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.
Connect
Africa Summit adopts five goals to bridge the digital divide
in Africa
The
Connect Africa Summit which took place in Kigali, Rwanda, on
29 - 30 October 2007, ended with the adoption of five goals
to bridge the digital divide in Africa. The Summit, which was
held under the patronage of the President of Rwanda, Mr. Paul
Kagame, gathered over a thousand participants from 54 countries,
including six Heads of State and Governments. Forty-three countries
in Africa were represented, including 23 at the Ministerial
level. Twenty leading companies also participated along with
Development Banks, International organizations and other stakeholders.
The UN Under Secretary General for Economic Affairs, Mr. Sha
Zukang, represented the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and
Mrs. Lalla Ben Barka, the Deputy Executive Secretary of ECA,
represented the Executive Secretary, Mr. Abdoulie Janneh. The
following five Connect Africa Goals were adopted at the end
of the Summit:
• Goal 1: Interconnect
all African capitals and major cities with ICT broadband infrastructure
and strengthen connectivity to the rest of the world by 2012.
• Goal 2: Connect
African villages to broadband ICT services by 2015 and implement
shared access initiatives such as community telecentres and
village phones.
• Goal 3: Adopt
key regulatory measures that promote affordable, widespread
access to a full range of broadband ICT services, including
technology and service neutral licensing/authorization practices,
allocating spectrum for multiple, competitive broadband wireless
service providers, creating national Internet Exchange Points
(IXPs) and implementing competition in the provision of international
Internet connectivity.
• Goal 4: Support
the development of a critical mass of ICT skills required by
the knowledge economy, notably through the establishment of
a network of ICT Centres of Excellence in each sub-region of
Africa and ICT capacity-building and training centres in each
country, with the aim of achieving a broad network of inter-linked
physical and virtual centres, while ensuring coordination between
academia and industry by 2015.
• Goal 5: Adopt
a national e-strategy, including a cyber security framework,
and deploy at least one flagship e-government service as well
as e-education, e-commerce and e-health services using accessible
technologies in each country in Africa by 2012, with the aim
of making multiple e-government and other e-services widely
available by 2015.
To
help achieve these goals, many participants announced major
commitments on the occasion of the Connect Africa Summit, totalling
approximately US$55 Billion. The meeting was organized by the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the African Union,
the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the World Bank Group,
the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID),
the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Telecommunication
Union (ATU) and the Global Digital Solidarity Fund. More: http://www.uneca.org/eca_resources/news/2007/main071106ConnectAfrica.htm
Connect
Africa Summit: Capacity Building, Applications and Services
During
the two-day Summit, delegates participated in a series of interactive
sessions, debating issues related to the themes of broadband
ICT networks, rural connectivity, capacity building, applications
and services, and the enabling environment. ECA and GAID were
in charge of the panel on “Capacity Building, Applications
and Services”. The objective of the Connect Africa Summit
was to mobilize the human, financial and technical resources
required to bridge major gaps in ICT infrastructure across the
continent, with the aim of supporting affordable connectivity
and applications and services to stimulate economic growth,
employment and development throughout Africa. In doing so, the
Summit also aimed to help accelerate the implementation of the
connectivity goals of the World Summit on the Information Society
(WSIS) and in turn, support the achievement of the UN Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa, building on and reinforcing
existing activities, such as the African Information Society
Initiative (AISI), the NEPAD Short Term Action Plan on Infrastructure
and the African Regional Action Plan on Knowledge Economy (ARAPKE).
To prepare for the Summit, ECA in cooperation with the Canadian
e-Policy Resource Centre (CePRC) and in partnership with the
African Union, the Internet Society, ICANN and the Open Society
for Southern Africa, organized two parallel workshops respectively
on “Regulation and Public Access” and “ Internet
Governance” on 24-25 October which were attended by over
100 policymakers and stakeholders from member States. The workshops
adopted a series of recommendations, which were tabled at a
Ministerial Meeting of African Governments held on 26 October.
