Par Baba Thiam

ACCRA- Le sommet régional préparatoire d’Accra est d’une importance capitale pour le continent africain. Les conclusions de cette réunion, qui s’est ouverte le 28 janvier et qui prendra fin le 4 février prochain, permettront aux acteurs de la société civile, aux décideurs politiques et au secteur privé de s’engager dans la même direction.
‘’Ce sommet permet aux Africains d’harmoniser leur point de vue dans le cadre du processus qui mène vers Tunis’’, explique Tankoano Joachim. A travers les ateliers et autres panels, il est surtout attendu une mise à niveau des différentes parties prenantes. Notre interlocuteur de poursuivre : ‘’C’est un moyen d’information entre les uns et les autres et de recueillir leurs avis’’. Les mécanismes de financement pour combler la fracture numérique tout comme la gouvernance de l’Internet sont des enjeux importants pour le Délégué à l’informatique du Burkina Faso.
Clause de solidarité numérique
Genève donne l’exemple
Dans le cadre du Fonds de solidarité numérique, il existe une clause qui exige des pouvoirs publics d’insérer dans tous les appels d’offre pour l’achat de matériel informatique 1% de la marge bénéficiaire de la société adjudicataire.
La ville de Genève a donné l’exemple. Depuis le 1er janvier 2005, les entreprises sont soumises à ce régime. ‘’Ce principe existe et fonctionne à Genève. Si l’entreprise accepte ce principe, elle est labellisée solidarité numérique’’, annonce Alain Clerc.
Et la particularité de la démarche est de trouver des financements additionnels pour répondre aux besoins des populations dans le cadre de l’accès aux NTIC.
Le Secrétaire exécutif dudit Fonds estime que ce fonds inclut l’ensemble des acteurs constitués du gouvernement, du secteur privé et de la société civile. Déjà l’Association internationale des maires francophones, l’Organisation internationale de la francophonie, des Etats et des pouvoirs locaux ont accepté le principe. Le but de cette démarche, précise-t-on, est de créer de l’emploi et des activités économiques en vue de permettre d’accéder à des marchés.

Par Baba Thiam

ACCRA- C’est au sortir de la conférence sur les enjeux des NTIC pour l’Afrique tenue en 1996 à Genève que les signes annonciateurs du Sommet mondial sur la société de l’information (SMSI) sont devenus perceptibles. Neuf ans après avoir esquissé les passerelles de l’information et de la communication, le processus semble être sur de bons rails.
Secrétaire exécutif du Fonds de solidarité numérique, Alain Clerc est visiblement satisfait du processus du SMSI lancé au lendemain de la conférence sur les enjeux des NTIC pour l’Afrique, en 1996, dont l’enjeu était d’identifier les besoins des populations aux plans local régional, urbain et rural. Mouhamet Diop, membre du Conseil d’administration de l’Internet corporation for assigned names and numbers (ICANN) invoque Genève et Tunis pour mettre l’accent sur l’importance de ces ‘’deux dates’’.
‘’Genève 2003 a été l’aboutissement d’un processus qui s’est matérialisé par une Déclaration de Principe et un Plan d’action’’, confie-t-il et de poursuivre : ‘’Le rendez-vous de Tunis permettra de voir la façon de décliner les grands defis des Plans d’action’’.
Le Burkinabé, Tankoana Joachim, par ailleurs Délégué général à l’Informatique, estime qu’ ‘’il y a une évolution positive dans le sens où les Africains ont réussi à donner un contenu à ce processus’’. Les sommets de Rio sur l’environnement, de Beijing sur les femmes… n’ont pas connu le même engouement du côté des OSC.
‘’Pour une fois dans le cadre d’un sommet, l’esprit a été porté par les Africains’’, se réjouit M. Diop selon qui c’est un défi pour l’Afrique.
L’experte en commerce électronique, Anne-Rachel Inné, abonde dans le même sens : ‘’Le processus a le mérite d’avoir été et est encore’’. Mais l’analyste de l’ICANN ne veut pas pour autant s’enflammer. Tout en reconnaissant que la discussion sur les enjeux des NTIC liés aux infrastructures, à l’e-gouvernance, l’e-education, au e-commerce est engagée, Mme Inné n’en relève pas moins que le défi est de sensibiliser les populations sur le processus déjà enclenché et de faire corps avec les Plans d’action. Pour elle, ‘’ce qui est important, c’est de mettre en place notre vision de ce qui est la société de l’information’’, et de lancer un appel : ‘’Il ne faut pas être des acteurs passifs’’.
Cependant les propos d’Alain Clerc rassurent sur la mobilisation des Organisations de la société civile qui ont joué admirablement bien leur partition.
‘’La société civile a été à l’origine du SMSI par le biais de Bamako’’, explique M. Clerc pour qui la mise en place du ‘’Fonds de solidarité numérique est la preuve par l’acte’’. La preuve par l’acte, c’est ce que Alex Corenthin, représentant des chapitres ISOC, membre de la société civile, rappelle avec insistance : ‘’Ce ne sont pas des définitions qu’il faut donner, mais des actions’’.

