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Ethiopia |
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The Addis Ababa Symposium and African Information Superhighway
by Lishan Adam
1st ESS Conference on Ethiopian Telecommunications in the Information Age, Washington, DC, July 2nd, 1996
Africa is slowly joining the global information society while undergoing poverty and crisis. Many countries remained languishing in cycle of despair centered around food crisis. Others continued to bear debt, demography, dependency, political instability. The levels of poverty remained deep increasing possibilities for social unrest and declining the quality of life. Activities in electronic communications during the last six years have brought hopes to Africa. The region is emerging with a fresh look at its socio-economic problems. The African Regional Symposium on Telematics for Development held April 1995 in Addis Ababa showed that communication is a prerequisite of all other prerequisites. The Communiqués of the symposium stated . . .
"Unless African countries become full actors in the global information revolution, the gap between the haves and havenots will widen, opening the possibility to increased marginalization of the continent. The gap will increase the likelihood of cultural, religious and tribal ghettos leading to regional and international conflicts."
What is the significance of the Addis Ababa Symposium to Africa? In this paper we shall cover some achievements in line with the Symposium, what is being done in the area of electronic communication and what remains to be done to make African countries actors in the global information society.
The African Regional Symposium on Telematics for Development in Africa is the largest historical gathering that brought over 250 participants mainly from Africa to discuss key issues concerning telematics and its role in development in Africa. The following factors contributed to the initiation of the Symposium:
Besides being a forum for interaction between service providers, donors and policy makers, the symposium discussed over 80 papers focusing on regulatory, emerging initiatives and cooperation. Most of the papers focused on grassroots initiatives and their impact at national level. The final recommendations elaborated key issues such as: training and education, the setting up of list serve and data bases to foster cooperation, improving links between universities in Africa, the formation of African Regional Telematics Association, future steps in establishing rural community information services and Internet research and development that are appropriate to the African environment.
Participants requested ITU, ECA and UNESCO to coordinate activities in building political leadership in telematics in the region including addressing its final Communiqué to the Secretary generals of Organizations of African Unity and the United Nations and African Head of States. On donors coordination the Symposium suggested a need for rapid and ongoing exchange of information about needs, activities and plans, the formation of African Telematics Association that facilitates ongoing dialogue on activities and plans among initiatives.
Participants focused on regulatory issues as a main area that hindered the development of telematics services. They requested ITU and PATU to help African member states in developing an enabling regulatory framework. Radio frequency and licensing of VSATs were stressed to expand telematics services to humanitarian, social, educational and scientific objectives and to bypass the high bandwidth question facing most African countries.
Other emphasized that the key issue in telematics in Africa is building the necessary human resource. Regional cooperation was thought to be critical between various actors (NGOs, UN, governments) to launch a common training strategy in telematics programs in Africa. The symposium also drew a plan to achieve full Internet connectivity, to improve participation in sharing resources and knowledge throughout the region. Research in language translation and interface, off-line interfaces to on-line information systems were also suggested to be pursued vigorously.
At the end of the symposium African local service providers requested governments and the global donor community to recognize initiatives on the ground. Building on existing network initiative was suggested to be important for users to obtain continuous services and develop indigenous capability in Africa.
The biggest achievement of the Symposium to date is the formation of a High Level Working Group (HLWG) on African Information superhighway. Following the recommendation of the Symposium and another call by Egyptian, Kenyan and Algerian delegate at the twenty-first session of the Technical Preparatory Committee of the Whole, the twenty-first session of the Conference of African Ministers responsible for Economic and Social Development and Planning adopted a resolution 795 (XXX) entitled Building Africa's Information Highway. The resolution requested the Executive Secretary of ECA to "set up a high-level working group on information technologies and communications in Africa made up of technical experts to prepare a plan of action." IDRC, ITU and UNESCO contributed to the financial resources required to setup the High Level Working Group. The terms of reference of the HLWG was:
At the initial meeting held in November 1995 in Cairo the group discussed a plan to produce a "white paper" that will be used as a blue print in Africa to guide policies to accelerate connectivity and development. The Group formed working groups that worked on vision, needs and application, infostructure and infrastructure, human resources development, business development, regulation and policies, country studies, media and the World Wide Web.
The second meeting of the Group was held in February in Addis Ababa. The committee discussed the draft of the "white paper" and the status of various activities of the working groups. Four country studies were commissioned including: Senegal, Mozambique, Nigeria and Ethiopia. The World Bank Electronic Media Center and the African Network Initiative collaborated in production of videos based on activities in Ethiopia, Senegal, South Africa, Mozambique, and Egypt.
The final "white paper" entitled "The African Information Society Initiative" (AISI) was as presented to the Twenty Second session of the Technical Preparatory Committee of the Whole that commented on it and forwarded to the Conference of African Ministers responsible for Economic Planning and Development. A copy of the "white paper" was also sent to the Conference of Regional Telecommunications Ministers in Abidjan in May 1996. AISI was also presented at the Information Society and Development Conference held in South Africa in May 1996 as recommended at the G7 conference in Halifax.
