Partnerships

The development of the information infrastructure will be driven, mainly by the private sector, both in terms of capital and related technological innovations. In this regard, ITCA will emerge as a crucial mechanism to maximize current and future partnership programs in the use of ICTs as a means to accelerate Africa’s development. In particular, ITCA will help to:

• Ensure commitment from all partners (governments, private sector and the development community) to work together to implement the AISI;
• Create networking mechanisms that will lead to an African knowledge base on critical information society issues;
• Secure agreement from the private sector to fully participate in showcasing successful ICT applications which are relevant to the development endeavors in African countries; and
• Secure agreement from governments to champion AISI by making use of ITCA’s programmes and services to promote private sector investment.

Considering that visitors to the ECA conference center are decision-makers in many different sectors from all member States, the technology exhibition center would provide an outstanding opportunity to establish partnership between the exhibitors and visitors. Through their exhibits at the UNCC, exhibitors will have regular exposure to the policy makers who control access to African markets. In addition, it will provide easy access for potential buyers to the products and services on demand. In view of above, there is potentially a very high medium and long-term return on the investment of ITCA’s partners due to the acceleration of the development of a wide range of new ICT markets throughout Africa. However, tangible incentives will be provided in the form of benefits tailored to attract each of the above partner-types made up of a variety of combinations of ECA services and facilities, for example:

• Preferential access and special rates for conference halls, caucus rooms, and prime exhibition areas at the UNCC;
• Preferential access to information within databases of one or more of the ITCA’s target markets;
• Free or special rates for Africa-specific marketing related to ECA services and UNCC events;
• Special rates for ECA produced input reports and analyses; conference or seminar proceedings; and a variety of follow-up documents customized to suit partner-specific needs for conferences, seminars or workshops held at the UNCC;
• Special rates for management of a variety of electronic interaction and discussion groups (virtual communities) that would be held prior-to, during and post partner conferences, seminars or workshops; and
• Facilitation and/or provision of connectivity through ECA’s SRDCs or through selected ISPs.