It is a great honour for the Economic Commission for Africa to have been invited as the first member of the partnership to speak at the opening session of the Global Knowledge Partnership Action Summit at this second Global Knowledge Conference. For us at ECA it is a very gratifying recognition of the leadership role that we believe we have taken on the issues of knowledge for development through partnership.

ECA has a long history of collaboration with many of the organisations present here – collaboration aimed at strengthening the capacities of African countries to apply information and knowledge to the pressing development problems of the day. In its work with institutions in the region, ECA has always recognised the value of local knowledge and understanding as a necessary complement to the information that can be brought to bear on development problems from outside sources. Both are essential elements of the development equation: the absence of local understanding and involvement in the design and implementation of development projects has been the source of many failures. Its inclusion, we hope, will account for many successes. We think that our experiences in partnership apply to those beyond Africa as well.

We all came to Kuala Lumpur out of common concerns based on shared hopes, fears and principles. We all see the tremendous possibilities that the information revolution brings for all persons on this earth to realize their potential. At the same time we share deep fears about the growing digital divide which can leave poor countries even more marginal to global development than they are now. The principle we share is that through building knowledge societies, individuals, communities and nations can reach their full potential.

We believe that the most successful route to building knowledge societies is through partnership, through the sharing information and resources to multiply the effects of individual actions and intentions.

Why is partnership so vital? Promoting knowledge for development is a vast undertaking that cuts across all aspects of development. It is far too large for one organization or group to undertake by itself. All aspects of the agenda, especially those involving the private sector, require multi-stakeholder processes and partnership. They need a coordinated partnership approach to accomplish the tremendous development challenges they represent.

Building knowledge societies is a three-panelled mirror with many connected facets:

• access to knowledge is more than having enough of the right kinds of wires;

• empowerment of people comes through access to knowledge societies;

• governance means promoting greater transparency.

These three elements are interconnected on many levels. Access to information and knowledge empowers people and communities to take charge of their lives and have a strong role in their country's future.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As today is March 8, International Women's Day, let me say a few things about women and the global knowledge partnership. I am very pleased that gender features prominently in the draft Action Plan that we will be considering, and that gender is one of four cross cutting issues for the Summit.

There is no question that gender analysis and action cuts across - and indeed is essential to - the definition of the three tracks of the Summit. It goes without saying that the inclusion of women is central to the concept of access. When we talk about empowerment through knowledge and using information and communication technologies to reach those typically bypassed, it is clear that concerns for women are the basic building blocks of a strategy. A knowledge society where knowledge is accessible to all will do much to ensure the participation of women in society and thus the improvement of governance.

At ECA we have been working on the principles of partnership for knowledge and development for some time. Allow me to provide some details on some of what we have been doing.

The African Information Society Initiative

In May 1996 the ECA Conference of Ministers responsible for economic and social development planning adopted the African Information Society Initiative: an action framework to build Africa’s information and communication infrastructure.

The African Information Society Initiative is rooted in 15 prior years of regional efforts to reduce the information gap between Africa and the rest of the world. The capacity to communicate - and to record, access and apply information to policies, projects and programmes at the national, regional and global levels - has always been key development tools.

AISI is not an ECA programme. It is an African programme which from the beginning ECA has implemented in partnership - in Africa through the Partnership for Information and Communication Technologies in Africa (PICTA), and globally, through the Global Knowledge Partnership. While the AISI framework identified sectors where the judicious application of ICTs could accelerate development - job creation, health, education & research, culture, trade and commerce, tourism, food security, gender equity – ECA has focussed its own programmes on the development, in its member states, of a policy environment that would enable the application of ICTs to key development priorities in accordance with national goals.

ECA is presently working with more than 20 countries on national information policies built through broad stakeholder processes These policies are increasingly required to take into consideration issues of harmonisation of subregional and regional policies and regulation and to prepare countries to address the World Trade Organisation on a range of issues related to trade in services.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

ECA’s strength as an African regional organisation rooted in the United Nations system is shaped through its four main roles:

• The convenor of choice on issues of vital social and economic import once to the region;

• An advocate of an African-driven development agenda based on regional cooperation and economic integration;

• The hub of a network of public officials, entrepreneurs and experts;

• A bridge between Africa and the international development community.

The African Development Forum was designed to build on those strengths. ADF will convene annually to present the key stakeholders in African development with the results of current research and opinion on key development issues.

The inaugural meeting of ADF in 1999 addressed the challenge to Africa of globalisation and the information age and assessed the progress of the first three years of AISI.