Par Gervais J. Henrie

ACCRA- • L’accès aux téléphone, le réseaux d’Internet et l’ordinateur, dans les régions rurales d’Afrique est toujours hors de question, peut-on lire dans l’article principal du quotidien de ce sommet régional préparatoire du SMSI d’Accra.
Cette situation existe encore malgré le processus de la création d’une société de l’information inclusive aux niveaux national, sous-régional et continental, qui a commence à Bamako en 2002 et se poursuit actuellement a travers Accra en 2005.
• Qu’est que les pays Africains font pour implanter les plans d’action et la déclaration de Genève 2003 ? Le quotidien a pris une position forte en rappelant l’appel du chef de l’état Ghanéen, J.A Kufuor qu’il s’agit ‘de formuler des stratégies gouvernementales consistantes, réalistes et cohérentes avec l’action sur l’inclusion des TIC pour un développement socio-économique.
• Selon WSIS Africa Agenda, jusqu à maintenant 500 millions francs Suisse a été collecté pour financer la création d’un fonds mondial pour la solidarité numérique. Aujourd’hui plus de 150 villes ont aussi promis de contribuer. La question qui fâche c’est la note à payer pour la réduction de la fracture numérique entrée les pays riches et les pays pauvres se joue un véritable yo-yo.
• WSIS Africa Agenda félicite les organisateurs de cette conférence préparatoire régionale Africaine du SMSI. Comparé avec le précèdent conférence a Genève 2003, l’agenda du rendez-vous d’Accra, est bien étale, écrit-on. Le thème ‘Accès : La clé de l’Afrique à une société d’information Globale,’ guidera les délègues au cour des leur débat pour la préparation du sommet de Tunis en 2005.

By Shina Badaru

ACCRA- As the question of who manages the Internet continues to generate increasing global attention, African stakeholders are pushing for a more effective role for the continent’s user community in the governance of global information infrastructures.
This topic was one of the crucial issues that attracted heated debate at the pre-conference workshops of the second African Regional Preparatory Conference for the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) which opened today at the Accra International Conference Centre, Accra, Ghana.
Underscoring the increasing importance of domain name management across Africa, a cross section of ICT sector stakeholders in Nigeria recently recommended that the National Internet Registration Agency (NiRA) should be formed to manage the .ng internet name.
Even though a larger stakeholders’ forum is expected to adopt the resolution of the 22-man working group set up in August. The Stakeholders Forum convened in August to resolve the domain name dispute among feuding ICT sector groups formed the Committee to recommended strategies for the formation of the consensus body. The Forum also resolved to relocate the .ng technical management from the US to Nigeria soon.
Meanwhile, experts at the pre-WSIS workshops agree that contentious issues include those of internet governance, financing initiatives to close digital divide, and definitions.
Olivier Nana Nzepa, a member of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) and chairperson of the African Civil Society Cabinet, says the issue of internet governance is even more critical for African economies where the growing community of users is more vulnerable to outside forces.
Nzepa, was part of the panel of experts at the Internet Governance workshop that included Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) consultant, professor Clement Dzidonu; programme officer with the Commonwealth Telecommunications Union (CTO) and professor Abdoulah Cisse of the Academia Research Network (ARN) for WSIS and Dean of Law University of University of Saint Louis, Senegal.
According to Nzepa, the concept of internet governance also needs to take into consideration better ways of reflecting African languages and the cultural diversity of all the communities who wish to be represented on the internet.
Hence, WSIS stakeholders need to organise workshops on the issue of cultural diversity so as to generate a consensus of specific views across economies and regions on the continent, he says. Nzepa believes that national governments should integrate internet governance concerns into their ICT policies and programmes.

