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19
February 2007
In
collaboration with the SADC Parliamentary Forum and the
ECA Sub-Regional Office for Southern Africa, ISTD facilitated
a 4-day MPs forum on “Building an inclusive Information
Society in the SADC Region”
from 12-14 February 2007 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
More than forty (40) MPs and staffs from twelve (12) SADC
Member State participated in the event. The UNDP sub-regional
offices for East and Southern Africa and West Africa also
participated as well as representatives from the SADC Secretariat
and the NEPAD e-Africa Commission.
 The
main objective of the forum was to promote the use of ICT’s
at Parliament level as a tool for democratic governance through
increased access to information by Parliaments to enable effective
debate, sharing and enhanced public participation in the legislative
and policy making process. The focus was also aimed at developing
the capacity of Member Parliaments to utilize ICTs as a tool
for institutional development and efficiency.
In
her welcoming remarks, Ms Bookie M Kethusegile-Juru, Assistant
Secretary-General of the SADC Parliamentary Forum and Director
of the Parliamentary Leadership Centre (PLC) emphasized that:
“MPs need to be informed about issues of importance
to their constituencies and ICTs can facilitate their research
tasks and offer appropriate channels needed for the public;
in rural areas public access points may provide access to
information on the work of Parliament; Internet can improve
interaction with constituencies and provide for feedback mechanism
where the electorate’s opinions are heard”. She
concluded “ICTs can provide access to a wide range of
information and knowledge to enable Members to make informed
decisions quickly through databases, intranets, digital libraries
and other relevant resources relating to legislative documents
such as bills and proceedings, committee reports”.
Hon
Lutero Simango, MP from Mozambique and Chairperson of the
Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation and Capacity Building Committee
of the SADC Parliamentary Forum, remarked: “We still
have a much bigger job ahead of us and need to understand
our ICT Policy environment and create a more enabling environment
for the growth and adoption of ICTs both at the regional,
national and constituency levels. We need to ask ourselves
questions, as representatives of the people, legitimately
elected to do so, whether we are really representing the people
if they are still having to spend their hard earned money
in bus fares to go and register a birth, a death, and access
other government services that are only available in urban
and semi-urban areas, if they are still paying 80% more than
their western counterparts to access a critical service such
as the Internet, if they are being ripped off by mobile companies
that are charging them more than they should?”.
This
forum served as a platform for the establishment of ICT Committee
within all the Member State Parliaments as a mechanism for
MPs to become proactive in the development of ICTs in their
respective countries and promote inter-Parliament collaboration.
The event was also followed by a two-day meeting to review
the overall SADC PF ICT strategy.
This
SADC Parliamentary Forum on ICT is part of the implementation
programme for the e-Policy Resource Network for Africa (ePol-Net
Africa : www.epolafrica.org
) with support from the Canada Fund for Africa.
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