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.
A number of activities
are underway coordinated by various PICTA members to ensure
Africa’s active participation in the second phase of the
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS 2005) which will
be held from 16 – 18 November 2005 in Tunis, Tunisia.
Events organized by ECA and its partners:
Monday, 14 November
2005
* SDC-IDRC Meeting:
"What's Next After WSIS?”
* Promoting African Research and Education Networking (PAREN),
Association of African Universities/IDRC/Other partners, 8:30
– 17:00 hrs
Tuesday 15 November
2005
* Promoting African
Research and Education Networking (PAREN), Association of African
Universities/IDRC/Other partners, 8:30 – 17:00 hrs
* Workshop on Measuring the Information Society, 9:00 –
17:00 hrs in partnership with UN Regional Commissions, UNCTAD,
UN ICT TF, UNESCO, ITU, OECD, etc.
* Telecenter Leaders Forum – The Grassroots experience,
12:00 – 14:00 organized by IDRC
* ECA/IICD iConnect Africa launch
Wednesday 16
November 2005
* UN Regional Commissions
Roundtable 1 - Regional Perspectives for the Global Information
Society, 14:00 – 15:30 hrs, coordinated by ECA
* UN Regional Commissions Roundtable 2 - Promoting the participation
of women in the Information Society and the knowledge-based
economy, 16:00 – 17:30 hrs, coordinated by ESCWA
* AU-ECA Discussion on Regional Plan of Action, 9:00 - 10:30
hrs
* ePolNet Africa (Industry Canada-ECA) Event, 10:30 - 12:00
hrs
* Telecenter Leaders Forum – The Grassroots experience,
16:00 – 18:00 organized by IDRC
* Partnership announcement, organized by ECA and AU, 17:00 hrs
Thursday 17
November 2005
* ECA/GKP Africa
Events
- Panel on “Empowering African Youth Social Entrepreneurs”,
17 November 2005, 10:00 – 13:30 hrs
- GKP Panel on " Financing Knowledge in Africa" with
ECA, AU, NEPAD, ADB and SDC, 18 November 2005, 14:00 –
15:30 hrs
- Demonstration on Addis Ababa University (AAU) VarsityNet project
on “development of multi-lingual content management system”
- Demonstration on ECA’s Virtual Learning Academy (vLAC)
* Telecenter.org launch, organized by IDRC, 14:00 – 16:00
hrs
Friday 18 November
2005
* ECA/GKP Africa
Events
- GKP Panel on " Financing Knowledge in Africa" with
ECA, AU, NEPAD, ADB and SDC, 18 November 2005, 14:00 –
15:30 hrs
- GKP EXCOMM meeting, 18 November 2005, 18:00 – 20:00
hrs
* Telecenter Leaders Forum – The Grassroots experience,
10:00 – 12:00 organized by IDRC
Other Events:
* AAU Conference
on African Research and Education Networking, 14 – 15
November 2005
* Egypt's Success Story in Using the Debt Swap as a Funding
Mechanism for ICT, Economic Research Forum, 16 November 2005,
13:00 – 15:00 hrs
* La dynamique Technopolitaine et sa contribution à l’émergence
d’une industrie TIC, Pôle El Gazala des Technologies
de la Communication en collaboration avec Marseille Innovation,
CEA, TMI, 2CW, 16 November 2005, 17 :00 – 19 :00 hrs
* Eradicating rural poverty by connecting rural communities,
IFAD, 16 November 2005, 9:00 – 11:00 hrs
* Using Public Private Partnerships as a Mechanism for Development"
with a special emphasis on Innovation and e-content, MCIT, Egypt,
17 November 2005, 11:00 – 13:00 hrs.
In addition, ECA
will setup an exhibition at the ICT4all Exhibition (http://www.ict4all-tunis.org/)
to showcase and demonstrate the various services and products
of its harnessing ICTs for development programme. Its exhibits
include several ICT for development resources and outputs of
its activities in building national capacities of member States
in the use of ICTs for accelerated and sustainable development.
