African Development Forum '99: the challenge to Africa of Globalisation and the Information Age
Setting the theme: the ADF Process and the Information Age in Africa - Monday, 25 October
Keynote Presentations The opening plenary on 25 October featured keynote presentations underlining the development opportunities of the Information Age in Africa. Speakers:
In her keynote address, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Ms. Louise Frechette said that while "knowledge is the new global asset, the very premise of progress" in harnessing information and communication technologies (ICTs) for development we must beware of creating a digital divide between the information-rich and the information-poor. Information and communication technologies were not a luxury, but rather a tool for economic and social development. Ms. Frechette noted that despite the opportunities offered by globalisation, hundreds of millions of people were living in desperate poverty, while countries most in need of trade and investment were being bypassed. "Many people experience globalisation not as agent of progress, but as a disruptive force capable of destroying jobs and traditions in the blink of an eye," she warned. "So even as we welcome the good that globalisation has brought and can bring in the future, we must also lament the ills that too often come with it. Our challenge is, therefore, to make globalisation work better in producing equitable growth." Ms. Frechette identified the spread of information and communications technologies as "perhaps the most important force spurring globalisation along". These ICTs were "a tremendous force for integrating people and nations into the global economy. They can promote openness and transparency, leaving polluters and dictators fewer places to hide." Ms. Frechette spelled out the tremendous power of information as "the new global asset, the new business capital, the very premise of progress". She envisioned the promise of the technologies for closing the rural-urban gap, alleviating natural disasters, promoting open societies and good governance, telemedicine, distance learning, and the integration of women into the workforce. Yet, she noted, access was crucial. "The world's population has just passed the six billion mark. Five out of those six billion live in developing countries. For many of them, the great scientific and technical achievements of our era might as well be taking place on another planet. Half the world's people have never made or received a telephone call. We may well be adding a new divide to the already well-entrenched one between rich and poor: a digital divide between the information-rich and the information-poor." Ms. Frechette said she remained optimistic because "Africa is receiving huge benefits even though the Information Age is so very young". The Information Age was moving in the right direction for Africa – with sharply escalating applications coming at sharply reduced cost. She promised that the United Nations would play its part in promoting ICTs for development. "The mission of the United Nations is to ensure that any era is one in which the social and humanitarian goals of the world’s people are met. The good news is that the power of information has already shown what it can do for human well being: for human rights, for human development, for human freedom and security. But we have a long way to go before we can pronounce ourselves satisfied." Major reforms to vast problems including conflict, corruption, debt and disease were being implemented in Africa that carried hope, she said, for favourable change and growth throughout the continent, the prospects of which would depend on the way Africans themselves responded to the challenges of globalisation and the information era. Critical to this was the need to build an understanding of the speed of globalisation, the tools associated with it, the rules in place to manage it – and those that are lacking, as well as the key actors that would ultimately determine its course and fate. The Deputy Secretary General stressed that while many ills could be associated with the process of globalisation, the challenge was to harness its benefits for better, equitable growth. The spread of ICTs was a tremendous force for the integration of people and the economy. Knowledge was a global asset and a fundamental premise for progress. ICTs afforded a critical link between development and peace. She said that one could be optimistic about the future of Africa because of the proven benefits of ICTs. The benefits have been felt in the spread of cellular telephone technology, in initiatives such as HealthNet, linking doctors and researchers in Africa and abroad, and in initiatives linking the field offices of African NGOs and their counterparts around the world. This optimism was also grounded in the power of ICTs to extend education and foster a culture of peace. The United Nations system, she said, would continue to do its part particularly through the work of ECA and UNDP. However, these efforts were often performed in disjointed way, and the ADF was designed to remedy this situation. The ADF provided a forum to bring partners together. The challenge was for Africa to craft its own links to the global information economy, she concluded. Noah Samara Noah Samara, Chief Executive Officer of WorldSpace Corporation, told participants that information affluence was "the need for every need . . . the sine qua non to development", adding: "Information is the predicate to everything we know. It is ubiquitous. It is the building block behind human DNA, the chair you are sitting on, the building you are in, the car you drive". Asserting that information was behind wealth as ignorance was behind poverty, Mr. Samara lamented the gap between rich and poor, asserting that it had been made starker by the power of ICTs. While these technologies had liberated lives, created stock markets and improved economies, they had only touched a fraction of the world’s population. Worse than the hardware scarcity, said Mr. Samara, was the scarcity of information, which "directly undermines the ability of a nation to not only keep its citizens informed and educated, but to simply keep them