Building Africa's Information HighwayE/ECA/PSPI.9/4 2 March 1996 Original: ENGLISH ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR AFRICA Ninth Session of the Conference of African Planners, Statisticians, and Population and Information Specialists Addis Ababa, 11-16 March 1996 BUILDING AFRICA'S INFORMATION HIGHWAY Preface 1. Resolution 795, "Building African's Information Highway", of the thirtieth
session of the ECA Conference of Ministers responsible for economic and social development
and planning, held in Addis Ababa in May 1995, requested the Executive Secretary to set up
a high-level working group on information and communication technologies in Africa, made
up of African technical experts, to prepare a plan of action in this field for
presentation to the thirty-first session of the Conference of Ministers. The current
document, a draft of the plan, is being submitted to I. INTRODUCTION Building African's Information Highway: an Action Plan to accelerate African socio-economic development 2. An engineer in the field receives a solar pump design; a pathologist obtains an expert diagnosis of a rare ailment; electronic debt management cuts an African country's external debt by 50%; and drought warnings arrive in time to change planting times. These are some of the activities that are already taking place in Africa as a result of rapid advances in information and communication technologies in which all African decision makers and planners have a unique opportunity to participate. 3. The move toward the information age offers great potential to improve the quality of
life of every person in Africa. Yet Africa remains far behind the rest of the world in
harnessing the exploding possibilities in information and communication technologies.
Action has to be taken quickly if the development 4. While the developed world now talks of "video on demand", there is only one telephone line for every 200 people in Africa. Much of Africa has no experience of what freely accessible communications can do for society to improve the flow of information and ideas that are the bedrock of modern socio-economic development and the information-based economy. 5. The relentless competition, innovation and convergence in technologies, which have
led elsewhere to massive drops in the price of communications and information systems and
fundamentally altered the nature of the global economy, mean that Africa has a window of
opportunity to use these tools to accelerate 6. Information and communication technology can no longer be seen as a luxury for the elite but as an absolute development necessity. With the potential to create jobs at much lower levels of capital investment than in other sectors, these new technologies offer a chance to exploit Africa's information riches, without the need for corresponding financial wealth. With the youngest population in the world, Africa has unique opportunities because youth most easily adopt new ideas and ways of working with information and communication tools. 7. Since the current investment in older communications 8. The development of African information and communication infrastructure will also result in many hitherto unpredicted benefits. Aside from the clearly apparent benefits for economic integration, and for all forms of commerce and education, regional information infrastructure will provide African countries with many new low cost opportunities to disseminate its own cultural, news and entertainment information and programming and help counter the flood of information from the industrialised countries. It also offers great potential to reduce the need for migration to the cities. 9. Seizing these opportunities depends on African decision 10. This document outlines an action plan for an African Information and Communication Vision 11. Driven by critical development imperatives and in recognition of the regional 12. By the year 2010, the Initiative would hope to realize a sustainable information
society Strategic Objectives 13. To achieve the vision outlined above, it is necessary to encourage action within Related Goals 14. To achieve the strategic objectives of an African Information and Communication 15. Together, member States will need to develop a coordinating mechanism to ensure 16. Globally, the information revolution has spread throughout the world. Yet, its
waves Job Creation Challenges: What jobs to create? Where to create such jobs? Who will create them? How will they be created? What resources will be used to attain a given level of unemployment? Opportunities: The use of new information and communication technologies offers
substantial possibilities for creating new jobs in the emerging global information-based
economy. These technologies also offer the possibility to manage the existing job market
more efficiently. At the national level, data and information can be made available on: Health Challenges: Epidemics, spread of infectious diseases, AIDS, etc. Highest levels of infant mortality rate in the world. Lowest levels of life expectancy in the world. Lowest world ratio of doctors per capita. Opportunities: Empowerment of health administration and management through Medical Information Systems; Establishment of Information "Health Profiles" and decision support systems on regional, national, rural and district levels; Linking health centres, delivery services and medical transport for patients; Improving access to skilled diagnosis through telemedicine; Improving distribution and reducing costs of medical supplies. Education Challenges: The world's highest illiteracy rate Lack of schools and large numbers of students per class Lack of local public libraries and national libraries with few resources Lack of educational materials Lack of skilled teachers Opportunities: Providing access to distance education and the world's best libraries. Pooling of resources by building communications networks to link all educational establishments. Connecting universities and research centres to national and international communications networks. Promoting and supporting collaboration among professional educators and researchers. Providing remote access to national and international databases, libraries, research laboratories and computing facilities. Culture Challenges: Deteriorating resources for preservation of cultural heritage (monuments, manuscripts, artifacts, music, etc.) Lack of regional or local access to national cultural sites Lack of awareness and knowledge