More
than fifty representatives from African Governments, Civil
Society Organizations, Private sector actors, Academia and
International Organizations took part in the launch and
first meeting of the African Regional Network of the UN
Global Alliance for ICTs and Development (GAID) on Friday
23rd March 2007.
In
her opening remarks, Ms Aida Opoku-Mensah, Director of ICT,
Science and Technology Division of ECA, highlighted the
objective of GAID and stressed the need to use the alliance
as one of the means for exploiting Information and Communication
Technologies (ICTs) to achieve the Millennium Development
Goals in Africa. "The launching of the Global Alliance
for ICT and Development (GAID) in 2006, is based on the
UN's commitment to building the enabling environment to
bring together all stakeholders active in Information and
Knowledge Economy to reflect on strategies to ensure the
effective implementation of the World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS) plan of action and the use of ICT for development
and the achievement of the internationally agreed development
goals, including the Millennium Development Goals and other
development Agendas", she noted.
Ms.
Renate Bloem of Executive President of the the Conference
of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations
(CONGO) commended ECA's tremendous contribution in building
the continent's Information Society and the timely launching
of the African GAID network alongside the CSO forum, which
explains the multistakeholder approach to build an effective
inclusive knowledge economy. Dr. Phillipe Mawoko,
Programme Manager of the NEPAD e-Africa Commission congratulated
ECA for "the extraordinary work undertaken in coordinating
the African position during the WSIS process and in supporting
member States in developing their e-strategies".
The
meeting adopted the creation of a Steering Committee composed
of three facilitators from Academia, Government and CSO
representatives from West, Central and North Africa sub-regions
to steer the African GAID Network with the assistance of
ECA, which hosts the secretariat. The launching will be
followed by on-line discussion of the GAID Africa structure
and modalities of action to be drafted by the identified
steering committee.
The
launching took place alongside the African Civil Society
Forum, jointly organized by CONGO, the African Women's Development
and Communication Network (FEMNET), the Economic Commission
for Africa (ECA) and African Union (AU), from 22-23 March
2007, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Prior to the event, twelve
(12) Members of African Civil Society Network in the Information
Society (ACSIS) met to discuss ACSIS coordination strategy
for promoting the African Information Society Initiative
(AISI) implementation by Civil Society organizations in
general and ICT4D activities towards accelerating MDGs.
The meeting ended with recommendation on north-south-south
cooperation, partnership, ICT & MDGs, universal access
and resource mobilization, which were submitted, to the
global Civil Society Forum.
More
information can be obtained from tamoussougbo@uneca.org