alive. Eleven million people will die of AIDS this year in sub-Saharan Africa. Forty million children will be orphaned. Either one of those numbers, by any definition, represents the population of an entire country. "This is the horror we do not really comprehend," he said. The urgent imperative of our time and the African continent is the creation of an information affluent African society. Over the past 15 years, the industrialised world had shifted its focus from connecting people to connecting nodes of information which people could universally access, share and grow. Focus on convergence technologies had brought information affluence, unprecedented benefit and wealth resulting from net media. In contrast, the developing world had focused on teledensity with emphasis on telephony rather than universal access to the Internet. Accordingly, the progress in teledensity had not yielded the corresponding benefits and wealth which information affluence had created for the industrialised world. Indeed, the information gap between nations was growing and threatened to explode into an irreparable gulf between rich and poor nations. Mr. Samara explained that it was in part the desire to stem HIV/AIDS that motivated him to start WorldSpace Corporation, which is promoting digital radio as a cost-effective system for the dissemination of a variety of information across the Africa region. In 1998 WorldSpace launched the first satellite specifically to cover Africa. The company plans to launch similar satellites over Asia and Latin America. After ten years of work, receivers were now being distributed across Africa to receive information through dedicated satellite services. More than sixty channels were being broadcast directly to a new generation of receivers with capacity for multi-media content. The service would carry entertainment and information and content addressing women’s issues, environmental initiatives, health information and distance education. Mr. Samara proposed that the participants at ADF focus their collective energies on establishing five million Internet terminals in five million villages and neighbourhoods over the next five years stressing, following the assertion of Margaret Mead, to "never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." K. Y. Amoako ECA Executive Secretary K.Y. Amoako spelt out his vision of an African renaissance, of an Africa that would be far more dynamic and characterized by marked, if uneven, progress. "We will be more like Asia than we have admitted: We will have our tigers and we will have our disappointments," he said. "Overall, in the decades ahead we will live in a predominantly urban Africa, an Africa of business, media and science, an Africa in which governance is more localized and more shared with civil society. This will be an Africa of significant gains in social well being, particularly as science comes to our rescue to cope with health and environmental crises. In sum, we can vision an Africa in which the great majority of people are better off and in which Africa as whole is far more significant to the rest of the world." The new possibilities for advancement afforded by science and technology offered a sound basis for this optimistic vision, Mr. Amoako added. "In the 20th century we were intelligent observers of nature. In the 21st century we will be changers of nature. In the 20th century nations depended upon natural resources for wealth. In the 21st century, wealth will depend upon the ability to master the three revolutions of physics, information intelligence, biomolecular science, and the ways they converge". Mr. Amoako predicted that in the years ahead, vast improvements in artificial intelligence would be accompanied by far greater use of human intelligence. There would be a shift in education from rote learning to development of real understanding. Education would be a lifelong affair, starting in the first year and lasting through old age. Far more human brain capacity would be cultivated and used than in the past. Intelligent public policies, Mr. Amoako stressed, were critical to effecting the shift from simple agriculture and simple manufacturing to information-based economies that employ innovation and technologically advanced applications. Such policies should be goal focused, carefully monitored, long-term and intelligently led. They should address education, with the focus on qualitative gain, and, in particular, science and technology. Referring to former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, who was buried the week before the Forum, Mr. Amoako said: "To all of us in Mwalimu’s heritage, linkage and solidarity within the continent is at least as important as linkage with the global economy. Satellite broadcasting and filling in the information grid across our continent, will enormously further regional and sub-regional unity." Leonard Robinson Leonard Robinson, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Summit on Africa, a U.S.-based NGO initiative aimed at advancing the relationship between the U.S. and Africa, made the last keynote presentation. The Summit's mission is to involve Americans and Africans residing in the United States in a process to educate Americans about Africa and to produce a national plan of action on what United States policy towards Africa should be in the next millennium. The Summit’s motto is "Africa Matters" with the emphasis that it should matter in the formulation and application of US foreign policy. Mr. Robinson said that in the past decade, many African nations had made impressive strides to embrace and implement more open and democratic societies. It was imperative that this progress be supported by meaningful and appropriate partnerships with other nations, especially the United States of America. The Summit would take place in Washington D.C. in February 2000, with some 6000 people expected to deliberate on foreign policy action plans in the areas of peace and security, democracy and human rights, education and culture, sustainable development and economic development. The principal reason that the National Summit on Africa was represented at the ADF was to solicit participants' views and perspectives on the Summit process.
