December, 2003. The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) signed a memorandum of understanding with the Government of Japan (GOJ) that stipulates a financial agreement of up to $US 203,430, towards the work of the Information Technology Centre for Africa (ITCA). Gracing the signing ceremony were various high-level representatives from ECA and the Japan Embassy in Ethiopia, including the Japanese Ambassador H.E. Mr. Kenjiro Izumi and ECA’s Deputy Executive Secretary, Ms. Lalla Ben Barka.

The agreement builds on an existing 4-year relationship between ECA and the GOJ that has seen ITCA extend a broad range of ICT expertise and training to African policy makers and other development practitioners, as part of the implementation programme of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI), based in the Development Information Services Division (DISD) of the Commission. Key among these activities include, a permanent ICT HIV/AIDS exhibition, ICT policy training for Ethiopian parliamentarians, and in collaboration with Infodev and CISCO systems, training of women in ICT applications.

The renewed commitment by the GOJ will extend assistance for additional activities, which will promote ICT awareness among policy makers and other development practitioners. In addition to training, ITCA will provide technical support for ICT-enhanced education and networking activities in the region, which support good governance, professional research, knowledge and information sharing and dissemination of the best socio-economic information on Africa.

Further, ITCA will also use the funds to produce and roll out to targeted Ethiopian communities, multimedia-based HIV/AIDS awareness material mounted on touch-screen kiosks. The audios and imagery will be presented in local languages. In the spirit of promoting Open Source software solutions, ITCA will develop an Open Source variant and additional audio and video processing solutions for the multimedia kiosks.

For more information, contact: Makane Faye (mfaye@uneca.org)