More: http://www.uneca.org/eca_resources/news/2007/main071106ConnectAfrica.htm
UNESCO
and Library of Congress sign agreement for World Digital Library
UNESCO and the US Library of Congress will join forces to build
a World Digital Library, following the signing of an agreement
by Abdul Waheed Khan, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General
for Communication and Information, and the Librarian of Congress
James H. Billington, at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 17 October
2007. The World Digital Library initiative will digitize unique
and rare materials from libraries and other cultural institutions
around the world and make them available free of charge on the
Internet. These materials include manuscripts, maps, books,
musical scores, sound recordings, films, prints and photographs.
The World Digital Library initiative has been designed to promote
international and inter-cultural understanding, increase the
quality and diversity of cultural content on the Internet, and
contribute to education and scholarship. Under the terms of
the agreement, the Library of Congress and UNESCO will cooperate
in convening working groups of experts and other stakeholders
to develop guidelines and technical specifications for the project,
enlisting new partners, and securing support from private and
public sources. A key aspect of the project is to build digital
library capabilities in developing countries so that all countries
and all regions can participate and be represented in the World
Digital Library. The project pursues work already undertaken
by UNESCO’s Memory of the World programme which seeks
to preserve documentary heritage. More: http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=25521&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
New
Chairman of ICANN Elected Unanimously
Peter Dengate Thrush, a New Zealand lawyer, has been elected
unanimously as the new Chairman of the Board of the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Peter practices
civil litigation, specializing in intellectual property, competition,
and Internet law. He has been involved in ICANN since its inception.
As a member of the Boston Working Group, he provided comment
in 1998 on the early drafts of the ICANN bylaws, and he co-chaired
one of the pre-formation meetings of the Intellectual Property
Constituency in Wellington, New Zealand. He has been President
of InternetNZ, a leader of the country code Top Level Domain
(ccTLD) community in the formation of the ccNSO, and was selected
as a Board member after an international vote of ccTLD managers
in the ccNSO in December 2004. He is currently on the President's
Strategy, Board Finance, Board Governance, and Executive committees.
The Board also unanimously re-elected Roberto Gaetano as Deputy
Chair. Gaetano was selected by the 2006 Nominating Committee
to serve as a Board Member. More: http://www.icann.org/documents/vint_cerf/lttf.htm
Participants
call for a scaling up of policy implementation activities
Over forty African policymakers and other stakeholders reached
consensus on the need to move from policy development to implementation
as most countries had developed policies which remained unimplemented
for various reasons. The participants urged the ECA and its
partners to continue supporting this process to ensure that
benefits from the Information Society are realized. This was
one of the major outcomes of a two-day expert group meeting
organised by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), in the
framework of the Global E-policy Resource Network (e-PolNet)
in partnership with the Canadian e-Policy Resource Centre (CePRC)
and the Open Society for Southern Africa (OSISA). It is organised
under the theme “National ICT Policies: Regulation and
Public and Community-based Access” for Eastern, Western
and Southern English-speaking African Countries and is being
held at the Alpha-Palace Hotel in Kigali, Rwanda from 24-25
October 2007. This meeting is the third of its kind in Africa
jointly organized by ECA and its partners, following two previous
meetings in Douala, Cameroon and Dakar, Senegal for Francophone
participants. The current meeting is unique in that the delegates
will also have the opportunity to participate in two major events:
the "Consultation on Internet Governance" to be held
on 28th and 29th of October 2007 as a preparatory meeting to
the Rio IGF Conference and the “Connect Africa Summit”,
which will be held on 29th and 30th of October 2007. Participants
include representatives of local authorities, NICI focal points,
regulators, cyber café managers, ISPs, civil society,
private sector, women and youth entrepreneurs, the key players
in the formulation and implementation of access related ICT
policies and strategies. More: http://www.uneca.org/istd/news/2007102601_dna_istd_en.asp
Development
of a Rural Electronic Schools Model in African Languages (ERELA),
in primary school in Cameroon
Teaching and learning of local language in Cameroon educational
systems have started 25 years ago under the initiative “Operational
Research Program for Language Education in Cameroon/Programme
Opérationnel d’Enseignement des Langues au Cameroun
(PROPELCA)”, led by the National Association of Cameroonian
Language Committees (NACALCO). More than 38 national languages
have been successfully taught in primary schools. The NACALCO
team, composed of more than 15 university lecturers, is conducting
the ERELA implementation in the Primary Schools of Obout and
Metsah Villages. The global objective of the ERELA project is
to experiment, during a period of three years, a computational
teaching and learning program of two Cameroon national languages
in the two villages. The computer-based language learning systems
have been implemented in the two villages and are used for language
learning and teaching and for teachers and the community training
in ICT. The project, supported by the Government of Finland,
is in the framework of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)
Academia Research Networks (ARN) launched to support R&D
in African Universities for the purposes of enhancing the role
of academia (academics and institutions) in building Africa
Information Society. More: Thierry Amoussougbo (tamoussougbo@uneca.org).