By David Muwanga

ACCRA- The UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has for several years implemented an ICT advisory programme aimed at helping African countries provide ICT services to enrich the lives of poor people in Africa.
This programme, known as National Information Communication Infrastructure (NICI) or e-strategies, seeks to help countries create an enabling environment for ICT-enabled projects that will bring health services, education, income generation and access to markets closer to the poor."
One specific aspect of the programme that is being implemented in thirty African countries is to realign the country’s development goals, more precisely the poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP) objectives with the ICT policy," ECA consultant Dr Baharul Islam told participants at a workshop ahead of the African regional preparatory meeting for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) on Saturday.So far thirty African countries have already developed national ICT strategies and more have expressed interest in initiating national policies."
For example in Gambia the NICI process is geared towards recognizing the areas where ICT would contribute to the attaining the overall objectives of the four strategic issues identified in the PRSP," he said. These objectives include enhancing the productive capacity of the poor, broadening access to and the performance of social services, local level capacity building and promoting participatory communication process."
In Gambia, the NICI policy aims at supporting achievement of higher growth rates in all spheres of socio-economic activities using ICT as a platform to exchange data, information, knowledge and a tool to implement applications and provide services in order to ‘leapfrog’ several stages of development through a participatory approach in building human resources and a conducive environment," he said.
Speaking at the workshop was Ghana’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) representative Dr Justine Chisenga, who said that rural people constitute 75 percent of the people in the world who live on less than one dollar per day."
The advent of information communication technology has served only to widen the gap between them and others who don’t have access to such technologies. FAO and other partners are working on an integrated set of activities to bridge the rural, digital divide," he said.
Chisenga said FAO is setting up rural community radios that will be linked to the internet for the people to source information on commodities and markets. "We have already done this with East European farmers who are sharing information on the Agroweb central and East European networks (which) provide information on agricultural institutions". The networks also provide information about upcoming events that might be of interest to the farmers. "The information exchange network that was established with support from the organisation in Latin America enabled a farmers association to sell its produce at twelve percent more than the price offered by local buyers," he said.
However Sizo Mhlanga, ECA regional advisor observed, "The process cannot go without challenges, there is a problem of getting everybody involved, you find institutional infrastructure lacking and lack of specific leadership responsible."
Quoting Rwanda as an example, Mhlanga said that "There is political will in Rwanda to implement a national ICT policy because President Paul Kagame is the driving force behind its implementation, so everybody has to get involved."