"Progress towards the African Information Age" Chair: Zéphirin Diabré, Associate Administrator, United Nations Development Programme Presenter: Karima Bounemra Ben Soltane, Director, Development Information Services Division, ECAPanel: H.E. Justin Malewezi, Vice President of Malawi Ingo Fehrmann, Vice President, Middle East and Africa, Siemens AG Robert Valantin, Senior Advisor, International Development Research Centre, Canada Yaovi Hounkponou, Director, Benin Press Agency
Objective: The aim of this plenary session was to set the scene for the rest of the work of the conference by:
Panel chair Zéphirin Diabré of UNDP provided a brief overview of some UNDP initiatives such as NetAid (www.netaid.org), an alliance among two private sector corporations, Cisco and KPMG, and UNDP's Internet Initiative for Africa, as mechanisms for harnessing ICTs for globalisation in the Information Age. He also endorsed the goals of the Forum and affirmed that UNDP was committed and ready to participate actively in bringing about an African Information Age. Karima Bounemra Ben Soltane summarized the activities of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) (Her presentation was based on Forum document E/ECA/ADF/99/9, "Introduction to globalisation and the Information Age" which is available at http://www.bellanet.org/partners/aisi/adf99docs/docs.htm), which provided the context for the ADF '99, over the past three years and detailed plans and strategies for the future. She underscored the need to move from the global vision and universal model to designing and implementing flexible and workable plans at the national level. She also urged sensitivity to the gender dimension, full participation of youth, a strong role for the media and the academic community, involvement of the African Diaspora and of African "think-tank" institutions, as well as public/private sector partnerships. She outlined these areas of direction for AISI in the coming years: National Strategies. National information and communication technology policies and plans, which of necessity vary from country to country, were being developed in line with national development agendas in consultation with key stakeholders, sensitisation, identification and prioritisation of needs, and the identification of core sector applications. Since no universal model existed, it was important that the policies were flexible and included a comprehensive vision and integrated strategy. Themes: The theme of the conference and its sub-themes had been selected in consultation with a number of experts in the field. ECA would develop work programme activities around each of the sub-themes over the coming three years. Partnerships: ECA had been very been working very actively on the international front to effect coordination that would avoid duplication of efforts and multiply synergies. In the coming three years, it would increase its partnership efforts at the national level, to ensure the inclusion of the private sector, academic and the African diaspora in the preparation of ICT plans.Impact Evaluation. This is an area where no formal system existed as yet, and much work needed to be done to measure the impact of ICTs on development. New indicators, both qualitative and quantitative, needed to be developed so that AISI implementation could be measured. H.E. Justin Malewezi of Malawi agreed that Government had an important, enabling role to play in building a national information technology policy framework and infrastructure, and in extending popular access, especially in public and academic institutions. He acknowledged the role that ICTs were playing in Southern Africa in fostering regional integration, public policy development and public interaction, and he supported the establishment of telecentres and other types of shared computer and expertise pools. He urged that tariffs on telecommunications equipment be removed, as Ghana had done, and noted that, since levels of Internet access in Africa were as low as 2 per cent, traditional communications such as radio, television, telephone, print media in local languages and even all-weather roads should not be neglected. Among the suggestions he made were to tackle infrastructure first, followed by addressing tariff reduction, government