 Therefore, on 7 February 2009, APTN Secretariat was set up by Secretary to the President of Sri Lanka and Chairman of UN-ESCAP's Committee on Information and Communication Technology, Mr. Lalith Weeratunga.While setting up the APTN Secretariat in Sri Lanka, Mr. Lalith Weeratunga gave an insight into the benefits of the Secretariat being hosted by Sri Lanka,

The APTN was set up with two main objectives.First it is intended to empower the poor and disadvantaged communities through the transformation of existing ICT access points in selected counties around the worlds into knowledge hubs of regional/ global knowledge networks.