ADF ’99 demonstrated clearly the range of African information society projects and programmes underway and led by African institutions, often in partnership with donors. Not only were two members of the GKP secretariat members of the Technical Advisory Committee for the Forum, but some 13 partner organisations represented here today were partners in the organisation of the Forum.

Apart from the numerous national policy development initiatives, representatives of more than 15 African countries described or demonstrated applications in: e-commerce and trade; education; health; agriculture; governance and parliamentary support; urban planning and environmental management – to mention just some of the issues that were on the table.

ADF ’99 demonstrated unequivocally that Africans are engaging the information society and using its tools to tackle the region’s development problems.

The debates and discussions at ADF also led to some conclusions about the blockages that need to be overcome if African initiatives are to reach the scale necessary to:

• Extend access widely enough to enable more of Africa’s poor to put the tools to use through education and health programmes, programmes that support job creation and income generation;

• Create the size of markets needed to build pools of labour and skills and attract investment;

• Enable Africa to influence the globalisation agenda.

It is the reduction of these blockages through a scaled up approach that links national, sub-regional and regional actions, strengths, skills and knowledge that will shape the post-ADF agenda.

Post-ADF

ECA is committed to continuing the debates begun at ADF '99 in an effort to reduce the blockages to the emergence of an information society in Africa. It will take the ADF '99 agenda forward through a series of proposals for projects and programmes based on the outcome of the ADF.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

ECA will be one player among many contributing to the achievement of the vision of the African Information Society. Our main partners are African institutions and governments. But progress to date on AISI has been achieved in collaboration with many committed partners from outside the region. We hope to see that collaboration strengthened and renewed at GKII- not the least through stronger programmes of collaboration with institutions from other developing regions.

Where are we all now?

As we begin the Action Summit, we have to admit, I think, that the recent years of intensified efforts to bring a knowledge perspective into the development process have not yet produced results commensurate with the over 70 programmes operating in Africa and the more than two dozen regional conferences that have been devoted to the issue. I think that the same can probably be said of other regions as well.

Our rhetoric needs to be aligned with the reality on the ground. Users, from community level on up, must be incorporated into project and programme design. We have been saying this for decades, but now it really has to happen for us to be true to the principles we espouse.

As importantly, development agencies must put more emphasis on learning from the projects they support and disseminating the results. The prerequisites for this are the sharing of information. The issue is whether development agencies are prepared to invest to learn and build systems that work. It is the absolute sine qua non for the success of our mutual efforts. Development agencies believe in monitoring, learning and evaluation, but most have yet to deliver the lessons that decision makers in the developing world need before they commit major resources to build knowledge societies as strategies for the reduction of poverty and the growth of equity.

Let's get realistic: What do we all need to do to make the partnership a success?

The Partnership has resources and advocacy to offer, including keeping the issue on the international agenda. The ground level organisations offer opportunity to work in a realistic environment where there is already a certain amount of agreement around priorities and what needs to be done. If the partnership is to continue to deliver on the advocacy side it is going to have to get down and deliver - mainly on the lessons learned and the policy implications of these lessons. The partnership needs to develop more substance in this area.

It is my hope that all the organisations here at this meeting will consolidate established partnerships and identify new partners in support of a strategically limited number of clearly defined initiatives among government, the private sector and other segments of civil society that have emerged as priorities at the beginning of the twenty-first century. I hope further that these initiatives will provide the experiences and lessons that we can share with all the stakeholders in this process so that all (governments, private sector, civil society, donor and executing agencies) will make the necessary investments to build knowledge societies.

And we have to share information on what we are doing, what we have done and what we have learned. It is surprising that I have to say this at the Global KNOWLEDGE Partnership. If we don't do this, how can we expect others to do so? Even though all of us are terribly busy trying to meet the tremendous challenges that we are all dedicated to, we have to include the element of information sharing as a regular part of our working day. We will all be the richer for it.

Summit participants,

We're here to work hard over the next two days. There is no question why this is called the Action Summit. Our aim is to focus the talk strongly on the need for ACTION: to define directions for collaboration and identify shared priorities and options for joint action.

We are here from the North and from the South. But it would be encouraging to see more members from the South in the partnership. After all, the objectives that we are dealing with are for the South. We are here from the public and from the private sector, from international and bilateral agencies and from foundations, corporations and non-governmental organisations. Let's see what we can all plan and commit to do together so that the people of the world can have the knowledge they need to improve their lives. And let’s try to do it in the future through an enlarged partnership.