support for improved access in academic institutions, setting up multipurpose telecentres, the establishment of a comprehensive legal framework with regulatory mechanisms in place and the need to ensure international collaboration with COMTEL, ITU and RASCOM. Ingo Fehrmann of Siemens pointed out that Internet access in Africa cost seven times more than in the U.S. Despite this, and in light of declining costs, access offered unlimited opportunities to public and private sectors for revenues and profits, besides such sectoral benefits as distance learning and telemedicine. As a starting point, customer groups and centres of competence needed to be identified and expanded. He said that Africa should consider the option of bulk buying of knocked-down/stripped PCs, continued liberalisation of telecommunications, increased use of wireless technologies and a move away from laying landlines. The possibility of using power lines for connectivity should be considered particularly for rollout to smaller, remote communities. IDRC’s Robert Valantin said that there had been initial scepticism around the ability of ICTs to leverage development, but this had changed since the early '80s. The subsequent trend had been towards increased south-south information flows, the explosion of Internet usage, the formation of partnerships such as the Partnership for Information and Communication Technologies in Africa (PICTA), increased private sector investment and real two-way flow of information. The 1996 Information Society and Development Conference held in South Africa was a watershed where Africa began to take on a significant role in Information Society Initiatives. He raised some questions on the ability of ICTs to be transformational, their relevance to grassroots groups, the niches that Africa has yet to find, and the need for Africa to make the necessary commitment. He noted that technology capability was even more unequally distributed globally than capital. Africa needed reduced transmission costs but much capital could come from the private sector, given incentives and a positive regulatory environment. He said that ICT access and use was not just a matter of efficiency gains but of an information technology revolution that was demanding attitudinal and technological transformation to face the new millennium. Yaovi Hounkponou of Benin said Africa’s information gap could be utilized positively in terms of utilizing research findings, developing appropriate content (Readers are directed to the exhaustive inventory of African origin content on the Intenet which ECA catalogued for the Forum. See Forum document Forum document E/ECA/ADF/99/2, "Africa on the Internet: an annotated guide to African Web sites" which is available at http://www.bellanet.org/partners/aisi/adf99docs/docs.htm) and accessing resources. Its late arrival on the scene could be a positive force to create new attitudes and perspectives, overcome obstacles and create new markets and employment opportunities. In the discussion that followed, the need to train and retain human resources was noted, given the shortage of trained personnel and the brain drain problem in Africa. It was suggested that the brain drain could become a "brain gain" if the expertise and other resources among Africans abroad, including Diaspora Africans, could be tapped. Government/private sector/civil society partnerships were advanced as a means to solve the financial constraints. Another key recommendation was that the World Bank and other aid institutions should change existing policies and help Africa gain ICT infrastructural capacity. The monopolistic control of many African Governments over information technology policy, infrastructure and services was seen as a stranglehold on the industry. Tariffs in Africa were some of the highest in the world, and liberalisation and privatisation were urged. Achievements, Challenges and Opportunities The Forum split into parallel sessions on the afternoon of 25 October as a starting point for discussion on the four themes that had been identified as key to progress towards an information society in Africa. The four themes were:
Presentations on each of the themes were followed by comments from panel members and discussion from the floor.
