Uganda Launches Guide to ICT Development

By Thrishni Subramoney

Proud of its information technology development success stories, the Ugandan
government has launched a special guidebook at the Africa Telecom 2004
conference in Cairo, Egypt that details its experiences and achievements.

The document was presented by Ugandan Minister of Works, Housing and
Communications, John Nasasira, to International Telecommunications Union
(ITU) Secretary-General Yoshio Utsumi at a plenary session on ICT
Development Case Studies on the continent. The gathering of African
telecommunication business and government leaders is in its third day at the
Egyptian capital.

The guidebook – compiled by the Uganda government – looks at the country's
approach to bringing about universal access to the new technologies. Uganda
was singled by a top ITU official yesterday as being one of the countries
making headway in telecommunications development. Nasasira launched the book
after speaking about the gains Uganda has made in including ICTs in their
education, commerce and health spheres.

According to the Nasasira, Uganda has connected 20 secondary schools in the
country; and ten technical colleges have been linked up to exchange training
and vocational IT skills. The east African country is also using ICTs to
help keep body and soul together, by linking hospitals in Kampala - allowing
practitioners to share pictures and case information.

Utsumi – who apparently attended the session especially for the launch -
said the book was "comprehensive and helpful". "The ITU will help distribute
electronic copies of this book," he said, joining Nasasira onstage.

Speaking in French, Mali's Minister of Communication and Information
Technology, Gaoussou Drabo, said his country has made ICT progress, but
noted that most of the development was focused on urban areas. While the
country has more than three phones per hundred urban inhabitants, the rural
situation is even more desperate, with not even one phone between a thousand
people.

He noted, alarmingly, that while there was a global north-south divide that
needed to be dealt with, there was also another gap opening up on the
continent between rural and urban dwellers. Despite this, he said that urban
progress, at least, has been swift, with an increasing number of hospitals
and schools getting access to IT.

NGO Digital Opportunity Trust's Janet Longmore – another speaker at the
session – says a stumbling block in ICT growth in the region is that ICT
skills training often lacks proper context. She says her organization's ICT
4 Development venture is dealing with this by seeking out bright young
people in developing countries and arming them with technological skills.

The youth then work with SMEs (Small to Medium Enterprises) in their own
countries and show them how ICTs can streamline their businesses. She added
that ICT 4 Development projects had been run in Canada, Jordan, Lebanon and
Egypt.

"The important thing is that after their training, these young people go and
work with the business owners. So it's the owners who understand, who get
the 'Ah-ha', and then they see the relevance of the technological skills,"
Longmore said.
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