ECA’s exhibition stand (#1307.3) is located in the development
and solidarity quarter.
ECA
and SDC organizing a better media coverage during the WSIS 2005
ECA
and the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) are collaborating
to work with a group of African journalists, comprising of print
and online writers from Highway Africa News Agency (HANA) and
radio broadcasters from the World Association of Community Broadcasters
(AMARC) Africa, to report on Africa’s participation at
the Summit. The main focus of this activity will be to promote
African Information Society rapportage, predicated upon in-depth
analysis of critical issues arising from the WSIS process, and
in particular, issues that concern Africa’s role and participation
and the future of its emerging information society. The WSIS
process in Tunis will be an important landmark in the growth
and capacity of the journalists who would form the “WSIS
Africa Agenda Newspaper” team and the onsite radio journalists
from AMARC. The strategic partnership between ECA, SDC, HANA
journalists and AMARC is instrumental in broadening the dissemination
of the WSIS deliberations beyond ECA’s and SDC’s
partners and audience. By engaging them, ECA and SDC will be
tapping into a growing network of African media in alternative
online, print and electronic media, as well as mainstream private
sector and government media in Africa. More: Mercy Wambui (mwambui@uneca.org).
Global Center for ICT in Parliament
to be launched at Tunis
This is an initiative
that the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United
Nations (UN/DESA), in collaboration with the United Nations
Information and Communication Technologies Task Force, intends
to launch at the World Summit on the Information Society. The
Centre will be launched during a panel Governance, Global Citizenship
and Technology: the Role of Parliaments in the Information Society.
This event, organized by the ICT Task Force and UN/DESA, will
be held on Wednesday, 16 November 2005, at 11:00 a.m., at the
Kram Centre in Tunis. The objective of this initiative is to
contribute to the empowerment of legislatures around the world
to better fulfill their democratic functions by reinforcing
capacity of Parliaments to use ICT tools and to place them at
the service of the institutional process, citizens’ access
to parliamentary activities, and inter-parliamentary cooperation.
More: Gherardo Casini (casini@un.org).
http://www.unicttaskforce.org/
Scan-ICT
Phase II launching workshops planned for The Gambia and Cameroon
ECA and the Governments
of The Gambia and Cameroon are planning to launch the second
phase of the Scan-ICT project soon. The workshop in The Gambia
will be organized from 8 – 9 November and the one in Cameroon
will be from 5 – 6 December 2005. Scan-ICT programme was
launched in November 2000 as a collaborative project between
the Acacia programme of the International Development Research
Centre (IDRC) and ECA, with financial support from the European
Union (EU) and the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation
(NORAD). The programme monitors the penetration, impact and
effectiveness of ICT applications in pilot countries across
Africa, providing added value to the AISI implementation at
the national, regional and global levels. The countries selected
to participate in the second phase of Scan-ICT with support
from the Government of Finland include Cameroon, Ethiopia, The
Gambia, Ghana, Mauritius, Mozambique, Rwanda, Swaziland and
Tunisia. More: http://www.uneca.org/aisi/scanict.htm
Study
on e-commerce in North Africa
As a follow-up of the Pan-African
E-commerce Initiative (PECI), initiated in collaboration with
the International Development Research Center (IDRC), ECA is
conducting a study on e-commerce in North Africa with the financial
support of the Government of Canada through the ePolicy Resource
Network (ePol-Net) initiative. The study is also a follow-up
to a recommendation made by the workshop on ICT and development
of exchanges between the countries of the UMA organized in Tangier
on 1-3 March 2005. The objective is to assess the status of
e-commerce development in North Africa, identify new trends,
challenges and opportunities and examine the feasibility of
launching of a sub-regional e-commerce platform, which facilitates
e-commerce activities within the sub-region. More: Mohammed
Timoulali (mtimoulali@uneca.org).
