Friday, February 04, 2005
Africans at WSIS push for “shared knowledge society”
By Emrakeb Assefa
As the Africa Regional preparatory conference for the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) winds down here in Accra today, it is time to take stock of what Africa needs to do if it is to be taken seriously by the global community in bridging the global digital divide.
K.Y. Amoako, executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the UN agency co-organising the conference, said that Africans at the WSIS should push the ICTs for development agenda in Africa if the continent is to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set for 2015. He said the African information society community gathered in Accra agreed that Africans should create “opportunities to access, utilise and share information and knowledge” in order to achieve the MDGs which can improve quality of life and eradicate poverty on the continent. He also said the African position at the WSIS is to include the sense of a “shared knowledge society” in the information society.
Amoako expressed support for the Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF), endorsed by the African Union (AU) summit in 2004, as an African-led initiative to finance the information society. He also said that, in order for Africa to resolve its financing problem on telecommunication infrastructure which he called “the Achilles heel of Africa’s information society”, Africa will need a multi-stakeholder approach. It should bring in regional economic communities and institutions such African Development Bank (ADB) as well as the AU to fund projects in education and health.
Amoako supported the creation of a ministerial committee of permanent cooperation on information and communication technologies (ICTs) which will be under the supervision of the Nepad ICT cluster. He urged the newly created African ministerial committee on ICTs to create a sub-committee that will look into developing capacity for the regulatory frameworks that allow Africa to tap into the global e-business environment.
But, the future looks grim when stock taking of the Africa’s progress towards meeting the MDGs.
“It is already clear that serious action is needed if Africa is to achieve the goals in 2015 rather than over a hundred years later,” Amoako warned. Sub-Saharan Africa is unlikely to achieve MDG one - the eradication of extreme hunger and halving of poverty, until 2150. Africa will not achieve the second goal, universal primary education, until 2130, he said.
Moreover, in order for sub-Saharan Africa to reach the MDGs, aid will have to increase from last year’s level of under $25 billion to 37 billion this year and then to 73 billion by 2015.
Of course, Africa has come a long way from a decade ago when it began a dialogue on the information society and what it meant for the continent. Amoako noted that a decade of ICT progress in Africa has been registered since the ECA launched the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) which set the regional framework for accelerating Africa’s participation in the information society and bridging the digital divide.
As the Africa Regional preparatory conference for the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) winds down here in Accra today, it is time to take stock of what Africa needs to do if it is to be taken seriously by the global community in bridging the global digital divide.
K.Y. Amoako, executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the UN agency co-organising the conference, said that Africans at the WSIS should push the ICTs for development agenda in Africa if the continent is to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set for 2015. He said the African information society community gathered in Accra agreed that Africans should create “opportunities to access, utilise and share information and knowledge” in order to achieve the MDGs which can improve quality of life and eradicate poverty on the continent. He also said the African position at the WSIS is to include the sense of a “shared knowledge society” in the information society.
Amoako expressed support for the Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF), endorsed by the African Union (AU) summit in 2004, as an African-led initiative to finance the information society. He also said that, in order for Africa to resolve its financing problem on telecommunication infrastructure which he called “the Achilles heel of Africa’s information society”, Africa will need a multi-stakeholder approach. It should bring in regional economic communities and institutions such African Development Bank (ADB) as well as the AU to fund projects in education and health.
Amoako supported the creation of a ministerial committee of permanent cooperation on information and communication technologies (ICTs) which will be under the supervision of the Nepad ICT cluster. He urged the newly created African ministerial committee on ICTs to create a sub-committee that will look into developing capacity for the regulatory frameworks that allow Africa to tap into the global e-business environment.
But, the future looks grim when stock taking of the Africa’s progress towards meeting the MDGs.
“It is already clear that serious action is needed if Africa is to achieve the goals in 2015 rather than over a hundred years later,” Amoako warned. Sub-Saharan Africa is unlikely to achieve MDG one - the eradication of extreme hunger and halving of poverty, until 2150. Africa will not achieve the second goal, universal primary education, until 2130, he said.
Moreover, in order for sub-Saharan Africa to reach the MDGs, aid will have to increase from last year’s level of under $25 billion to 37 billion this year and then to 73 billion by 2015.
Of course, Africa has come a long way from a decade ago when it began a dialogue on the information society and what it meant for the continent. Amoako noted that a decade of ICT progress in Africa has been registered since the ECA launched the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) which set the regional framework for accelerating Africa’s participation in the information society and bridging the digital divide.
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