“African
countries should take the lead in defining, visioning, planning
and implementing their ICT4D programmes through a comprehensive
national e-Strategy, and sectoral strategies such as e-education
policy,” said Ms. Aida Opoku-Mensah Officer-in-Charge,
ECA’s Development Information Services Division (DISD).
She was speaking during a session on “e-readiness;
making the most of ICT for educational development in Africa”.
The session was organized by the African Development Bank
(ADB), Microsoft and the NEPAD e-Africa Commission and focused
on topics aimed at setting the tone for the main International
Conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training,
to kick-start on 25 May at the UN Conference Centre under
the theme “empowering Africa through e-learning”.
Ms.
Opoku-Mensah, told participants that although donors and
development partners can lend a hand, “governments
should own the process, stick to their commitments and visions,
and commit resources for implementation so as to ensure
sustainability and achieve better results.”
Participants
agreed on the need for coordination of e-Learning activities
through sound policies and strategies at national, regional
and institutional levels.
At another
session on “Partnerships for e-readiness” participants
expounded on lessons learnt in building effective partnerships
in e-learning initiatives.
One
such example is Namibia’s unique experience in which
the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement operates,
co-exists and collaborates on education and e-learning policies
with Microsoft with minimum conflict.
“We’ve
learnt lessons in managing competing interests, said Shafika
Isaaks of Schoolnet Africa, adding, “transparency,
mutual trust and reciprocity are essential to our partnership,
which extends to other organizations that we work in collaboration
with.”
Echoing
the importance of transparency, Ms. Opoku-Mensah noted that
this has been the underpinning thread of the relationship
ECA has with its partners in the area of Research and Development.
“With
the Addis Ababa University’s Department of Computer
Science and Mathematics, we are working on prototype applications
using local languages and open source software to address
its peculiar and pertinent needs.” The tri-partite
(government, academia and UN) relationship has been instrumental
in our initiatives.
“Managing
competing interests is complex, especially when intellectual
property comes into play”, she said, adding that this
is where accountability and mutual trust are essential.
“What’s
in it for me?” was the crucial question that participants
agreed must be put on the table in order to clarify the
expectations of those in any e-learning partnership.
Ms.
Alice Hammer, ADB, stressed the need for governments to
address e-learning within existing policies and added that
ADB's policy is to support investments based on the needs
and development priorities articulated by the countries.
Click
here
for presentations made by ECA during today’s sessions.
More on ECA’s work in this area: www.uneca.org/disd
For the conference details visit www.elearning-africa.com