VarsityNet
II Project Review Meeting
Following the successful
completion of the activities of VarsityNet II, a meeting was
held on 25 October 2005 at Makerere University, Uganda to review
the project and agree on the way forward. Generally, the second
phase of VarsityNet has scaled up on research and development
activities, and the knowledge and expertise accumulated during
the first phase has been applied to a wider context. Through
this phase, participating universities and their management,
as the user of information, have gained an understanding of
the impact of computer information systems on universities’
administration and society at large. The working group including
the Inter-University Council for East Africa, the IUCEA member
institutions (Makerere University, University of Dar es Salaam)
and ECA assessed progress made and demonstrated the software
prototype developed. More: Thierry Amoussougbo (tamoussougbo@uneca.org).
Internet
discussion forum on Open Course Content for higher education
UNESCO International
Institute for Educational Planning convened an Internet discussion
forum on Open Course Content for higher education from 24 October
2 December 2005. More: http://www.unesco.org/iiep/virtualuniversity/forums.php
ITU:
West African regulators agree on common regulatory framework
Regulators from
fifteen West African nations have agreed to a common regulatory
framework for their national ICT markets. The agreement marks
a significant step forward for West Africa, which is seeking
to create a single market based on the European Union model.
More: http://www.itu.int/newsroom/press_releases/2005/12.html
National
ICT policies and strategies: regulation and public access to
support dialogue among multi-stakeholders
This workshop was
held from 17 to 18 October 2005 in Dakar, Senegal. It was organized
by the ECA, the French-speaking Institute of New Information
and Communication Technologies (INTIF) as well as the governments
of Canada and France, in the framework of the global e-Policy
Resource Network (ePol-Net). The principal objective of the
workshop was to reinforce the capacities of decision makers
from French-speaking countries of West Africa in the development
of policies and national strategies related to ICT access, through
facilitating dialogue among regulators, lawyers, legislators,
public decision makers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and
representatives of regional organizations. More: http://www.epolafrica.org/psntic/
OTHER NEWS
..... OTHER NEWS .....
OTHER NEWS .....
The
Ghana Internet Exchange (GIX) launched
On Tuesday 18th
October 2005, the entire Internet fraternity in Ghana gathered
at the Ghana India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in the company
of the Hon. Minister of Communication and the French Ambassador
to Ghana to officially launch the Ghana Internet eXchange. The
Ghana Internet eXchange (GIX) is the facility, which keeps Ghanaian
Internet traffic in Ghana. GIX allows local Internet Service
Providers and Network Operators to easily exchange traffic within
Ghana, while improving connectivity and services for their customers.
More: http://www.gixa.org.gh
SANGONeT
launches South African NGO portal
The Southern African
NGO Network (SANGONeT) has launched a new Internet portal for
and about the NGO sector in South Africa. This portal is primed
to become the gateway to the South African NGO sector, boasting
the most comprehensive, validated and easily searchable NGO
directory in the country, containing information about more
than 2 500 organisations. This directory is augmented by wide
ranging and diverse information for and about the NGO sector,
including general news, press releases, campaigns, vacancies,
event calendars, case studies, toolkits and research reports.
More: http://www.sangonet.org
Media
silence on ICT policy issues in six African countries
Researchers at Rhodes
University in South Africa conducted a study to gauge the quality
of media coverage of contemporary ICT policy issues in policy-influential
media in Africa. The report includes country studies from in-country
research conducted in Kenya, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic
of Congo, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Senegal. The authors found
that the media in general show little interest in ICTs. Ethiopia
was the only country that showed a significant amount of coverage
during the study period, including letters to the editor. In
all of the media monitored, ICT coverage – whether in
an ICT excerpt or in the main newspaper – showed no analysis
or critique of ICTs or the ICT sector, pointing to a lack of
understanding in the media of ICT policy issues in general.