The AISI "white paper" emphasized that African member states should ensure the continuous flow of information by supporting initiatives and creating strategic information systems (in health, environment, trade, finance etc.), attempting to create a continent wide information and telecommunication network, establishing regulatory bodies independent of telecoms, eliminating tariffs and implementing better policies to achieve a strategic goal for building African information society by year 2010. Discussing the challenges and opportunities, roles of different partners in building African information society the document formulated target areas of actions covering:
The Twenty Second meeting of ECA Ministers endorsed the "white paper" and issued Resolution 812 (XXXI) that called the Executive Secretary of the ECA to mobilize resources to realize the goal of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) and to incorporate the AISI plan in the framework of the ECA. The resolution called for gender balance in selecting technical committees that advise governments on programmes and projects concerning telematics.
Apart from the activities related to the High Level Working Group, the first year after the Symposium was spent in coordination and collaboration networking activities. Information and communication technologies are regarded as some major components for improved interaction and are seen as a "leapfrog" technologies offering the chance for accelerated development. This has lead to a number of initiatives involving public, private, international, and non-governmental participants within, across and beyond Africa.
The initiatives focus on the building of infrastructure, on policies that enable, nurture and sustain infrastructure and on strengthened capacity to use these electronic resources and venues in the service of socio-economic development. Many initiatives focus on networking and few others on telecommunications "wiring Africa". These initiatives include:
The African Network Initiative (ANI): ANI is a group of international organizations (Bellanet, IDRC,ITU, UNECA and UNESCO) as an evolving partnership in the pursuit of African information technology and networking activities. It has been set up to:
- provide a mechanism for broader African input into information and communication technologies program and project planning in Africa;
- provide a venue for cooperation and coordination in the planning process of partner development assistance agencies;
- determine areas requiring further investigation and research to identify important program and project interventions;
- share lessons learned in existing initiatives;
- increase the interest and level of investment in information and communication technologies in Africa.
The Africa Internet Forum (AIF): AIF is a group largely comprised US based agencies such as World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United States State Department, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the United Nations Development Programmes Sustainable development network Project (UNDP/SDNP). NASA, UNDP/SDNP and the Capacity Building for Electronic Communications in Africa (CABECA) project are collaborating in building Electronic Communications links in the Central African countries. USAID is the largest of all agencies operating in Africa in this area under its $15 million Leland initiative for twenty countries in Africa.
Leland Initiative has begun in September 1995 and plans to address connectivity in twenty African countries while concentrating on:
- policy related issues, access costs, and competition as opposed to activities run by the local monopoly government telecoms.
- working with private-sector service providers in target countries.
- working with local initiatives to make the technology useful for users, looking at the last mile, beyond the urban information elite.
InfoDev: InfoDev is multi-donor fund established by the World Bank to bring connectivity to developing countries with special emphasis on Sub Saharan Africa. The World Bank has received several telematics network development related projects in Africa of which some covering regulatory and policy oriented activities.
Trade Points: The United Nation Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has setup commerce-oriented Trade Point initiatives which have made Africa the priority region. UNCTAD has obtained a commitment from the European Union equivalent to ECU 30 million for the regional development of local trade efficiency networks in Africa.
Agencies involved with "Francophones" such as ORSTOM have also made a few proposals to international community and the Ministerial level meeting in Benin in March 1996 to help in the Internet in all the Francophone countries in Africa. ORSTOM has a long standing representation in the French Speaking African countries.
The United Nations Secretary General Initiative: The United Nations System-wide special initiative on Africa that was launched on 15 March 1996 includes a component on Harnessing Information Technology for Development. This component aims to improve awareness for better policy reforms, increasing connectivity and training in computer networking. An estimated cost of $11.5 million would be involved covering over 20 African countries.
There are also other important but independent projects in place or being considered by UNESCO's IIP programme, the Commonwealth Secretariat, UNITAR, the Internet Society, the Overseas Development Agency of the UK and the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and the International Development Research Center (IDRC) of Canada.
List Serve: The activities in setting up various listserves according to the recommendation of the Symposium have been pursued both by the Pan African development Information System (PADIS) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Due to lack of the resources the efforts in this area were minimum during the first year after the Symposium. Existing list serves such as AFRIK-IT and Africa Online, however, played a very significant role in bringing communities that have interest in African connectivity together.
The above activities that are related to the Symposium show that there are various initiatives available to Africa but targeted towards businesses and other high income users. Since the level of economic activity in African countries is low, the ability of connectivity triggering socio-economic development in Africa is still a question. Rural areas, where 80% of African are located and survive on minimal income, may be left out of the global superhighway.
A clear vision is required to make initiatives useful to the rural community in Africa. This means better governance, management of the environment, improved rural communication, education and building indigenous capacity in information and communication and capacity utilization. Careful national and international planning will be necessary to ensure maximum access to as many Africans as possible.
Countries, agencies and the international community should learn from mistakes. Initiatives should involve as many local champions as possible, including government bureaucracy. The real challenges in building information society are organizational and political. Education is the only way out around policy and regulatory problems though other formulas may work in other countries.
Education to African children will enable the building of a knowledge society. University capacities should be strengthened to bring multiplier effect in shaping the knowledge society. Capacities in information handling and dissemination, a new culture of looking at local problems and solving it using indigenous capacity should be encouraged. The future of African information highway remains the task of Africans themselves.
About the Author: Lishan Adam is a Project Co-ordinator (in networking), at the Pan African Development Information System (PADIS). He can be reached at: PADIS, P. O. Box 3001, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Or at Lishana@hotmail.com
