PICTA Bulletin
is a monthly publication that provides information on activities
of members in the Partnership for ICTs in Africa (PICTA), as
well as news on ICT-related activities in Africa.
The fourth meeting
of the Committee on Development Information (CODI IV) took place
from 23 to 28 April 2005, including pre-meeting workshops and
seminars. Under the theme of “Information as an Economic
Resource”, the meeting discussed and recommended strategies
to ECA and member States for harnessing information for economic
growth. Over 400 participants attended the meeting, drawn from
national statistics offices, national libraries, archives and
documentation centers, information and communications technology
agencies, national mapping agencies and other geoinformation
management organizations. More: http://www.uneca.org/codi/codi4/
ECA calls for rapid transition to 'information
economy'
African governments
should commit more strongly to policies that support a sustainable
transition to an information and knowledge economy. That was
the message from the ECA at the opening of "CODI IV".
Speaking at the opening session, ECA's deputy executive secretary
Josephine Ouedraogo said that information as a driver in economic
development has expanded dramatically during the past decade
in line with the shift in parts of the world from an “industrial
society” to an “information society”. For
her part, ECA’s Aida Opoku-Mensah, Officer-in-Charge in
the Development Information Services Division (DISD) urged participants
to investigate, deliberate and document the advantages and returns
of the emerging information and knowledge economy as an economic
resource during the coming days. More: http://www.uneca.org/codi/codi4/
Participation in e-economy will increase
Africa's competitiveness, says Amoako
The participation
of countries in the information economy should be accompanied
by strategies for competitiveness in trade, commerce and investments,
especially for small- and medium-size enterprises, manufacturers,
traders, investors, importers, exporters, bankers, and capital
investors, said the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission
for Africa (ECA), KY Amoako addressing the closing plenary of
CODI IV. In his closing remarks, Amoako endorsed CODI’s
conviction that the information and knowledge sectors are now
the cornerstones of the emerging e-economy. He said that ECA
was working on endowing chairs in Information Economics in African
Universities given the emergence of the information economy.
More: http://www.uneca.org/codi/codi4/
Pre-CODI
Workshops:
ePol-Net
Africa Workshop - Towards an e-economy in Africa: Opportunities
and Challenges
ECA,
CePRC and Industry Canada organized a pre-CODI IV workshop on
Saturday, 23 April 2005 focusing on e-economy. The workshop
reviewed progress made and the challenges ahead in implementing
e-commerce programmes in Africa. The workshop centred on four
major sub-themes: enabling environment, e-economics, stakeholders,
and the role of statistics as a policy instrument with implications
for economic growth, MDGs and poverty reduction; effectiveness
of legal and policy frameworks; infrastructure and human resources
development; and inter, intra-regional and international cooperation.
The presentations dealt with the significance of e-economics
and e-commerce for the continent’s development. More:
Aida Opoku-Mensah (ECA) aopoku-mensah@uneca.org;
Raymond Lepage (Industry Canada) Lepage.Raymond@ic.gc.ca;
Wendy Ace (CePRC) wendy.ace@csps-efpc.gc.ca.
Free
and Open Source Software (FOSS) as an Economic Resource
ECA
and Organization Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) in
collaboration with Free and Open Source Software Foundation
for Africa (FOSSFA) organized the pre-CODI IV workshop on 24
April 2005. The workshop discussed FOSS for harnessing information
as an economic resource, and reviewed some case studies on FOSS
applications in governments and universities. Participants were
also informed about major African events on FOSS such as the
African Conference on Open Source Software (RALL) 2005 and IDLELO
2. Issues of security of FOSS in environments where information
is a key resource, and the need for capacity building of African
FOSS experts so as to have impact on the information economy
were also discussed. In addition, the use of FOSS in public
administration and businesses, and the inclusion of local language
interface in FOSS were also highlighted. The workshop made some
concrete recommendations on the economic values and benefits
of FOSS development in Africa, which were incorporated into
the CODI IV deliberations and recommendations. More: Makane
Faye (ECA) mfaye@uneca.org;
Pierre OUEDRAOGO (OIF) ouedraog@francophonie.org;
Bildad Kagai (FOSSFA) bill@circuitspackets.com.
