efficiently, securely, and in accordance with its goals and objectives. ITD oversees the Secretariat's information and communication technologies (software and hardware), associated services, and related tasks, including planning, capacity building, quality assurance, and development of IT policy and assurance of compliance. It provides secure and reliable IT infrastructure, software engineering, data management, and IT user support services to enhance OPEC operations through comprehensive and state-of-the-art IT solutions.

Having as a principal goal to keep abreast and enhance OPEC operations through secure and reliable IT Infrastructure, IT User Support Services, and Software/Data Engineering, the ITD will accomplish this by:

• Delivering technological solutions to foster collaboration (internally and with MCs) that enables an efficient knowledge management.
• Studying and analyzing technological trends to propose and make available the pertinent state-of- the-art solutions that support OPEC’s core objectives.

The ITD’s strategic responsibilities are:

• The continuous upgrading of IT infrastructure and IT architecture.
• The automation of OPEC’s business processes.
• Information security fortification with cutting-edge technology.
• Capacity building actions to enhance IT usage tools.
• Review and approval of IT expenditures.

The technical responsibilities of the ITD are:

• Infrastructure management.
• Monitoring system performance.
• Data storage and backups.
• Information security.
• Applications management and development.
• Data management.
• Troubleshooting and IT support.

Furthermore, the ITD is tasked with implementing the information security policies and procedures, compliant with the ISO 27001 standard, that constitute OPEC’s Information Security Management System (ISMS), to maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the Secretariat’s information assets. It will ensure long-term compliance by executing regular audits with external consultants.

The ITD consists of two Sections — the IT Applications Section and the IT Services Section.