On the workshop of E-M Government Development in Africa: Progress Made and Challenges Ahead
17th -19th of February at UNECA, Addis Ababa

Dear

• Ms. Aida Opoku- Mensah, Director ICT, Science and Technology Division, UNECA
• Haiyan Qian, Director, Division of Public Administration & Knowledge Management (DPADM), in the United Nation Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA)
• Participants of this Workshop representing Different African Countries,
• Representatives from African- United Nation Public Administration Network (UNPAN) member Institutions,
• Member of Academia’s,
• Representatives of Regional and International Organizations involved in E-M Government Developments,
• Ladies and Gentlemen

It is indeed my pleasure and privilege to welcome you all to this important event  titled Electronic Mobile Government Development in Africa which is aimed to assess the progress made to bridge the internal gap and learn from the best experiences and also to study what possible challenges we may face in advancing the area. This forum will bring policy makers from different countries, regional and international organization working in the same area and ICT professionals in the continent. The main objective is to gain experiences from the different papers scheduled to be presented in this workshop as well as to discusses on them to share ideas. By doing so, we may forge partnership between governments and organizations for the future work to advance the e-m government development.

Ethiopia is welcoming you here in Addis and we are confident that the objective of this workshop will be met in the coming three days.

ICT has been acknowledged by the Government of Ethiopia as a powerful tool for social, economical, cultural and political developments and thereby to contribute to the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which is an integral element to the poverty alleviation and sustainable development program of the country.

The Ethiopian Government also accredits the need for the rapid development of the infrastructure which facilitates an affordable and better access to information and knowledge.
Some of the ongoing ICT initiatives by the Ethiopian Government currently are the expansion of Woreda-net to implement, e-government on federal, regional and local government level; the human resources development in ICT for supporting e-government initiative; the school-net project to deploy and utilize ICT to facilitate teaching and learning in Ethiopian schools; the University-Net to interconnect Universities to support the education in higher level; are just to list some of them.

By investing on the above areas, Ethiopia is progressing to build, step-by-step, an e-governance system in the country. E-governance, which encourages, that ICT should be used by different actors of the society with the aim to improve their access to information and to build their capacities. This, again, encourages citizen participation in the decision-making process and makes government more accountable, transparent and effective. E-Governance involves new styles of leadership, new ways of debating, deciding in policy and investment, new ways of accessing education, new ways of listening to citizens and new ways of organizing and delivering information and services. It will focus in its activities on emerging e-governance issues to make a difference in on all levels of government, private sector and the civil society at large.

As leading institution in this sector, the Ethiopian Information and Communication Technology Development Agency (EICTDA) is established with a vision “to see every aspect of Ethiopian life is ICT Assisted”. The Ethiopian ICT Development Agency has a particular interest to facilitate how the infrastructure in the field will be enhanced, how communication will be affordable, how information technologies (IT) will continue to impact on the productivity and performance of the public sector and how e-government fosters new and deeper citizen involvement within the governing process.

Achieving these objectives is not an easy task in a country like ours; it involves a huge investment, it requires professionals in the filed, the awareness of the citizens has to be increased, the private public partnership has to be developed, etc.  This is the similar to most of African countries represented here. Even so there are challenges we, all African country, working in similar areas, have to work in cooperation, share experiences, plan together accordingly to fulfill the major objectives of E-M Government Developments.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The three day workshop which is now starting, will contribute more in exploring the regional knowledge, particularly in progresses we made and challenges ahead of the e-m government development in Africa. Lastly, I wish you success in this workshop and a good stay here in Addis.

I thank you.