By Remmy Nweke

ACCRA- Twenty West African journalists have received intensive training on how to report on the information society in a three day course ahead of the African regional preparatory meeting for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
A number of non governmental organisations collaborated to provide a workshop entitled “Reporting the Information Society” at the International Press Centre in Accra.
Welcoming participants at the workshop, Kwami Ahiabenu, president of PenPlusBytes, said his Accra based organisation seeks to empower media professionals through the use of ICT tools in advancing the work of journalism.
Ahiabenu also said PenPlusBytes activities involved knowledge sharing among journalists interested in leveraging the use of ICT in advancing their work and society.
He guided them through common ICT terminology such as internet governance, information society, digital divide, the internet media and ICT convergence, saying the training would place participants in a better position to create a greater understanding of Information Society issues.
Desiree Miloshevic of Afilias, a global registry service, led a discussion on internet domain names, the domain market place and the current status of African country code top level domain names (ccTLDs).
While Steven Lang, editor of the Highway Africa News Agency (HANA), made a presentation on the aims and objectives of the agency. He explained how HANA has been covering WSIS prepcoms, the first summit meeting in Geneva in 2003 as well as other ICT related events.
Sunday Folayan, managing director of Nigerian internet service provider, Skannet gave a talk on “Africa and the issue of access”. Kieran Baker and Anne-Rachel Inne from the Internet Corporation on Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) explained the role of their organisation in terms of internet governance and outreach programs. Mouhamet Diop, a Senegalese businessman who is also an ICANN director, made a presentation on ”What is AfriNIC (the African regional internet registry) and Internet Protocol version 6”.
Journalists participating in the workshop came from Ghana, Mali, Benin, Nigeria, Togo, Gambia and Cote d’Ivoire. They were pleased with the content and the standard of discussions in the course.
Charity Binka, assistant chief editor at Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), said that it is important for journalists to know about developments in the field of information technology.
“Although, we are quite few as women and being part of providing information, but I believe no one is going to give us that on a platter of gold. We need to be able to build our capacity, position ourselves as journalists. It does not matter if you’re a man or woman. We must be able to manage our time and position ourselves to the position we want,” she said, emphasising the importance of learning about ICTs and how they can be efficiently used in the information society.
John Awe, Lagos bureau chief of the Nigerian Tribune, and Segun Oruame editor of ITEdge, agreed with her and described the training as useful and good for the media development in the region.

By Brenda Zulu

ACCRA- As Africans meet in Ghana to discuss how to broaden access to information technologies in Africa, two completely different, and frequently opposing forums have been debating social and financial issues that will undoubtedly affect Africa.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) an annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland heard a call for action on African debt relief from a panel of special guests including Tony Blair, the prime minister of Britain; Bono, lead singer of U2; Bill Clinton, former president of the US; Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa; Olusegun Obasanjo, president of Nigeria and Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft corporation.
Public sessions in the first two days of the WEF focused heavily on social issues, notably poverty, disease and ethical business practices. Surprisingly, the agenda was not very different at the rival World Social Forum (WSF) which took place in Porto Alegre in Brazil.
The Africa Social Forum (ASF) participated in the WSF with a full agenda opposed to neo-liberalism. The WSF has however, recognised Africa’s problems and has therefore asked Africa to host the 2007 WSF.
Access: Africa’s key to an inclusive information society
The theme of the African Regional preparatory conference for the WSIS is “Access, Africa’s key to an inclusive information society”. The conference is aimed at preparing African countries for the second stage of the WSIS, to be held in Tunisia in November this year.
Participants at the Accra conference noted how the Davos meeting fed into the African WSIS process when politicians and business magnates held a session dedicated to ICTs and poverty reduction.
Sizo Mhlanga, a regional advisor of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) referred to a pledge made by Bill Gates, promising a significant donation for African children, as a constructive move that will help reduce poverty in Africa.
It is also clear from rockstar Bono’s remarks during the Davos meeting that “with 3000 Africans dying each day from mosquito bites, it is not a cause but an emergency.”
British prime minister Tony Blair speaking in Davos on Africa and the G-8, called for a realistic work plan to eradicate entrenched African poverty, famine and diseases.
According to a statement by president John Kufuor of Ghana, the Accra conference mirrors the continent’s resolve to totally embrace a common vision and strategy for an information based society that not only recognises ICTs as tool for economic innovation, but also as a platform for social development.
The conference aims to achieve concrete results that will address critical needs, such as a common GSM mobile phone card for Africa, the removal of regulatory obstacles and content provision for the internet, digital radio and television services says Aida Opuku Mensah, officer in charge of UNECA’s Development Information Services Division (DISD)
The action plan for Africa will include concrete proposals for facilitating investment in ICTs and recommendations on e-strategies and applications across various sectors such as education, agriculture and commerce as well as human resource development.
Government ministers charged with advancing ICTs in Africa will use the forum to take stock of the achievements made since the establishment in April 2004, of an African Ministerial Committee to act on proposals coming out of the WSIS in Geneva.
Just as in Davos and Porto Alegre we are expecting heated and in depth discussions as well as constructive proposals on the global partnerships Africa requires to finance access to information and communication technologies. It is likely that much of the discussions will focus on the Digital Solidarity Fund, proposed at Geneva Summit by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and subsequently adopted by the AU Summit of heads of state in July 2004, said Makane Faye ECA senior ICT policy advisor.