Globalisation and the Information Economy: Challenges and Opportunities for Africa Chair: Mary Chinery-Hesse, Deputy Director General, International Labour Office Presenters:
(The document for this presentation was "Globalisation and the Information Economy: Challenges and Opportunities for Africa" (E/ECA/ADF/99/7). Copies can be obtained on the Internet at http://www.bellanet.org/partners/aisi/adf99docs/docs.htm or can be requested from ECA/DISD at P.O. Box 3001, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; fax: +251 1 51 05 12. ) Panel:
The aim of this presentation was to:
The information economy and society were driven by the global interrelationships of information and communication technologies with economic, political, social and cultural forces. Africa’s infrastructure gap was noted and various global, regional and national responses urged. Creative public and private sector partnerships could develop the information structure in the region, stimulate knowledge, education and learning, promote electronic commerce and market-access components, master teleworking and accelerate capacity building. Alan Gelb of the World Bank urged the financing of ICT infrastructure and more support to science and technology in Africa, because technology capability was even more unequally distributed than capital. He pointed out that in the emerging framework of global governance, the interests of small countries were not being represented properly, as seen in such World Trade Organisation (WTO) issues as intellectual property rights. Collaborating African countries should identify and assist major operators continent-wide. Sub-regional arrangements should be explored for investment, technical training and reduced costs. National frameworks needed a positive, enabling regulatory environment, public/private sector partnerships and focus on the centres of competence. African training institutions should do more to further indigenous knowledge and accelerate the research process. Gertrude Akapelwa-Ehueni of the ADB pointed to the need for public policy development as well as infrastructure and awareness building. Stakeholders, both public and private, had limited awareness and understanding of ICT requirements and uses. However with improved awareness and connectivity, Africa had much to gain and much to contribute in the way of business, information dissemination and web content development especially in the arts, culture and entertainment. Mohammed Mahdi of Cyberknowledge Systems stated that a monumental effort was needed to break free from the vicious cycles of widening information and infrastructural gaps, to a new "virtuous" cycle. ICTs were forcing new ways of thinking, reorganising business operations and creating new businesses and new jobs. In the information economy paradigm, players needed to realize that the picture was not one of decreasing returns but one of increasing gains. Oracle’s Chris Slade noted that the average middle-aged person in Africa might well find the new information technologies perplexing and more of a global plague. Those who made the leap into the new mode of thinking and operating needed costly equipment and link ups, capacity building, markets, competitive pricing and correct timing. Skills available in the African Diaspora could assist in this process. Representatives of various sectors of the economy should approach lagging governments to encourage and stimulate policy and technology supply. The debate on this theme stressed that digitalization was part of Africa’s future but profits should not be put before people, or the interests of a few before the interest of the majority. Government’s role as regulator and enabler was noted. Skeptics were urged to look at positive opportunities instead of obstacles. Attitudinal changes, policy development and collaboration among governments and between government and private sector were necessary for kick-starting infrastructural development and such innovative ICT uses as distance education and literacy campaigns.
ICTs for Improved Governance Chair: Effat El-Shooky, RITSEC, Egypt Presenters :
(The document for this presentation was "Information and Communication Technologies for Improved Governance in Africa" (E/ECA/ADF/99/6. Copies can be obtained on the Internet at http://www.bellanet.org/partners/aisi/adf99docs/docs.htm ) Panel :
The aim of this presentation was to:
This session looked at current issues facing African countries in adapting ICTs to enhance governance in poverty reduction, providing basic human needs, improving public administration, and enhancing democratisation. The theme paper proposed that ICTs for improved governance could support four areas:
Barriers include lack of infrastructure, technical skills, and finance, as well as the elements of risk, and suspicion. Pascal Baba Coulibaly talked of the many challenges to improved governance in Africa. He asserted that radio was an effective information technology for most of Africa. Content could be produced locally and could focus on agriculture and other needs, including medical and community news. He called on Governments to support the community radio movement. Najat Rochdi said that good governance was more of an approach than a set of activities. Morocco was using ICT to support the transformation of the country to fight against poverty and marginalisation, build an economy based on information and knowledge, develop human capital and modernise the administration. Universal access, she hoped, would bring development to all. ICTs were tools that could integrate, support economic growth, and bring people together so long as there were people with strong political will to use these systems in support of good governance. Dominique Hounkonnou said that the ‘contents’ were more important than the ‘container’. Management of the state must be removed as much as possible from political considerations. Governments must learn to listen to the citizens and work through local extension workers. International cooperation partners must stop being rigid. If politicians governed only from global perspectives, then local values would be eroded. Effat El Shooky described the Egyptian Cabinet Decision Support Centre that has implemented many projects in information technology as well as supporting policy development. Projects were in the areas of debt management, unemployment, subsidies and human resource development. Participants asserted the necessity for Africa to successfully overcome the challenge of using ICTs to consolidate and expand on successes and to address failures, after decades of civil war, corruption, endemic diseases and other negative moments in recent history. ICTs, it was said, constituted a diverse and powerful set of technological tools and resources used for the communication, creation, dissemination, storage and management of information. They comprised hardware, software, media and delivery systems, as well as training and support, and also encompassed a great range of rapidly evolving technologies, not all of which are sophisticated, cutting edge or expensive. ICTs could greatly enhance governance. They could help reduce poverty through distance education, which would help in creating a more skilled work force. Through the improvement of the quality of healthcare and educational opportunities, they could provide basic services. In managing the burden of foreign debt and revitalizing local economies, ICTs could improve public administration. They could also enhance democratisation and accountability through "open" online government. Some of the challenges to the use of ICTs for governance were identified as: poor electricity infrastructure, telecommunications and local supplies of information technology goods; technical issues such as the high costs of financing ICTs; and lack of adequate political support and awareness among senior policy makers. These barriers were even worse in Africa, where there was lack of physical access, illiteracy and the persistence of other negative factors, than in other regions of the world. The session concluded by affirming that Africa had a better chance of benefiting from the integration of ICTs into governance if the "ICT tail" did not wag the "governance dog".