More: http://www.eldis.org/cf/search/disp/DocDisplay.cfm?Doc=DOC19292&resource=f1ict
The
Zambian Chawama Youth Project brings life skills to local youth
and women through ICTs
Situated in the
heart of Lusakas Chawama Township, the Chawama Youth Project
has purposed to change the lives of youth once dormant into
viable self-reliant and respectable people. More: http://www.iicd.org/articles/iicdnews.2005-10-14.1728774469
Computer
Network to Link 600,000 African Schools – Report
At least 600,000
schools in Africa will be connected to one another via a computer
network that can help African kids catch up with latest development
of science and technology, Xinhua reported. The first phase
of the programme would be rolled out in 20 countries including
South Africa, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Uganda, Mali
and Cameroon, South Africa's government news agency BuaNews
said on 25 October 2005. More: http://allafrica.com/stories/200510270430.html
Africa
Source II - Free and open source software for local communities
Africa Source II
will be an eight-day hands-on workshop aimed at building the
technical skills of those working with and within NGOs on the
continent. The workshop will take place in Kalangala, Uganda
- Jan 08-Jan 15, 2006. More: http://www.tacticaltech.org/africasource2
2
- 4 November 2005, Workshop on Harmonization of ICT policies
and regulatory frameworks in ECOWAS, Accra, Ghana
The main objectives
of the workshop is to discuss and set a framework for the development
of a harmonized ICT policy and strategy in the ECOWAS sub region.
The strategy will include the promotion of ICT usage for regional
economic integration, enhancement of connectivity and access
to ICT services among and within the member States and development
of applications and content for the sub-region, while encouraging
public-private partnerships. More: Mohammed Timoulali (mtimoulali@uneca.org).
3
November 2005, Fill-the-Gap III - inspired by the World Summit
on the Information Society, The Hague, The Netherlands
For the third time
Hivos, Oneworld Netherlands and IICD present: Fill-the-Gap!
This public event is focused on themes related to the UN summits
on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva (2003) and Tunis
(November 2005). Through provoking statements interesting guest
speakers – and the audience – will discuss whether
the right to information is in fact a human right, and to what
extent e-governance indeed contributes to democracy. At the
‘ICT4D exhibition’ visitors will find a wide variety
of activities, where they can see, hear and experience what
the ‘Information Society’ means in practice. More:
http://www.iicd.org
4
- 5 November 2005, International conference Preserving the Digital
Heritage, The Hague, The Netherlands
The Netherlands
National Commission for UNESCO and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek,
National Library of the Netherlands, organise an international
conference 'Preserving the Digital Heritage: Principles and
Policies', which will be held in The Hague, Friday 4 November
and Saturday 5 November 2005.The conference is focusing on issues
of interest for higher management in libraries, archives and
museums, and other policy makers in the field of information
and culture. The programme and registration form can be downloaded
from: http://www.unesco.nl/main_6-3.php
7 – 11 November 2005,
Human Resources for Information and Communication Technologies
(HR4ICT), Tront, Canada
Organized by the
Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization (CTO), the event
will gather Human Resources experts from telecoms and other
ICT organizations to share views and adopt solutions for continuous
provision and upgrade of their human capital and skills profiles
in a constantly changing technological environment. More: http://www.cto.int/hr4ict/
10
-11 November 2005, Libraries – the Information Society
in Action, Alexandria, Egypt
This is a WSIS side
event, which is organized by the International Federation of
Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) in cooperation
with the Bibliotheca Alexandria and supported by several sponsors.
The side event will present some of the best practices from
libraries around the world in the areas of health, education
and training, media literacy, preservation of cultural heritage
and disaster preparedness. More: http://www.bibalex.org/wsisalex/
13
– 15 November 2005, Past, Present, and Future of Research
in the Information Society, Tunis, Tunisia
This event will
examine the role of research and the production of knowledge
in the information society, with special emphasis on developing
areas of the world. Core issues of the conference lie at the
intersection of Science and Engineering, Information and Communication
Technologies, and Development. More: http://worldsci.net/
15
– 18 November 2005, Telecentre Leaders Forum @ ICT4all
in Kram WSIS Tunis
IDRC’s telecentre.org program in conjunction with its
partners is organizing a Telecentre Leaders Forum at the World
Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), Tunis in November
2005. The Forum is meant to provide a unique opportunity for
telecentre practitioners, policy makers and researchers to learn,
share and collaborate in advancing effectiveness and social
impact of telecentres around the world. The Forum will consist
of four 2-hour sessions focusing at the grassroots’ experience;
creating stronger Telecentre leaders; creating a Telecentre
tipping point; and the future of Telecentres. IDRC’s telecentre.org
program, through GKP, is specifically sponsoring full participation
of 16 telecentre and community technology practitioners from
Africa, Asia and Latin America with unique and or inspiring
stories/experiences in telecentre and community use of ICT.