OTHER NEWS .....
OTHER NEWS .....
OTHER NEWS .....
Civil
society calls for new governance to make Internet accessible
to Africans
Civil society calls for new governance to make Internet accessible
to Africans. Convened by the Association for Progressive Communications
(APC) on the 28th of October 2007, civil society groups have
called for new forms of corporate governance to develop the
ICT infrastructure in Africa. These new forms should “ensure
the interests of all stakeholders, but above all, the interest
of African consumers and citizens,” the statement insists.
The Kigali statement by African civil society delegates, academicians,
researchers, consumer interest groups, and Internet service
providers is made in light of the Connect Africa Summit that
took place in Kigali from 29 – 30 October 2007. The African
civil society welcomes the continued investment but asserts
that it needs to be further encouraged through the implementation
of a stable policy environment that protects the public interest.
The statement recommends twelve improvements to stimulate the
development of Internet and ICT infrastructure. Among them,
it calls for governments to support the harmonisation of policy
and regulation to develop and implement cross border connectivity.
This means giving equal priority to the deployment of national
backhaul networks and international access networks. The statement
encourages governments to commit to supporting the development
of national data, citizen-centred services and applications
by themselves becoming key providers of content and implementing
initiatives that attract organisations engaged in content and
application development that improve access to education and
healthcare. The joint statement was issued on behalf of the
Association for Progressive Communications (APC), the Open Society
Institute for West Africa (OSIWA), Collaboration for ICT Policy
in Eastern and Southern Africa (CIPESA), the Kenyan ICT Action
Network (KICTANet), the African Internet Service Providers Associations
(AfrISPA), and the Rwanda Research and Education Network (RERN).
More: http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=5262405
East
Africa: Reform taxation laws on Telecommunications
In a report released by Deloitte, East African mobile operators
loose a third of their revenues to governments by way of taxes
and other government tariffs. The Deloitte study suggests that
if Rwanda for example goes on to impose the proposed 10 percent
excise tax on mobile telephones, it would have the second highest
tax rate in Africa, behind Uganda. The 2006 - 2007 Deloitte
study dubbed, 'Taxation and the Growth of Mobile Phone in East
Africa' indicates that taxation of mobile consumers in East
Africa continues to soar and that it is now almost twice the
17.4 percent global average. The study, the second of a series
commissioned by the global trade association for mobile phone
operators, in collaboration with GSM Africa says that East Africans
pay taxes of between 25 percent and 30 percent on mobile phone
services, compared with an average of 17 percent across Africa.
According to this study, 2006 saw the mobile industry accounting
for a 5 percent of Kenya's GDP, 3.5 percent of Rwanda's GDP,
4.6 percent of Tanzania's GDP and 3.6 percent of Uganda's GDP.
