PICTA set up by ICT partners to assist in development, follow-up and coordination of the implementation of the African Information Society (AISI). Members of this regional coordinating committee are ECA's institutional partners from the United Nations system, bilateral and non-governmental organizations and representatives from the private sector involved in implementing AISI projects and programmes in Africa.

The following extracts from the report of the donor and executing agency meeting on IT for development in Africa, held from 16 to 18 April 1997, in Rabat, Morocco, provide detailed information on the genesis of PICTA.

[Full Report]

Executive Summary:

Representatives of 17 UN and other development agencies, involved in information and communication technology (ICT) development in Africa, who attended the meeting agreed to establish a forum for donor/executing agencies collaboration within the framework of “Africa’s Information Society Initiative” (AISI), and to set up common information resources on  the Internet for ICT related development activities.

The forum, called PICTA -  Partnership for ICTs in Africa, is open to all  donors and executing agencies, which have substantive programmes or projects in Africa relating to ICTs.

Information on ongoing ICT projects was gathered in advance and updated during the meeting. The initial gathered information is available at Bellanet and this report contains a wealth of additional information about ICT activities in Africa, about the organisations involved and a list of meetings related to ICT in the next six months.

A large number of specific collaborative actions are proposed in Sections 3, 4 and 5 of this report. 

In particular, Bellanet offered to refine the prototype database established before the meeting and to set up a mailing list for PICTA members as well as mailing lists for Special Interest Groups (SIGs) on the different AISI sub-programmes.

In the next few months the use of the proposed information resources will be tried out and evaluated at the next PICTA meeting in Addis Ababa in October 1997.

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3. Summary of results and conclusions

The most important outcome of the meeting was the clear commitment by all agencies to improve information exchange on activities through the establishment of a broader forum for collaboration. In addition it was agreed to set up an information resource accessible via the Internet to provide a single reference point for all ICT related development activities on the continent. (See Section 4 below for details of the proposed mechanisms).

The participants also agreed to provide information as early as possible on projects that were still under discussion so as to enable modification of plans, to create synergy, to avoid duplication of efforts and to ensure complementarity. 

Africa’s Information Society Initiative (AISI) was generally accepted as the framework for collaboration among donor/executing agencies in the field of ICTs in Africa.  Since its adoption in May 1996, the AISI framework has been ‘kick-started’ by the UN Special Initiative on Africa’s Harnessing Information Technology for Development (HITD) programme which is being supported by all UN agencies.

Bellanet has been hosting two mailing lists to support the process - a general mailing list linking actors in the process (AISI-HITD-CL), an AISI/HITD web site and a National Level Connectivity Information for Africa discussion list (NLCI4A-CL), aimed at developing a web based dynamic database on connectivity suppliers (ISPs). This database will also include training information to allow institutions and individuals easy access on information on how to get connected to the Internet and to identify available training opportunities and resources.

The information exchange which took place on existing and planned projects identified a number of  potential areas for collaboration, where coordinated scheduling of activities and distribution of tasks could create synergy. The process also contributed to laying the foundation for the permanent collaboration mechanism referred to above by identifying requirements for information exchange on an ongoing basis. Moreover, the opportunity was taken throughout the event to update the existing inventory of projects, programmes and upcoming events. This updated information is given in various parts of the reports and summarised for some countries in Annex 3.

This information should be continuously updated through the mechanisms proposed in section 4 below.

The discussions of the working groups also resulted in a number of recommendations for actions aimed at improving collaboration at the national level and for developing the necessary human resources (training), which was seen as one of the greatest challenge to exploiting the potential of ICTs (see Sections 4 and 5 below).

It was emphasised that any mechanism for information exchange and collaboration will only work if the participants are convinced that the benefits of collaboration exceed its costs and creates win-win situations.

Some other proposals made during the discussions are: 

• demonstrate the paybacks for allocating the resources to process and make information available, i.e. a mechanism for monitoring the success of collaborative efforts;.
• involve more French speaking and Portuguese speaking actors in the collaboration;
• learn best practices from the private sector;
• provide wider institutional support for Bellanet to allow it to be more effective in its important role in supporting donor collaboration activities;
• develop an integrated training strategy for Africa which takes into account private sector delivery opportunities and is product oriented with clear targets and resource requirements to allow a pledging approach to new projects and programmes;
• establish a mechanisms to monitor and identifying promising new technologies.

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4. Proposals for collaborative mechanisms and other actions

4.1 Mechanism for collaboration at the international (regional) level

4.1.1 Establishment of a broader forum for donor/executing agency collaboration

It was agreed to merge and enlarge the existing fora for collaboration (AIF and ANI), creating a new informal group. To avoid confusion with existing the fora, it was decided to give the this group a new name which was to include references to collaboration in information and communication technologies (ICTs)in Africa. And a variety of new names were proposed. The name of the new group (which was finally selected by voting after the meeting) is PICTA -  Partnership for ICTs in Africa.

Membership in PICTA will be open to all donors and executing agencies which have substantive programmes or projects in Africa and surrounding islands - i.e.,   in any of the member countries of the UN ECA.

New members will be subject to approval of the existing PICTA members. The number of representatives on the forum mailing list from each member organisation should be limited to ensure that all members are clearly aware of precisely who is on the list and that it does not become too nebulous.

It was agreed that the following additional criteria should apply for organisations to qualify as PICTA members.

PICTA members should be organisations who:

• have a strong interest in improving the use of ICT as a tool to improve economic and social development . This interest should be manifested by past and ongoing expenditures or project execution, and commitments made for future activities in this field;
• exercise appropriate transparency in programming, management and reporting about the activities
• are interested in collaborative/co-operative arrangements aiming at complementing and strengthening the initiatives of the group’s partners rather than to finance overlapping or competing initiatives;
• Committed to physically or electronically attend meeting of the group.

PICTA will initially comprise representatives from the agencies attending the Rabat meeting: Agence de la Francophonie (ACCT), Bellanet International Secretariat,  Carnegie Corporation, COMNET-IT Foundation, Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Global Information Infrastructure Commission (GIIC), International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Rockefeller Foundation, Swedish International Development  Cooperation Agency (Sida), US Department of State, USAID, UNDP, UNESCO, WK Kellogg Foundation, World Bank (EDI) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Other organisations invited to the meeting who did not attend are welcome apply for membership (contact any of the participants listed in Annex 1).

Members will work primarily through a new mailing list augmented by web-based information resources which would be established for the group (see 4.1.2 below). PICTA members would also use opportunities for face-to-face meetings where possible, such as international conferences and sub-regional events (see list of events in Annex 2). The next full PICTA meeting will be held 23-25 October in conjunction with the 21-22 October meeting of the African Technical Advisory Committee (ATAC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.