partnerships

Partnerships

ECA has worked closely with partners in all its efforts to bring Africa into the informaton age. Its major vehicle for this is the Partnership for Information and Communication Technologies in Africa (PICTA). ECA invites organizations and agencies interested in working with it on ADF to contact us. Those organizations and institutions already working with ECA on ADF '99 include the following:

	In their ninth consultative meeting held in Ouagadougou in February 1999, the Chief Executives of the Organisation of African Unity and the African Development Bank welcomed and gave their support to ECA for the creation of the ADF to build consensus on policies and programmes pertaining to Africa’s development.
	Bellanet International is providing support for ADF '99 by hosting a discussion list.

	The Carnegie Corporation of New York has provided support which will enable the preparatory activities for the Forum, including the preparation of position papers and their review at a meeting of the African Development Forum Technical Advisory Committee in Addis Ababa at the end of August 1999.
	The Centre for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM) of the University of Maryland jointly organized a research conference with ECA on the New Information Technology and Social Inequality from 16-17 February 1999 to consider the ADF '99 subthemes. The results of the Conference are available at http://www.bsos.umd.edu/cidcm
	ECA is working with IDRC-Acacia, one of ECA’s closest partners in the implementation of AISI, on ICT-SCAN, a major study on the status of ICTs in the Africa region, as input to the ADF '99. IDRC is also sponsoring the preparation of 10 country action programmes.
	ADF '99 is working closely with the African Ministers of Communication African Connection to plan the development of the necessary infrastructure to provide connectivity for all in the region. African Connection will present policy guidelines to the meeting.
	ADF '99 will prepare the African position for the Global Knowledge II Conference to be held in March 2000, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on governance, access and empowerment, themes which are closely congruent with those of ADF '99. The Global Knowledge Partnership will hold a planning meeting in Addis Ababa immediately following ADF '99.
	ECA, IICD (International Institute for Communication and Development, The Hague), the InfoDev programme of the World Bank and PANOS have agreed to work together informally to collect stories of interesting ICT practices in Africa.

	The International Telecommunication Union is preparing a global Conference on the Information Society. ADF will be an important forum in which to prepare a concerted African position for the ITU conference.
	The Institute for New Technologies (INTECH) of the United Nations University located in Maastricht, the Netherlands, has constituted a research team to prepare the policy position paper on information economy.
	Observatoire du Sahara et du Sahel (OSS) will be organising presentations in the governance section.
	United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is supporting the Forum by sponsoring a number of participants and documenting national information and communication infrastructure plans for presentation to the Forum as well as providing other substantive contributions to the Forum.
	United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) will be organising presentations in the governance section.
	The World Bank has committed substantial support to ADF ’99 and the ADF in general. We hope that other partners will join us shortly.

African Information Society Initiative (AISI)-

implemented through

partnership

	The African Technical Advisory Committee to the AISI, comprised of 6 African experts, brings the African vision to AISI
	The Partnership for Information and Communication Technologies in Africa (PICTA) brings together multi-lateral, bi-lateral and non-governmental organizations, as well as representatives of the private sector, who work together to implement the AISI vision
	As a member of the Global Knowledge Partnership, ECA promotes the AISI and the African development agenda