In 2006, the mobile industry's GDP contribution in East Africa
ranged between 4 percent and 5 percent and the industry employed
around 500,000 people in all the four East African countries.
Other highlights from this study show that while 70 percent
of East Africans have access to mobile networks, only 12 percent
are connected. It also says that with only 100,000 mobile payphones
in East Africa, mobile services account for more than 93 percent
of the total telecom. More: http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/internet/44217
13
– 15 November 2007, Regional Conference on "Sharing
experience on best practices in ICT services for persons with
disabilities", Cairo, Egypt
This is the first Conference in the Arab Region organised by
ITU, in cooperation with the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern
Mediterranean (EMRO) on "Sharing experience on best practices
in ICT services for persons with disabilities". The Conference
will take place in Cairo, Egypt, 13 -15 November 2007, under
the auspices of the Ministry of ICT of the Government of Egypt
and H.E. the Minister Dr. Tarek Kamel. The Conference is open
to administrators, policy makers, regulators, and all industries
involved in the development of dedicated ICT for persons with
disabilities in addition to physicians and doctors from the
Medical Sector. The main objective of the Conference is to create
a global awareness on the importance of accessibility by all,
including persons with disabilities, to ICT. More: http://www.ituarabic.org/2007/Disabilities/index.htm
20
– 21 November 2007, ICT4All Forum Tunis+2 on PPPs in ICTs,
Hammamet, Tunisia
At the occasion of the Second anniversary of the second phase
of the World Summit on the Information Society held in Tunis
in November 2005, the Tunisian Government, in partnership with
the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development, Global
Alliance for ICT and Development, The African Development Bank,
and Tunisian Union for Industry, Commerce and Handicraft, will
organize the second edition ICT 4 All Forum-Tunis+2 in order
to address the development of activities related to Public Private
Partnership in ICTs. The event includes a forum and a technological
exhibition and gathers high-level personalities among decision
makers, government officials, and representatives from the business
community, potential investors as well as international experts
and participants from leading companies operating in this field.
The program will include, in addition to the ministerial panel,
four other thematic panels with the participation of eminent
speakers (ministers, CEOs, international experts). The event
will build up on the remarkable success of last year's Forum,
which was attended by 13 African Ministers, President of the
African Development Bank, leaders from the private sector and
more than 600 high level participants. For its 2007 edition,
ICT4ALL Forum-Tunis+2 will focus on the public-private partnerships
as a tool for the development of ICT sector, particularly in
Africa. More: http://www.ict4allforum.tn
28
– 30 November 2007, The Fourth Web for Development (Web4Dev)
Conference, Nairobi, Kenya
The Conference’s theme is “Driving economic and
social development with the Internet”, and will focus
on helping developing countries bridge the digital divide. Since
its inception at a Conference organised by the World Bank in
2003, the Web for Development meetings are now well established
as a forum for the web community of UN agencies, and international
development civil society organisations interested in using
their expertise to show how the Internet can promote development.
The three Conferences already held have evolved to include not
only the public sector, but the private sector as well. More:
http://www.unhabitat.org/categories.asp?catid=546
10
– 11 December 2007, Workshop on Harmonised ICT Legal Framework
for West Africa, Lome, Togo
With the objective of building the Information Society within
the West Africa sub-region with particular reference to the
intra sub-regional trade liberalization and facilitation, including
e-commerce, the ECA is collaborating with the Economic Community
of West African States (ECOWAS) and Union Economique et Monétaire
Ouest Africaine (UEMOA) to develop a harmonised legal framework
for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for West
Africa. In this context, the workshop is organised to discuss
the draft guidelines for harmonized ICT legal framework for
West Africa. The workshop is a follow-up of the previous one
organized in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), which discussed the
content of the study, and made recommendations taking into account
experience and activities in the countries. Participants to
the workshop will represent Governments in charge of ICTs, Civil
Society, Private Sectors and Researchers in Cyber Laws. More:
Mohamed Timoulali (mtimoulali@uneca.org).