about different African cultures Opportunities: Making Africa's museums accessible too all parts of the region as well as to the rest of the world. Electronic preservation and documentation of manuscripts and artifacts. Increasing accessibility of rare manuscripts and artifacts to researchers and the general public through the development of cultural CD ROM products. Trade Challenges: Intra-African trade is less than 2% of total trade (imports and exports of African countries). Internal and external trade is hindered by poor transport and communication systems, lack of information on procedures, import/export opportunities, markets, etc. Opportunities: Link Chambers of Commerce, trade associations and the business sector to help increase trade Reduced transaction costs, new markets and new products On-line trade related information and import/export opportunities Tourism Challenges: Lack of information on untapped tourist resources which remain unexploited sources of wealth generation from international and national visitors. Lack of information on tourism destinations, services and facilities Opportunities: Attracting large numbers of visitors if they can be provided with high quality information and network connections. Reducing the costs of international promotions for attracting tourists. Improving the image of Africa through on-line promotional campaigns. Building national and regional tourism related databases for destinations and facilities. Providing a mechanism for virtual travel and information gathering utilizing the Internet. Provision of tourism related information and indicators that encourage and facilitate investment in tourism projects. Food Security Challenges: Limited national food production to satisfy market needs because of underutilization of available resources. Lack of information on importing from best markets on the best terms. Lack of information on agricultural exports withthe most competitive advantages. Lack of guidance for planning of crop planting. Lack of access to food market information and pricing. Opportunities: Establishment of food security information and decision support systems. Establishment of information systems for monitoring market performance and measuring market failures. Development of information systems to address food security issues such as agricultural production, government subsidies for food security, monitoring of water and land resources, disease problems, food transportation and storage. Efficient marketing of agricultural products. Access to new techniques for improving agricultural production. Reduced food storage losses through more efficient distribution. Gender and development Challenges: Women are 50% of the population but do 60% of work, earn 1/10 of the income and own 1/100 of the world's property. Opportunities: Improve the rights of women through access to information and indicators which may be used for tracking gender issues and elimination of stereotypes. Ensure the equal access of girls to technological education. Man-made Crises and Natural Disasters Challenges: Epidemics, floods, civil strife, earthquakes and other natural disasters often cause chaos in unprepared African countries, especially on the local and village levels. Ineffective emergency communications systems limit the effectiveness of responses by the state and international assistance organizations. Opportunities: Establish low cost wireless communications systems and problem situation monitoring information systems as well as Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies, remote sensing and satellite early warning systems provide tools to anticipate such problems in advance and enable governments and international organizations to be more proactive and to respond more effectively when the need arises. III. COMPONENTS OF AN AFRICA INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION FRAMEWORK 17. Building Africa's information and communication sector requires developing and
improving four major components: Human Resources 18. Africa's social and economic development is to a great extent determined by the size and quality of its work force - its human and intellectual capital. Preparing Africa for the information age primarily necessitates investing in its human resources - training, education and promotion will be the cornerstones of Africa's new society. Human resource development should aim at having informed decision makers, informed businessmen, informed students and informed/skilled workers, and skilled professionals. 19. Facing these changes requires having : a new profile of management/labour forces; new skills, professional expertise and better understanding of the information technology; the ability to adapt, adopt and exploit new technologies and to manage the change creating new skills; creating new job markets; developing informed decision makers, informed businessmen, informed students, skilled workers and informed public society. Within the Information Society at Large 20. Informed decision makers need to have: a good understanding of the ways to use new
information technologies in decision making; access to a wide scope of national
information sources covering different sectors; access to regional and international
information resources; knowledge on how 21. Informed businesses need to: have access to national market information. have access to regional and international market information. be provided with value added information services. know how to best use the available information resources to improve and develop their businesses. be able to conduct secure low-cost transactions through the information and communication networks. 22. Informed students need: to have access to national, regional and international electronic libraries. to learn how to use the new communication and networking technologies. to have access to international information networks. to have appropriate labs, facilities and resources to best utilize the new technologies which amplify the learning process in a wide range subject matters. self teaching and training packages and tools in different subjects. to be able to share knowledge and experience with students of the same level in other African countries and elsewhere. to access distance learning centres. 23. Informed/skilled workers need: easy and simple instructional tools to help them learn individually and jointly with other workers. knowledge of new techniques and developments in their areas of specialization. sharing their experiences and building links with other workers in other agencies in their own country or in other African countries. 