telecentre.org is an IDRC innovative public/private partnership
program partnering with Microsoft Corporation Unlimited Potential
Program, The Education Development Centre and the Global Knowledge
Partnership. More: http://www.telecentre.org/
16
– 18 November 2005, World Summit on the Information Society
(WSIS) 2nd Phase, Tunis, Tunisia
The road to Tunis entails a process of monitoring and evaluation
of the progress of feasible actions laid out in the Geneva Plan
and a concrete set of deliverables that must be achieved by
the time the Summit meets again in Tunis in November 2005. Efforts
are now being made to put the Plan of Action into motion and
working groups are being set up to find solutions and reach
agreements in the fields of Internet governance and financing
mechanisms. These working groups will provide inputs to the
second phase of WSIS in Tunis. Also, measures will be taken
to bridge the digital divide and hasten the achievement of the
Millennium Development Goals with the help of ICTs. More: http://www.itu.int/wsis/
11
– 14 December 2005, AfriNIC Third Public Policy Meeting,
Cairo, Egypt
This meeting, which is part of AfriNIC’s policy development
process, is its second meeting for 2005. It will be held back
to back with the first African IPv6 event (hosted by the Egyptian
IPv6 Forum). The sessions include LIR training (English), IPv6
Hands on Workshop, African IPv6 meeting, and AfriNIC public
policy meeting. The meeting will be held at Mena House Oberoi,
Pyramids Road, Giza, Egypt. More: http://www.afrinic.net/meeting/afrinic-3/
19
- 21 December 2005, Workshop on convergence of technologies
and impact on regulation in Central Africa, Douala, Cameroon
The workshop aims at assessing the ICT regulation in the sub
region, and proposing a suitable regulatory framework to contribute
to the socioeconomic development in CEMAC sub region. More:
Mohammed Timoulali (mtimoulali@uneca.org).
ANNOUNCEMENTS .....ANNOUNCEMENTS .....
GOLDEN
BOOK: Stakeholder Commitments
Following the initiative announced at PrepCom-2, and based on
the decision of the WSIS Bureau, the Executive Secretariat and
ITU invites submissions concerning new commitments that stakeholders
have announced, or are planning to announce, during the Tunis
Phase of the WSIS. The intention is to create a “golden
book” to promote these new commitments to the media in
a way that will complement those initiatives already underway,
as recorded in the WSIS stocktaking database. More: http://www.itu.int/wsis/goldenbook/index.html
Help
for summiteers: WSIS Wire
WSIS WIRE is an independent news service offering an updated
survey of news and blog posts concerning the World Summit on
the Information Society. The survey is categorized by language
(English, French, German), topic, region and publication type.
More: http://www.wsis-wire.net
MDG
monitoring and reporting: a review of good practices
This booklet, based on a review of 98 national Millennium Development
Goal reports, presents good practices in MDG Monitoring and
Reporting. By highlighting country level examples from the national
MDG reports, it serves as a guideline for countries to produce
high quality MDG reports and to strengthen MDG monitoring systems.
More: http://www.undp.org/poverty/docs/mdgr-final-report.pdf
i-Witness:
Journalists shaping the information society
Journalists looking for free, up-to-date resources, news and
debate on the information society can get all this and more
on a new website, i-Witness. The i-Witness website is being
launched by Panos London ahead of the final stage of the World
Summit on the Information Society (Tunisia, 16-18 November 2005),
and aims to help journalists worldwide get to grips with many
controversial but often under-reported information society topics
– from bridging the digital divide to controlling the
internet. More: http://www.panos.org.uk/iwitness
Archives:
(Note:
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