11
– 13 December 2007, GK3, An Event On The Future: Emerging
People, Emerging Markets, Emerging Technologies, Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia
GK3 will bring together over 2,000 visionaries, international
leaders, practitioners and policy-makers to engage on the theme:
Emerging People, Emerging Markets, and Emerging Technologies.
GK3 will be presented in a wide array of expert panels and hands-on
workshops. Delegates attending GK3 will walk away from the Conference
confident in the knowledge that they too will be able to make
a positive impact on the growing concerns around the world.
GK3 will present an excellent array of expert panels and hands-on
workshops. More: http://www.GKPEventsOnTheFuture.org
The PICTA Mailing List (picta-cl@lyris.bellanet.org) was migrated
to Dgroups platform, and the new address is: picta-cl@dgroups.org,
http://www.dgroups.org/groups/picta
On behalf of all PICTA members, ECA would like to thank Bellanet
for the continued and excellent support provided to PICTA.
Nine
Finalists Selected For Stockholm Challenge - GKP Awards 2007
A total of 119 projects had been nominated for the Stockholm
Challenge – GKP Awards 2007, and nine were chosen by the
jury as the best examples of the role of Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships
in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Development.
The winners will be announced and celebrated during GK3, and
sponsored by GKP to participate in Stockholm Challenge Week
in May 2008. More: http://www.globalknowledge.org/gkps_portal/newsmaster.cfm?&menuid=2&parentid=79&action=view&retrieveid=451
GKP
Congratulates 100 Winners of its Global Young Social Entrepreneurs'
Competition
GKP's Global Young Social Entrepreneurs' Competition Highlights
the Unique and Innovative Ability of the World's Youth to Address
Social Issues. Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) announced
100 winners for the "Global Young Social Entrepreneurs'
Competition". The 100 winners from 38 countries are awarded
with a trip to Kuala Lumpur to attend the Young Social Entrepreneurs'
Forum (YSEF). YSEF is part of GKP's Third Global Knowledge Conference
(GK3) activities in December 2007. The winners will meet representatives
from funding organisations and will benefit from networking,
knowledge sharing, and mentoring opportunities. Ten of the winners
will be selected to present their business ideas for funding
in an open GK3 session. The Global Competition is evaluated
by an international 21-member Jury and is supported by GKP members
UN Development Programme (UNDP), International Development Research
Centre (IDRC) and the Canadian International Development Agency
(CIDA). More: http://www.globalknowledge.org/gkps_portal/newsmaster.cfm?&menuid=2&parentid=79&action=view&retrieveid=449
APC
launches new book on WSIS, developing countries and civil society:
Time for lessons learned
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) has been
roundly criticised in the past and this new study from APC concludes
that the Summit “is not the best starting point for new
action.” So, what is the point of looking at how developing
country delegations and civil society fared at the Summit? Because,
says the author “it is always important to learn from
experience – particularly where it did not deliver up
to expectations.” The book “Whose Summit? Whose
Information Society? Developing countries and civil society
at the World Summit on the Information Society”, commissioned
by APC and written by David Souter draws on participants’
observations, detailed interviews with forty key actors and
case studies of experiences rooted in five developing countries.
WSIS holds many lessons for developing countries and civil society
organisations aiming to exert greater influence in international
ICT decision-making fora. Some lessons demonstrate what worked
well – such as the highly successful, multi-stakeholder
Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The majority illustrate what
did not work so well – not least, holding a four-year
long meeting on such a fast-changing topic. More: http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=5202187
The
UN, Google and Cisco Unveil Online Resource in the Fight to
Decrease Global Poverty. MDG Monitor Tracks Progress
to Development Goals. The United Nations, Google and Cisco today
unveiled a pioneering online site that tracks progress towards
decreasing global poverty by 2015, a global campaign known as
the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs. UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon launched the project, called MDG Monitor, and highlighted
the urgent need to increase global cooperation. The site is
available at: http://www.mdgmonitor.org
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