What is the Information Technology Centre for Africa?
The Information Technology Centre for Africa (ITCA) is an information and communication technology (ICT) focused exhibition and learning centre to demonstrate to African policy makers and planners the value of ICT for African development. The ITCA will contribute to the realization of the Africa Information Society Initiative (AISI). The AISI (http://www.uneca.org/aisi/)   was adopted in Addis Ababa in May 1996, by African ministers responsible for economic development and planning, and endorsed the same week by the African Regional Telecommunication Development Conference in Abidjan, and subsequently by the Organisation of African Unity Summit of Heads of State (Yaounde) and supported by the G-8 in Denver.

The concept of ITCA has grown out of the need to wrap a framework around the growing number of mandates and ICT related outreach activities spearheaded by ECA. ITCA offers an opportunity to reach the approximately 18,000 conference participants that pass through the ECA’s United Nations Conference Center (UNCC) to attend over 1500 events annually. ITCA intends to provide its exhibition and training services both to ECA and non-ECA sponsored conferences in the framework of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI). In responding to the AISI framework, ITCA aims to focus on enhancing the awareness and commitment of African policy and decision-makers in assuming leadership and championing the diffusion and utilization of ICTs to development endeavors in Africa. This will open up significant new markets for ICT products and services throughout Africa, even in the medium term, which will further accelerate the continent’s socio-economic development and growth.

ECA and the Knowledge Society
Globalization and the associated emergence of the Knowledge Society are transforming the way the developed world operates. How should Africa respond? There are fears that by simply adopting the developed world’s model that the benefits will not be equitably spread throughout society, and that the divide will be amplified between the minority elite groups and the poor masses. ECA is the only African intergovernmental organization with a specific mandate for economic and social development. This enables it to play a primary role in facilitating the development of international and regional policies and programs with a view to balance Africa’s need (and right) to be a full and active partner in the development of the global knowledge economy. Central to this mandate is the importance of spreading the benefits of ICTs equitably and quickly at all levels of the African society.

ECA’s Executive Management has recognized that fundamentally, ECA is an information service provider specialized on economic and social development aspects for the benefit of African member States. The effectiveness and future relevance of the ECA depends upon its capacity to successfully position itself as a distinctive, value-added hub in the network of African development information and knowledge exchange. The ITCA was launched in 1999 as one of the major long term initiatives intended to facilitate the transformation of ECA into a knowledge organization.