24. An informed public needs to: Within the Information Industry 25. Information systems specialists need to learn how to: 26. Information service providers need to: know what value added information services their users require. know how to analyze user needs and identify information required from national, regional and international sources. update data on a regular basis. 27. Communication and networking specialists need to learn how to design, establish and maintain communication and information networks. Proposed Programme for Information Society Readiness 28. The following proposed programmes aim at building readiness for the information Programme (1) : Awareness Programme 29. The user awareness programme will aim at building informed decision makers, the private sector and the public through increasing their knowledge of : the value and use of information, information and decision support systems, national information resources, international information resources, methods of searching and retrieving on-line information, Internet and international information networks. 30. User awareness programmes would be designed and implemented on national levels in African countries. They would constitute a series of seminars and workshops to be conducted frequently to take account of new developments in the information age. Different activities could be conducted on the level of Africa at large, on subregional level for a group of countries and on national levels in each of the member countries. Programme (2) : Educational Program 31. The educational programme aims at preparing students in schools and universities to
deal with the new information and communication technologies. This programme will include:
developing the software packages required in different subject areas and adapting
available software packages to the needs of African countries, training the 32. A continent-wide programme would be made up of a series of national programmes tailored to each country based on its needs and resources available. Exchanging and sharing experiences among African countries can be done through distance learning and virtual education projects. New educational tools and techniques would be utilized. Programme (3) : Professional Development and Training Programme 33. The Professional Development Training Programme would aim at building skilled 34. The Professionals programme would focus on training professionals in different
areas, 35. The Information Specialists programme would focus on training communication and 36. The programme would focus on: 37. The professional development programme would have regional components and national components. The regional components would provide regional centralized training facilities to serve African professionals at large. National programmes for each country would address the actual needs of professional skills development in the country. Distance learning, virtual training and computer based training methods would be adopted to accelerate and facilitate the training and professional development process in Africa and to maximize the utilization of the educational and training resources available regionally and internationally for the benefit of African countries. Information resources - "infostructure" 38. Development of indigenous user-need based information resources are ultimately the
yardstick by which the effectiveness of the information society in Africa will be judged.
The content of the information infrastructure consists of the data and the information
resources which need to be available in different sources as databases, 39. Building a wealth of continental information sources will have an immense impact on Africa, allowing it to: Create indigenous information content in Africa, so that African people are not simply passive consumers of imported information. Export information and to participate pro-actively in the information aspects of the global economy. Provide African researchers and scientists with access to information on Africa generated from within the continent. Collaborate with peers around the world irrespective of distance. Promote Africa's cultural heritage, including the modern cultural sector of its rich and growing film and music industries. 40. To build this content, decision makers, planners and information specialists will need to: Identify the key information and communication technology application areas with the highest impact on socioeconomic development at national and regional levels. Make choices in priorities for moving activities over to electronic systems. Match applications with available bandwidth. Make special efforts to capture the data, which is often difficult to obtain or is unreliable. Ensure timely and accurate provision of information for decision support systems. Manage the flow of information using systems which simplify the management of the information. Match the type of data resources with the needs required. Use software and data that addresses the variety of languages used in African countries and its oral traditions. Encourage the development of value added information services as well as electronic publishing and networking. Support initiatives which build local content. Develop a range of methods for information dissemination, including printed materials developed from on-line resources such as flash reports and indicator bulletins. Encourage the development of the 'information brokerage' sector which can act as an intermediary between the knowledge bases and the users. Developing national information resources 41. In order to establish, develop and improve the information resources required for Programme (1) : Building National Information Sources This programme aims at building the national information sources of data and information on the African continent and insuring their coverage of all sectors of the economy. The programme would include: Building issue-based local and sectoral databases in accordance with national priorities. Formulating mechanisms for the continuous gathering, up-dating and processing of data from respective sources. Maintaining national databases and information resources. Programme (2) : Provision of Value Added Information Services This programme aims at providing imperative value added information services to ensure information availability