Strengthening Africa's Information Infrastructure Chair: Hamadoun I. Touré, Director, Telecommunication Development Bureau, International Telecommunication Union Presenter :Michael Jensen, independent consultant (The document for this presentation was "Policies and Strategies for Accelerating Africa's Information Infrastructure Development" (E/ECA/ADF/99/5). Copies can be obtained on the Internet at http://www.bellanet.org/partners/aisi/adf99docs/docs.htm.) Panel: John Mahama, Minister of Communications, Ghana Khedija Hamouda Ghariani, Director, Tunisian Internet Agency, Tunisia Koos Bekker, Managing Director, Naspers, South Africa B. Casimir Leke, Regional African Satellite Communication System This session aimed to:
The theme paper defined information infrastructure to include telecommunications, broadcast, computer hardware and software, the Internet and related human resources. The presentation stressed the relatively long planning horizon that characterized infrastructure development and the substantial investment needed to bring teledensities substantially above their current levels and to ensure that growth did not occur mainly in urban areas leaving rural areas underserved. Michael Jensen described new developments promoting fast infrastructure growth but noted that the potential benefits of the spread of Internet access were limited by the high cost of local or long distance line usage, scarcity of intraregional links for traffic and relatively high subscription costs. These factors were being countered in some countries by special tariffs and the declining costs of new technology. The main factors contributing to accelerating information infrastructure development included liberalisation, support for regulatory authorities, development of public access centres, the introduction of smart cards, government sponsorship of content and service development and expansion of the digital capacity of networks. In addition, broader regional and national collaboration potentially leading to bulk purchasing of capacity, capacity building initiatives and innovative financing could help to achieve economies of scale and reduction of costs to users. Barriers included high license fees for new entrants, slow licensing procedures, high import duties, and failure to address high call charges. Political stability was a major element in attracting the necessary investment from foreign infrastructure developers. Panelists introduced several more important considerations for the African region’s infrastructure development. Minister Mahama emphasised the difficulties of liberalising, privatising and developing regulatory expertise simultaneously. He stressed the importance of the histories of the move from state monopoly to liberalisation in different African countries and the great need to guard against unbalanced development. Key factors for policy makers were service affordability, ensuring that technologies were appropriate to the specific needs of a country, creating demand where it is not developed and sustaining market development through the creation of a ‘level playing field’ for all the operators. Two other important factors were the creation of a vision and clear targets for operators, and measurement of progress using indicators relevant to an African approach to information infrastructure development. Khedija Ghariani offered an overview of the history of Internet development from 1989. She stressed particularly the fact that ‘good intentions are not enough’; there was also a need for strong political will. The Tunisian government had sought to develop the national Internet rather than to emphasise international connections. Efforts had been directed at the development of content for public service applications, public Internet access centres and domestic initiatives to develop electronic commerce from as early as 1997. The illustration provided a good example of how African countries needed to develop their own solutions and approaches and to adapt models introduced from external sources. Koos Bekker argued against a number of myths that he said characterised thinking in Africa about infrastructure development. The myths were that:
Bekker offered three main recommendations for action:
He also emphasised the need for African countries to promote their entrepreneurs and to share information about successful initiatives. B. C. Leke of RASCOM described the measures which have led to the development of the first dedicated satellite for Africa that encompassed an integrated set of services (e.g. Internet, voice telecoms, television and radio broadcast). The basic goal was to provide direct intraregional links for traffic, to complement public telecommunication operator services, and to provide services for rural areas through innovative modes of financing. One option to cover the high costs of terminals would be to persuade development agencies to provide soft loans to telecoms operators to buy the terminals. Discussion focused on the need for clarification about the different satellite initiatives, the actual costs of infrastructure development and the problems in developing intraregional traffic handling arrangements. The need for an African regional telecommunication market was emphasised together with the need to carry out feasibility studies of regional plans and the need for cooperation between countries in the region to implement plans. The analogy of the European Union’s measures to create a harmonised telecommunications market since the 1980s was suggested. There was emphasis on involving the private sector in speeding the introduction of information technology. However, the private sector in many African countries did not have a strong enough base and, it was noted, was not really prepared to embark upon technological ventures for markets too small and ill equipped in skills to justify the investment and risks. Despite the obstacles that were indicated, the consensus of the participants was that Africa could not stay out of the Information Age, whatever the hurdles that had to be overcome. Infrastructure development must be regarded as a ‘win-win’ situation for all.
Democratising Access to the Information Society Chair: Shuller Habeenzu, Director, Zamnet, Zambia Presenter : Aida Opoku-Mensah, Ford Foundation, Nigeria( The document for this presentation was Democratising Access to the Information Society (E/ECA/ADF/99/4). Copies can be obtained on the Internet at http://www.bellanet.org/partners/aisi/adf99docs/docs.htm.)Panel :Lalla Ben Barka, Deputy Executive Secretary, ECA Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director, Sangonet, South Africa Arnaldo Valenti Nhavato, Minister of Education, Mozambique Ernest Wilson, Director, Centre for International Development and Conflict Resolution, University of Maryland, USA The aim of this presentation was to:
The presenter said "as people's rights to communicate are enhanced . . . so to will the African citizen feel they have a sense of ownership to African information society." Aida Opoku-Mensah assessed the issues surrounding the democratisation of access to the information society in Africa and attempted to offer strategies for harnessing information and communication technologies in support of development initiatives with particular emphasis on access for rural communities. Panel members pointed out the need for political will to democratise access and for commitment to freedom of information. The Minister from Mozambique underlined the political will that his country has demonstrated in implementing community access, school networking and information policy programmes. For democratisation of access to be meaningful it needed to give people the opportunity to speak out and change their lives, it was asserted, and not just to become consumers on the Internet. It was emphasised that education could not be bypassed- it was still essential in people's ability to communicate, using new or old technologies. Questions of culture and language were also central to access: people needed to be able to communicate in a language and culture familiar to them. Thus, access remained closely linked to content. With regard to the question of growing global inequality, it was pointed out that new technologies were being introduced within this context. The way to reduce the gap was not to bring in more technology but rather to open up to greater democracy and access to the technology. Discussions focused on the right to communicate as being central to the issue of access to the information society. There was consensus on the need for visionary governments to drive and lead the quantum leap into the Information Age as well as visionary leadership in civil society and the private sector. It was said that policies are still being developed behind closed doors, with little or no popular participation in their formulation, and that increased effective participation in policy-making institutions such as WTO was imperative. Despite the political will in many African countries to increase universal access toward benefiting the social sector, the requisite resources necessary to make it a reality remained a fundamental challenge. There was consensus on the following issues:
The issue of profiling failures as learning experiences was raised, particularly in light of mushrooming telecentres. It was felt that democratising access must be based on a combination of different types of technologies. Introduction Opening Session - Sunday, 24 October 1999 Closing Session - Thursday, 28 October 1999 Annex I - The Way Forward to a people-centred African Information Society Annex III - ADF '99 Documentation Annex IV - PARTNERS in adf ’99 Annex V - List of Participants |
