DISD Bids Farewell to Karima Bounemra Ben Soltane
By Mercy Wambui, DISD, 7/23/04 4:08:00 PM

Ms. Karima Bounemra Ben Soltane, Director of the Development Information Services Division (DISD) has been recently re-assigned as the new Director of ECA`s North African Sub-regional Office in Tangiers, Morocco.

During her 7-year stay in Ethiopia, and as the first director of the Development Information Services Division (DISD), Ms Bounemra was responsible for ECA`s Harnessing Information for Development Programme, and is credited with a number of innovative achievements, notably, overseeing the promotion and implementation of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI), whose genesis she was associated with as a member of the high-level Working Group in 1996. AISI sets out the blueprint for Africa`s entry to the information age and the use of information and communication technology for development. 

Among the accomplishments she has seen through include strengthening a broad range of stakeholders, such as media, civil society and media in ICT policy She also reinforced regional advisory services from national ICT policy-making (National Information and Communication Infrastructure - NICI) to include the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in the harmonization of ICT policies at the sub-regional levels in Africa.

In support of implementing the objectives of AISI, she revitalized the Partnership for ICTs in Africa (PICTA) , promoted the African Stakeholders Network (ASN) of the UN ICT Task Force and tirelessly worked to strengthen the African Technical Advisory Committee (ATAC) of AISI. Her commitment to ensuring ECA`s active role in preparing Africa for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), and ECA`s visibility during the Summit are just some of the hallmarks of her dynamism.

She has also been committed to increasing internal information and communication access through her membership of the ECA ICT committee, as well as other issues to advance the organization`s capacity to fulfill its mandate.

Under her leadership, ECA became the first UN regional commission to develop a fully-fledged programme on the value of library and information services in development. Her accomplishments in this regard have led to, among other things, an advocacy network for the development of libraries, and the establishment of the African Virtual Library and Information Network (AVLIN), which gives a regional dimension of ECA`s knowledge management initiatives, by providing a platform for information and data exchange as well as promoting easy access to electronic information for users of the network. She also contributed to strengthening the capacity of the ECA Library in introducing a state-of-the-art integrated library management system for resource acquisition, indexing, cataloguing, information retrieval and dissemination, and improved connectivity and networking to capture and share relevant external sources through the Internet and other channels.

Ms Bounemra was also instrumental in streamlining geoinformation in the overall context of development information at ECA, moving it from traditional hardcopy maps to contemporary and integrated digital geoinformation systems. She championed the use of geographic information systems to map indicators for ECA`s policy publications. She also oversaw the introduction of a web-based service to facilitate access to maps by ECA users, and clearinghouse nodes for cataloguing existing spatial data resources. In addition, the functions of the Regional Cartographic Conference for Africa were expanded and refocused with an information society perspective such as CODI-Geo. Geoinformation assistance to member States was re-oriented to emphasize the concept of spatial data infrastructures. She was an avid supporter of ECA-sponsored Regional Centres and enhanced collaboration and capacity building for member States in the area of geo-information.

Prior to ECA, Ms. Bounemra Ben Soltane was the Director General of l`institut regional des sciences informatiques et des telecommunications (IRSIT) the Tunisian research and development centre on information technology, where she was responsible for multimedia, network management and standardization. During that period, she participated in several committees responsible for the design of national telecommunication policies. She also served as advisor to the European Commission for the selection of ICT research proposals.

Her new assignment will expand from promoting the use of knowledge and information and communication technologies for Africa`s economic and social development to overseeing the promotion of harmonization of national policies in various socio-economic sectors in support of regional economic integration efforts.

DISD staff would like to express sincere gratitude for her vision, drive and commitment to securing ECA as a leading institution on information for development activities in Africa. We wish her all the best and continued success in her new assignment.