A three-day brainstorming session by the Academia Research Network (ARN) on the Information Society opened today in Addis Ababa at ECA’s Development Information Services Division (DISD).

The meeting aims to consider research topics that could enhance the development of the African Information Society and establish conditions to launch sub-regional networks of ARN.

Participants will discuss ways to address the lack of research programmes and of African-led activities on the information society. It will also propose an action plan and lead follow-up activities in Africa’s regions.

Through the session, ECA expects to harness the research and analysis of African academics to come up with Africa-led and Africa-owned ICT for Development solutions to be presented during the next phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in 2005.

Launched in Geneva in December 2003 during the first phase of the WSIS and backed by the Ford Foundation, ARN provides a space for a select group of leading African academics and researchers to reflect on key research questions and activities in the field of ICTs, policy and society.

Along with the African Learning Network (ALN) which emerged out of the first African Development Forum in 1999, ARN is an ECA initiative working with the academic community in order to build a sustainable African Information Society.

Since 1999, several activities under the VarsityNet component of the ALN have been launched, including support for research and development efforts by and within African higher educational institutions.

The brainstorming session is a direct outcome of a 2003 retreat on the theme "Intellectual Leadership and the African Information Society Initiative: What Role for Africa`s Academic Community?" organized by ECA and the Ford Foundation.