My view - by Dr Dayo Ogunyemi

ACCRA- In the West, e-commerce and other internet-driven innovations were natural by-products of largely unfettered private sector entrepreneurial zeal applied to communications network access that relentlessly improved in terms of accessibility and quality. Among the global e-innovators e-policy followed e-business, which was enabled by an explosion in internet usage fueled by increasingly cheap and fast internet bandwidth.
In Africa, governments are laboring to implement e-policies and e-government initiatives without adequately attending to network/bandwidth access issues.
The primacy of bandwidth
The point is simple – network access, including cheap and abundant internet bandwidth, is the lifeblood of e-commerce and other net applications. And in many African countries, like those with SAT-3 connectivity, external bandwidth connectivity is no longer the bottleneck it used to be. Yet private sector players, eager and capable of developing last-mile solutions, are starved of affordable external bandwidth.
This restriction is mainly artificial – external connectivity is often controlled by the state-owned (ex-) monopoly or its successor, who frequently engages in what is at worst anti-competitive, or at best mindlessly, bureaucratic pricing and distribution practices, untrammeled by any meaningful regulatory oversight.
For all the rhetoric about commitment to ICT and the transformative potential of internet-based applications like e-commerce and the proliferation of e-everything initiatives (on good old paper), few African countries have stepped up to take action on this crucial issue.
First, do no harm
There is no question that other, more pro-active steps can subsequently (or simultaneously) be taken to create an enabling policy environment for developing the knowledge society; including the use of incentives to stimulate the use of domestic service providers and deploy local content.
But, are African governments doing anything, even within capacity constraints, to ensure widespread access? If governments stifle the innovation that even small to mid-sized enterprises can implement, who will invest to solve the more intractable issues – rural infrastructure and universal access?
Governments must match their rhetoric with action – and this is one of the few areas that many governments are in a position, with a stroke of the policy pen, to enable great change and progress.
As we Africans make global demands on bridging the digital divide, let us remove all our self-imposed obstacles at home. There’s not much point challenging the status-quo on IP-number allocation, when we have bandwidth capacity unallocated and underutilized because domestic monopolies price it out of reach.
From South Africa, to Ghana, to Nigeria – almost universally in Africa – the private sector will tell anyone who bothers to ask them that this is the most pressing internet issue they face, even before internet governance. Abandoning protectionist arguments in defense of telco incumbents would really demonstrate that African governments understand that this is a burning issue and are willing to do their part to make the African information society a reality.
Good for voice, good for data
Some will argue that external connectivity is too complex or difficult to be dealt with so rapidly. However, Africa’s recent history is replete with examples where such bold steps – with fixed and mobile line liberalisation, with VOIP, with the deployment of VSAT for data – have met with an overwhelming response by both private sector investors and consumers.
Any country that takes this bold step would likely start a virtuous cycle in motion, as the experience across Africa with GSM has shown. Lower wholesale connectivity prices would result in wider, and better quality access domestically as private sector players deploy new technologies like Wi-Max to address the last mile problem.
Other technologies such as VOIP could justify connectivity roll-out even to rural areas as entrepreneurs seize on it as an efficient and price-competitive response to Africa’s proven appetite for voice traffic. This would in turn spur domestic infrastructure development – with data networks serving both data and voice demand. That domestic infrastructure, combined with intra-regional internet exchanges, could further stimulate domestic and regional internet demand.
Nobody move?
All it requires is one brave government to set that crucial first example by unshackling its private sector by removing external bandwidth connectivity from the dominant telco’s control and making it available on a wholesale basis to all comers at prices just above cost. It may well set in motion Africa’s best shot at bridging domestic rural-urban and international digital divide and solving the challenges of e-literacy through the local web deployment of African content in African languages. As Africa comes together in Accra 2005 to chart its digital future, will there be any takers?

