He noted that aligning ICT as a tool in the “Education for All” component of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is critical to accelerating Ethiopia’s growth and development.

On her part, Ms. Josephine Ouedraogo, Acting Deputy Executive Secretary spoke on behalf of ECA’s Executive Secretary, Mr. Abdoulie Janneh, and said, “education is a prerequisite for creating an Information Society and ultimately a Knowledge Economy.

“However, opportunities presented by ICT as a means for transforming the path of development through education remain largely untapped in Africa”, she said, citing some key challenges facing Africa’s quest for an e-learning environment such as, limited infrastructure, lack of experts and expertise to develop and support applications and systems.

“These challenges, if unchecked can create greater digital gaps between countries and within countries and noted that as a result, the skills gap will be between a student able to access the web for research and one who cannot access the basic traditional library facilities.”

She pointed out existing gender disparities in access to technology and education, and said, “any e-learning action plan should take the gender factor into consideration, targeting women from both the formal and non-formal sectors.”

Dr. Cheick Diarra, Chairman for Microsoft Africa, said Microsoft has embarked on successful efforts to localize the windows operating system to African languages, such as Kiswahili, Zulu and Wolof. He noted that this has been possible through effective local public and private partnerships, which will be leveraged further to address e-learning sustainability, content development and skills development including qualification of teachers.

On her part, Honourable Beth Mugo, Member of Parliament and Deputy Minister of Education, Kenya said “the Kenyan Government has put in place policies that facilitate the use of ICTs in education and has a national ICT strategy for education and training.” She also said the Kenyan Government has expressed interest in hosting the next e-learning Conference in 2007.

The European Commission Director General Information Society and Media Activities Mr. Jacque Babot noted that this forum will be instrumental in generating ideas, connecting e-learning actors and shaping ICT collaboration in its new framework programme.

Over 200 participants from research institutions, schools, training institutions international institutions, government representatives and exhibitors of e-learning software as well as service providers are participating in the Conference.

For more on ECA’s work with the Africa Learning Network (ALN), visit www.uneca.org/disd
For the conference programme, highlights and updates, visit www.elearning-africa.com