to the public sector and enhance the competitive advantage of the private sector in Africa. The programme would include: Providing an enabling environment for the growth and sustainability of African information service providers; Ensuring Internet connectivity and African participation in the information content of the Internet; Providing value added information services in key areas of the economy such as trade and commerce, employment opportunities, tourism services, legislation, etc. Programme (3) : Development of electronic libraries This programme aims at providing empirical information sources and helping to close the resource gap by making textbooks and periodicals electronically available, especially for schools, universities and research centres. This can be provided through building national electronic (on-line) libraries and providing access to international on-line resources. It would require: Automating national libraries and making them accessible on-line. Providing mechanisms for the exchange of information among existing libraries in ministries, municipalities, universities and schools. Institutional/management and legal mechanisms 42. An African Information and Communication Initiative can hardly be realized without the appropriate institutional/management and legal mechanisms both on the national level and on the regional level. It is essential to address legal, regulatory and institutional practices in African countries which inhibit the development of national information services and connectivity to the global information highway for access to or offering of information, and notably those which inhibit the establishment and use of Internet and other value added services. 43. Within the institutional framework, the major obstacles affecting the quick
realization Financial ~ The high cost of telecommunication services which constitute the major factor in preventing a friendly environment for the establishment and use of value added services; ~ High levels of taxation for value added service providers and in particular the taxation of businesses which are in a start-up phase or are not yet profitable; ~ High levels of import duties on information and communication equipment Regulatory ~ Lack of adequate regimes for type approval certification of equipment; ~ Prohibitions
on the creation of private telecommunication networks (whether based on Business Environment ~ Lack of appropriate legal framework for the creation of enterprises or associations providing value added services; ~ Conditions inhibiting the availability of needed services for prospective and established value added services, such as information technology consultancy, information strategy planning, support services, etc; ~ Difficulty in obtaining capital for start-up and expansion. Related Factors ~ Lack of appropriate enabling environments for the creation of African
information products; ~ Underdeveloped intellectual property rights provisions; ~
Restrictions on freedom of expression, including measures to ensure law and order or
national security, may be inappropriately applied to electronic information services. National, subregional and regional levels 44. On national, subregional and regional levels an appropriate
institutional/management At the National Level Role of Government 45. The role of government is to provide a vision, a strategy and an enabling environment to develop the national information and communication infrastructure within the country. To fulfill its role in achieving these objectives, it is recommended that each African government establish suitable mechanisms or assign a leading national agency that would: ~ Develop national plans for adopting information and communication technologies ~ Establish an enabling framework that ensures the participation of major sectors in implementing the national information and communication infrastructure as well as ensuring coordination and harmonization of the multiple efforts of the different players, including the private sector, the non-governmental organizations and the media. ~ Work in concert with the existing efforts of the African Ministers of
Telecommunications (viz., the"African Telecoms Green Paper") to develop a
legislative/regulatory framework to address issues of cost and accessibility of
communication, intellectual property, privacy, free-flow of information and the
convergence of ~ Carry out liaison with other countries, international organizations and regional bodies. Role of the Private Sector 46. In the developed countries, the private sector is
assuming a leading role in establishing the Information Society. Currently, African
private sector activities have been largely limited to assuming the role of
representatives of foreign companies who are selling their products and services. However,
it is now more important than ever to build a critical mass of local business ventures
that can provide a strong base for the development of information-based industry. The
private sector in Africa has to play a major role in realizing the African Information
Society by: ~ Stimulating 47. This can be achieved through empowering the four main private sector components: Role of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) 48. Voluntary organizations and consumer
and labour groups can play a catalytic and coordinating role with government and private
sector, providing a balance to a market oriented service industry and helping to ensure
that Universal Service objectives are realised. Specific support for participation in the
AICI should therefore be Role of the Media 49. In addition to being an essential means for information
dissemination, the mass media plays a critical role in spreading awareness in Africa of
the importance and benefits of the information revolution. Newspapers, radio, and
television provide an easy, accessible, and cheap means of carrying information to the end
user. Communities in Africa do not have to wait for the Internet to receive much of the
information it carries. The mass media can plug into many of the sources of information
and provide broad channels of communications to the poor, and to remote areas. Media
organizations should therefore be encouraged to: ~ Create awareness about an AICI for the
community at large. ~ Provide ways and means for disseminating information resulting from
an AICI.
|
Communication Team,
Economic Commission for Africa, P.O. Box 3001, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia |