Coordination
Meeting on the African Information Society Initiative
Welcome and Opening
Remarks by
K. Y. Amoako, Executive Secretary, ECA
21-23 October 1996
Welcome to our guests.
Special welcome to those members of
the High Level Working Group on Information and Communication Technologies in Africa who
are with us today - the document that they drafted was accepted by the May ECA Conference
of Ministers as the African Information Society Initiative: either here or expected
shortly are Dr. Hisham el Sherif, Chairman of the Group, Ato Dawit Yohannis, Prof. Raymond
Akwule, Michael Jensen, Derrick Cogburn. We had been expecting Karima Bounemra also, until
an engagement at the last minute prevented her from travelling.
Special welcome also to our closest
partners with whom we have been working on this area for years: the International
Development Research Centre, UNESCO, and ITU, all of whom are with us today.
Why we are all here
Common commitment to using tools of
information technology to stimulate African social and economic development
Belief that the Information Age is
one that Africa can not afford to pass on
Belief that the partners assembled
here can work with African governments to make this vision into national plans, programmes
and projects.
Very exciting times- what is
happening now
particularly on connectivity: only
one and one half years ago (at the time of the my first visit to the Commission and of the
Regional Symposium on Telematics which we feel awoke a great deal of interest in the topic
in Africa), only 4 African countries were directly connected to the Internet
Now, fully one half are connected,
and the list expands by several countries a month. In Ethiopia, we hope to have full
Internet connectivity within the month.
With this new information
infrastructure, many things are becoming possible. On the other hand, some dozen countries
still have no connectivity whatsoever, and African countries are far, far behind countries
in Asia and Latin America in using information and information technology for development.
The World Times
information imperative index puts only South Africa (35th) and Egypt (51st)
among African countries in the world list of countries "able to absorb new
technologies in the information age." The Economist lists only South
Africa in its indicative list of world countries effectively using information technology.
Clearly, the challenge is remains ahead of us. It is one in which all of you are involved.
In the June 1996 issue of CSIS
Africa notes, our good friend Ernest Wilson III writes: "In essence, the global
information revolution is about delivering more information faster, cheaper, and more
conveniently `anytime, anywhere, in any form.'" In this excellent article, he goes on
to say: "In developing strategies to bring the information revolution to Africa by
creating truly national, integrated information infrastructures, the continent's
policymakers confront a difficult conundrum. They must nurture the development of highly
sophisticated, world-class channels capable of carrying the digitized content that now
races through the world's financial systems, educational institutions and business
networks. At the same time, they must carefully address the information needs of the vast
majority of the continent's population, who are poor, rural, and illiterate. In
oversimplified terms, Africa must simultaneously accelerate its use of high-tech and
low-tech information services."
He notes further:
"This requires that African
governments embrace four major shifts that are occurring globally: (1) from public to
private, (2) from monopoly to competition, (3) from a supply-driven orientation to a
demand-driven one, and (4) from domestic-only to more foreign participation in ownership
and management of different market segments."
"Because these changes are so
fundamental, so fast, and touch on so many different market segments and major political
and bureaucratic interests, managing them would be difficult under the best of
circumstances, let alone in underdeveloped countries that lack strong policy institutions
and experience in promoting private companies." [end of quotation]
Our task, therefore, is to build on
all that is happening and meet the challenges so that Africa can compete with its
compatriots in the global economy.
Objectives of the meeting; what we
hope to accomplish
Overall:
To obtain a consensus of the
partners in the AISI on objectives and priorities for action and to draw up an
implementation plan
Within this overall concern,
specific objectives of the meeting:
To secure the commitment of the
partners to working together and to shared goals;
To coordinate the implementation of
AISI/HITD;
To set up a regional mechanism to
assist in the development, coordination and follow-up of an implementation plan;
To develop strategies for resource
mobilisation.
The expected outcomes of the meeting
are:
The outlines of concrete
implementation plans;
Distribution of tasks and
responsibilities;
Agreement on role and terms of
reference of African Technical Advisory Committee;
Establishment of a coordination
mechanism;
Specific steps for coordination of
Internet connectivity initiatives.
Information sharing of cooperating
agencies/ organizations on activities
It is important for all attending to
know the present and planned activities of the cooperating agencies, in order to work
towards coordination and to avoid overlap of activities in a time of resource scarcity.
Participants are encouraged to present their organisation's plans, programmes and projects
related to the use of information and communications technologies for development in
Africa. |