Addis Ababa, 22 August 2007

The World Information Technology Forum (WITFOR) 2007, on the theme “ICT for Development and Prosperity” kicked off today at the Addis Ababa UN Conference Center (UNCC). The conference is aimed at contributing to taking the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) Plan of Action a step forward and helping developing countries achieve the MDGs.

The conference will investigate for three days, successful, sustainable ICT strategies in developing countries and examine different initiatives and projects on effective, context sensitive development and use of ICT applications. This work will be conducted in eight thematic commissions and plenaries. It will also discuss study papers and best practices on issues pertinent to ICT for Development. Among the areas of focus are: WSIS implementation, country experiences with ICT policy, human resource development and capacity building, leapfrogging rural communications, creating ICT-enabled knowledge networks around agriculture, low-cost telecommunication systems and information services for rural primary healthcare, business process outsourcing, e-infrastructure support for rural SMEs, Open Source models for creating value in emerging markets and telecentres.

In his opening address read by Ms. Aida Opoku-Mensah, Director of the ICT, Science and Technology Division (ISTD), Mr. Abdoulie Janneh, the ECA Executive Secretary, underlined the vital role of the knowledge economy in Africa, stressing that “through globalization new ideas and innovation are spreading faster than ever before and as a result, knowledge-based development is becoming a reality for all countries irrespective of whether they are developed or developing”.

His Excellency Mr Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia in his keynote address concluded on the need for Ethiopia to embrace ICT if the country has to achieve socio-economic development: “It is clear the success of our efforts, to extricate ourselves from poverty will depend in the upcoming millennium, to a large extent, on our achievements in the ICT field.”

The conference is organized by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) in cooperation with the Federal Government of Ethiopia, the Ethiopian ICT Development Agency (EICTDA), the Ethiopian Information Technology Professional Association (EITPA) and the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

The current WITFOR is the third where the first was held in Lithuania, in 2003 and the second held in Botswana, in 2005. It is expected that it will be attended by over 1000 resource persons, researchers and participants drawn from about 66 countries.

For more information please visit: http://www.witfor2007.org/ or send email to: Makane Faye (mfaye@uneca.org)