African Information Society Initiative [AISI] - ICT Policy

Final Report

Study of the Effectiveness of Informatics Policy Instruments in Africa

(Excerpts)

IDRC project file: 92-0604

by Nancy Hafkin, November 1995

Written for the First meeting of the High Level Working Group on

Information and Communication Technologies in Africa,

Cairo, November 1995

In collaboration with the International Development Research Centre, the Pan African Development Information System of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa has undertaken a series of country studies in 10 sub-Saharan African countries, 5 of them which use English as a working language and 5 which are francophone. The results of the studies make some key points about the absence or presence of informatics policies and its impact on exploiting the potential of information technology for development.

The working definition that the studies adopted for a national informatics policy was a "plan for the development and optimal utilisation of information technology."

Given this definition, a broad difference was found between the two language groups. None of the anglophone countries studied (Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zimbabwe) had elaborated such policies) while most of the francophone had with varying application (Cameroon, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Madagascar, and Senegal).

While national promotional policies were largely absent in the first group, the countries, however, had enacted substantial numbers of laws and regulations to govern the area of informatics, many of which became constraints to rather than promoting the optimal utilisation of information technology in the country concerned. Rather than promotional policy, what was found were regulatory policy instruments. In two countries, the importation of computers were actually banned for various periods of time on the grounds that they brought unemployment. In others, high tariffs and complex customs procedures have limited imports. Lack of coordination with telecommunications development and telecommunication policies was another area that constrained growth in this sector, particularly in telematics. Regulations requiring type approvals of equipment and bans or other limitations on communications equipment (faxes, modems, satellites and satellite dishes) have also prevented bringing information technology utilisation to anywhere near the levels of developing countries elsewhere in the world.

From the 5 anglophone countries, some of the findings included:

None of the countries had formulated and implemented an integrated policy on informatics.
Economic reform programmes of the last few years have resulted in a new socio-economic environment more conducive to the growth of informatics, with specifically easing of the restrictions and and difficulties in importing informatics products.
While there is more awareness of the importance of informatics for development, there are no examples of integrated approaches which bring together national perspectives with national resources and institutional capabilities.
All of the countries suffered from a shortage of trained manpower in informatics; this was particularly marked in the area of computer networking. This impacts the introduction of IT in the curriculum and has obvious implications for the efficient use of IT potential and equipment maintenance.
All had policies and instruments to promote the development of human resources in information technology, but implementation was difficult due to lack of trained manpower and other policy and sectoral constraints on the import of hardware and software.
At the policy level (and this is changing in some countries over the last half year), none of the countries saw the policy importance of linking national information systems to external networks; nowhere was there awareness of the importance of regional networking. Only one country had started a database for policy makers (although all had statistical databases).
There was a total absence of policies to promote the development of software industries (despite low salary levels and unemployed technical graduates everywhere) and virtually no research programmes in informatics (except as applied to national languages). Nowhere were their policies to promote the use of IT as a private sector development activity.
Nowhere was there any attention to software, either in standards or in intellectual property rights.
None of the countries surveyed had telecommunications systems that could support a modern IT sector.

The conclusion from these countries was that there has been strong growth in this sector over the last few years, but that public and private sector utilization and exploitation of this medium falls far below world standards and far below the standards of developing countries in other regions of the world as well.

In the 5 francophone countries, most of the countries had elaborated informatics policies. However, almost all of these concerned only the public sector and thus there were no policies to influence national global optimization of the potential of information technology. In some of the countries the elaboration of policy had pre-dated the arrival of microcomputers and had remained relatively unchanged despite the changes in information echnology made possible by this phenomenon.-

The general pattern found in these 5 countries was the creation of a National Commission to formulate policy, a national office to execute it (although in one country its execution was entrusted to one person!) and the elaboration of a national Informatics Plan. In one country (Senegal), the Plan has been implemented continuously. In another country, (Cote d'Ivoire), two different plans sporadically; in a third one plan implemeted for a time, Congo. In the fifth, there was no plan.

The studies found that whenever responsibility for implementing national informatics activities had been entrusted entirely to one office, resulting in centralization of activities, that had retarded the growth of the sector overall in comparision to national growth rates. In the countries where the policy was in nature promotional- indicative and initiative, rather than controlling, appreciable results had been obtained (the cases of Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire). The general characteristics of policy that emerged were monopoly (Congo) where a single agency (until very recently) had employed all infomatics specialists in the country, Although this country had been one of the earliest users of informatics in the Africa region, it had now become marginalized by comparision to others and has a very low overall usage of informatics.

Two other countries had policies of severe control of information technology (Madagascar and Cameroon), and their usage suffered as well. Madagascar, for example, in order to keep costs down, limited imports, insisted on employing only nationals in the area and demanded that all equipment imported be compatible, leading to domination by certain brands. The regime has liberalized in the last several years, but there is still no plan for promotion of IT, no regulation at all (in the important areas of confidentiality, intellectual property rights), no coordination with telecommunications and no quality control on the private sector.

In another country, the lack of national human resource development in IT allowed the country to be at the mercy of foreign contracts and the acquisitions of IT was supply and not needs or demand driven.

The coordinator of the study in the five francophone countries found Senegal to be the example of the best practices in policy, reflecting a situation of policy where it was needed and openness where control was not necessary. The national structure he saw as a necessary organ of reflection, co-ordination, establishment of priorities and policy implementation that has given the country the necessary push towards the realization of the potential for informatics in all areas of government.