By David Kezio-Musoke

ACCRA- Ghana this week becomes an historic stopover in an African journey towards an ‘Information Society’ that began in Bamako, Mali in 2002. Mali hosted the first African regional conference of the World Summit for Information Society (WSIS).
But as we draw nearer to the second phase of the United Nations (UN) sponsored summit in Tunis later this year, there is one significant question that every one is asking. ‘What happens when the ‘bubble bursts’? What happens after the WSIS in Tunisia, and what will be the way forward?’
This week, under the theme “Access- Africa’s key to an inclusive information society” delegates from more than 50 African countries meet here in Accra to act as an advance party en route Tunis to seek answers to those questions.
The Accra outputs will be used to prepare Africa’s negotiating position in Tunis. There is still concern that many African countries have done little to implement the Geneva 2003 Plan of Action (PoA). In terms of the PoA, governments should be opening the way for broader access to Information and Communications Technologies (ICT).
Host President of Ghana J.A Kufuor in his message to the regional meeting says, “It is of paramount importance to implement policies, legal and regulatory interventions which are conducive to the successful incorporation of ICTs into the socio-economic development agenda.”
Ghana has an existing ICT policy but only about two thirds of the countries making contributions to the debates here at the Accra meeting have ICT policies in place.
And yet without the effective implementation of the PoA and national policies there can not be an examination of second generation issues on the Information Society, including Internet governance and the introduction of full-scale e-commerce and e-government activities.
According to 2003 figures from the National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI), 18 African countries of those represented are still in the process of developing ICT policies and as many as 12 including Sierra Leone, are yet to begin the process of developing an ICT policy.
Baharul Islam an ICT policy specialist attending this summit says that some countries have such policies in place but they are already gathering dust on shelves. “The policies exist but have not even revised,” Baharul adds.
In several East African states ICT legislation has existed for in the form of draft documents for close on two years awaiting parliamentary debates and eventual approval from their respective cabinets.
Sceptics believe it would be very difficult for African states to implement the Geneva 2003 POA or even effectively adopt any outcomes of this week’s meeting here in Accra if they have done insufficient preparatory work back home.
Others argue that it is futile to consider raising ICT issues in Accra and later in Tunis because governments are under pressure to attend to the more pressing requirements of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s).
Johnson Nkuhe a Member of the Ugandan Parliament has noted that almost all African countries attending the regional precom have local WSIS committees. “But they are even not widely publicised and meet often without all stakeholders, yet they attended all the preparatory meetings of the WSIS to make representations on behalf of all,” Nkuhe says.
“That is quite undemocratic and you know some African countries don’t even think this WSIS thing will even work. By the time of WSIS in Tunisia energies might be on something else if the process if not well handled.” says Nkuhe.