OTHER NEWS
..... OTHER NEWS .....
OTHER NEWS .....
CATIA
Updates - Policy Debates across Africa
National consultative
fora were held in Senegal, DRC, Ethiopia and Mozambique. A successful
multi-stakeholder French regional workshop took place in Kinshasa
n February to support the development of national ICT policy
advocacy plans. Additional support from the IDRC enabled participants
from Morocco, Niger, and Cameroon to also participate in this
workshop. In Ethiopia, a FOSS network has been established.
In Kenya, a group of civil society and private sector organisations
are working together in a Kenya ICT Network (KICTANET) to engage
with the government on the Draft Kenya ICT policy. In Nigeria,
there has been engagement on policy process for community radio.
More: http://www.catia.ws
African operators identify broadband
connectivity as key to ICT expansion
Participants attending
a high-level conference on broadband access and connectivity
have concluded a three-day conference with a call on infrastructure
suppliers, owners and operators to reduce bandwidth costs in
order to increase access to knowledge on the continent. The
successful completion of The African Broadband Revolution conference,
an event organised by the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation
(CTO) in Sandton, South Africa, heralded the continuation of
the CTO’s global programme of international events, which
are promoting access to cutting-edge ICT knowledge across continents.
More: contact Marcel Belingue at m.belingue@cto.int
or telephone: +44 20 7839 5174.
Third meeting of Working Group on Internet
Governance (WGIG) focus on Internet use, Spam, other key public
policy issues
WGIG,
which met at the United Nations Office in Geneva 18 to 20 April
2005, made headway on assessing the adequacy of present governance
arrangements and started looking at possible recommendations
for future action. Discussions focused on key public policy
issues related to the use of the Internet, such as Spam, network
security and cyber crime, as well as on issues related to the
administration of Internet names and addresses and the root-server
system. Participants agreed that the topic of Spam, while not
yet officially on the international agenda, had to be discussed
as a matter of priority. Various proposals were put forward,
ranging from drafting model legislation to more informal models
of collaboration. More: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/pi1647.doc.htm
4
– 5 May 2005, International Forum on Advancing ICT Solutions
for Development through Cross-Sector Partnerships With a Special
Focus on the Middle East and North Africa, Cairo, Egypt
The
Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) will be organising an International
Forum on cross-sector partnerships for the advancement of Information
and Communication Technologies (ICT) solutions for development.
This event is co-organised by the Ministry of Communications
and Information Technology (Egypt-MCIT) and the American Chamber
of Commerce in Egypt (AmCham), and co-sponsored by the Islamic
Development Bank (IDB), the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation
(SDC) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation
(Sida). The Forum will build on existing experiences, and lead
the way to effective new partnership-based initiatives. A special
focus will be on experiences from the Middle East and North
Africa. About 200 professionals and leaders from business, civil
society, government and research institutions are expected to
attend the Forum. More: http://www.globalknowledge.org
7
– 10 May 2005, The Pan Arab Conference on WSIS- Phase
II; An Arab Dialogue, Cairo, Egypt
The event starts
on 7th May with pre-conference activities such as INET regional
meeting, IPv6 Forum, and Arabic Domain Names meeting (closed).
