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Look at the daily updates section where
stories on the proceedings of the ADF '99 conference were posted on a daily basis.
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The technical preparatory
meeting of ADF ’99 was held in Addis Ababa from August 30 to September 1 to review
the provisional programme for ADF '99 and the draft theme papers commissioned for the
conference and assess the process of national information planning which has been underway
in about 20 countries of the region. The
meeting was organized in two parallel sessions: the first group consisted of members of
the ADF '99 Technical Advisory Committee which is made up of ICT leaders from the region
and international experts. The second group was made up of the national coordinators of
the information and communication planning processes who have met in parallel to TAC
to shape reports and consider the most suitable format for their presentation and
discussion at ADF ’99. A total of 61 people participated in the two parallel
meetings. Click here for the list of participants.
The ADF '99 theme papers were presented to the
plenary (both groups) by the authors of the papers. The papers were reviewed in more
detail in followup breakout sessions, and suggestions and recommendations have been made.
It was noted that the TAC will play a leading role in finalising arrangements for ADF
’99 and in promoting the conference during the next two months. TAC members will also
be actively involved in all aspects of ADF ’99 itself at the end of October.
The national coordinators of the information and communication planning processes reviewed
country presentations and recommended that a presentation providing overview of the
planning process shall be made at ADF '99. It was also suggested that ECA should setup a
clearing house on the web where all the national information and communication
infrastructure (NICI) plan and policy documents are made available as a show case of best
practices.
The meeting of the TAC and the national coordinators
was a major milestone on the road to ADF ’99.
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UN
Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa
(ECA) Mr. K.Y. Amoako met on Friday (August 13) with President Thabo Mbeki and senior
government officials in South Africa to discuss the African Development Forum (ADF). |
South Africa has shown itself to be a leader in
supporting the integration of Africa into the global information society. It hosted the
Information Society and Development Conference (ISAD) in 1996 that positioned Africa for
the first time in debates about globalisation and the information age. Since then South
Africa has created many innovative mechanisms to extend access to the information society.
South Africa leads the continent in the number of Internet users and Internet Service
Providers and in the scope of its information technology industry.
Mr Amoako extended an invitation to President Mbeki
to make the keynote statement at ADF ’99. The two also discussed the role that South
Africa can play at the conference and at the post-forum summit and the contribution that
South African business can make to the exhibition being established at the Technology
Centre for Africa, a new project established by ECA to showcase the benefits technology
can have for development.
We are pleased to announce that President Mbeki will
make the keynote address to ADF ’99 on October 25 and that South Africa will play an
active role during its debates.
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ECA's National
Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI) plan development work is being
extended, with co-operation from other partners such as IDRC-Acacia and UNESCO, to Benin,
Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Cote
d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania,
Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Togo and Tunisia; and the four Acacia countries:
Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda.
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ADF ’99, 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. Stories can describe experience in any
sector although ADF is particularly interested in those related to its four major theme
areas. Stories pinpointing problems are of as much interest as those demonstrating
success. The objective is to facilitate links among those involved in projects
(practitioners, managers, users) and to build a database which will facilitate learning
and evaluation. The database has been developed and hosted at IICD web site http://www.iicd.org/stories . The results will be
disseminated at ADF ’99. Other partners are welcome to contribute to this effort. |
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ECA is working on data
collection and classification of African origin web sites and on National Information and
Communication Infrastructure (NICI) policies, strategies and plans with the aim of making
this information available on the Web. Anyone interested in these areas should contact Marcos Sahlu, who recently joined ECA after returning
to Ethiopia from his graduate studies at Sheffield University (UK) or Assefa Bahta, a second-year graduate student at the
School of Information Studies for Africa (SISA) at Addis Ababa University and an intern at
ECA.
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