The main event is from 8 to 10 May 2005, and it will focus on
Internet Governance, funding mechanisms, ICT indicators, e-content,
Arab Working Group meeting (closed), and African Ministerial
meeting (closed). The conference will be held in cooperation
with the League of Arab States, in coordination with the International
Telecommunications Union and WSIS Secretariat. The event is
organized and hosted by the Ministry of Communications and Information
Technology-Egypt. More details regarding the agenda, speakers,
venue, accommodation and other logistics is available on the
event website: http://www.wsis-egypt.gov.eg
11
– 12 May 2005, The 3rd International Workshop on Open
Access, Maputo, Mozambique
The workshop is a collaboration
between the UN ICT Task Force, The KTH IT-University of Stockholm,
the Eduardo Mondlane University, Sida and IDRC and is one of
the deliverables of the United Nations ICT Task Force Working
Group on Low Cost Access and Connectivity. The main theme of
the workshop will be on Open Access solutions, a Pan African
Fibre Backbone, financing models and regulatory environment
for Open Access technologies. The workshop will address open
access technologies in the context of developing regions, in
particular sub-Saharan Africa. More: http://www.openaccess.uem.mz/
11
- 13 May 2005, World Conference on Harnessing the Potential
of ICT for Capacity Building, Paris, France
UNESCO and the Club of Rome
are co-organizing a three-day ”World Conference on Harnessing
the Potential of ICT for Capacity Building” from 11 to
13 May at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France. The event is
one of UNESCO’s thematic meetings in preparation for the
second meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society
(Tunis, Tunisia, 16-18 November 2005). The Conference will discuss
the use of ICTs, including satellites, for capacity-building,
and its key strategic role for achieving the UN Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) and for building knowledge societies. It gives
particular attention to the special needs of marginalized groups
in areas that are not reached by the traditional education systems
but could be given access to new forms of education delivery
through satellite technologies. More: http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=17638&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
16
- 18 May 2005, Symposium on ICTs for development, Brazzaville,
Republic of Congo
Students, researchers,
professors and leaders of community projects, representatives
from government agencies and the private sector will gather
in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, from May 16 until May 18,
2005 for a symposium on the theme of linking research on ICTs
to development. Further details: http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=28009
23
- 24 June 2005, WSIS Thematic Meeting on Multi-stakeholder Partnerships
for Bridging the Digital Divide, Seoul, Republic of Korea
This meeting examines
how governments, the private sector, civil society and international
organizations can work together to help to bridge the digital
divide. Separate sessions will examine the need for a multi-stakeholder
approach, country case studies of successful partnerships, measuring
the digital divide, technologies for helping to bridge the gap
and other ways of overcoming barriers. More: http://www.itu.int/wsis/preparatory2/thematic.html
30
June - 1 July 2005, International Symposium on Intellectual
Property (IP) Education and Research, Geneva, Switzerland
The Symposium is
intended to provide a forum in which discussion on IP education
and IP research could be further developed and advanced. It
will be held at the headquarters of the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO). More: http://www.wipo.int/academy/en/meetings/iped_sym_05/
ANNOUNCEMENTS .....ANNOUNCEMENTS .....
Announcing
new initiative from APC: "Community Wireless"
The APC’s “Community
Wireless Connectivity” project is looking to connect communities
who don’t yet have Internet access in Africa by supporting
them with skills to build their own wireless networks. The project
covers the development of training materials and workshops that
will be localised for different environmental, regulatory, language
and climatic conditions. With four regional workshops in Africa
in 2005, APC will be training up to 100 possible future trainers
and producing materials in English, French and Arabic. More:
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=32071
or contact Anna Feldman (anna@gn.apc.org)
for more information.
Winners announced for second
round of GenARDIS Small Grants Fund - more than 310 nominations
received
The GenARDIS small
grants fund was initiated in 2002 by CTA, IICD and IDRC, to
support work on gender-related issues in ICTs for ACP agricultural
and rural development. In 2004, Hivos joined the team of sponsoring
organisations in time for the second round of the programme.
The fund supporters are pleased to announce that the selection
of Round 2 GenARDIS grant winners has been completed. As in
Round 1, the response was overwhelming, with more than 310 submissions
received in a period of 2 months. This provides a clear indication
that there still is a real need for support in the field of
Gender and Agriculture in the Information Society. More: http://www.iicd.org/articles/iicdnews.2005-04-28.1289346429
Uganda ICT Journalism Awards
I-Network and IICD
reward insightful print/web, broadcasting and photo reportages
of ICT issues. I-Network Uganda and IICD have organised the
Uganda ICT Journalism Awards to reward insightful reportage
of ICTs, which shows a clear grasp of ICT issues by writers
and manages to succinctly link ICTs to human development. For
each draw, a single prize will be offered in each of the following
categories: Print/Web, Broadcasting (TV/radio), and Photo. The
winner in each category shall get a prize equivalent of US$200
that will be offered in cash or in kind and that may vary from
draw to draw. There will be three draws every year, covering
the periods January-April, May- August, and September-December.
Entries should be received by April 15, August 15 and December
15 for the respective draws. The winners will be announced by
May 10, September 10 and January 10. More: http://www.i-network.or.ug/
OR http://www.iicd.org/
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