By Haru Mutasa

ACCRA- The gist of Saturday’s pre-conference workshop on Internet Governance was simple – ‘talk is cheap - we need to now minimise what is said at these gatherings and move into action’.
“We as Africans don’t have the participatory culture of discussion and debate and we need to drive this participatory process,” said Adiel Akplogan, CEO of the African Network Information Centre (AfriNIC) the new Internet Number registry for Africa.
The list, of what needs to be done before issues surrounding Internet Governance can be ironed out, is extensive.
On the to-do-list includes;
-Clearly defining what the term Internet Governance (IG) means by involving all stakeholders in the process
-Raising awareness at all levels on IG
-Mainstreaming Internet Governance in national e-strategies across Africa
-Recognising and accepting the role of all stakeholders in these processes by facilitating continuous debates and discussion at national, regional and international levels
-Educating African people with the skills needed to manage country code top level domain names (ccTLDs) effectively and understand how they can be used as national money making business opportunities
These and other points were seen as positive steps to creating an appropriate environment for Internet development on the continent, benefits of which include increasing internet connectivity in Africa, bridging the digital divide by increasing ICT tools and use in rural areas, all of which contribute to the reduction of poverty.
AfriNIC, the initiative of African internet service providers (ISPs) and internet stakeholders was one example of regional integration and cooperation of an organisation committed to realising these goals.
Akplogan said AfriNIC still has hurdles to overcome to ensure effective e-strategy development in Africa - training skilled staff, setting up and maintaining strong and efficient organisational structures and ensuring financial sustainability of the organisation after two years.
The gathering ended on a positive note with delegates determined to find a way forward to these and other problems around issues of Internet Governance. Recommendations and findings will be given to the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) to investigate and make proposals for action on the governance of the internet by 2005.
The WGIG, established by the United Nations Secretary-General, after the first phase of the WSIS held in Geneva in December 2003, will present its recommendations to the preparatory committee meetings for the second phase of the WSIS in Tunis later this year.

By Emrakeb Assefa

ACCRA- A critical difference between the second phase of preparatory committee meetings (prepcoms) of the World Summit for Information Society (WSIS) and the previous versions held in Geneva, Switzerland is that it has an actual document that serves as a basis for negotiations.
Unlike first phase WSIS precoms, where intense discussions took place from June to December 2003 in a somewhat chaotic manner, the Tunis prepcoms will actually have a document that serves to guide delegates on the major issues of the WSIS process. A lesson learnt from the past experience?
Delegates currently attending the African Regional Prepcom for WSIS from February 2 to 4 in Accra, Ghana under the theme of “Access – Africa’s key to an inclusive information society” will use this document to guide their discussions. The body responsible for producing the document is called the “Group of Friends of the Chair”, who assist the Tunis prepcom president, Janis Karklins in his work.
Comprised of 30 government representatives, five regional coordinators and a representative from the two WSIS host counties, Switzerland and Tunisia, the Group has finalised the draft document for Tunis WSIS in January 2005. The main outcome of the Tunis phase is expected to be a two-part document made up of the Political Chapeau (Tunis Commitment) and the Operational Part (Tunis Agenda for Action).
The two parts of the Tunis document look a lot like the Declaration of Principles and the Plan of Action endorsed by governments during the first phase of WSIS. The first, Political Chapeau is a more concise version of the Declaration of Principles while the Operational Part, a core version of the Plan of Action, highlights what member countries must do to bridge the digital divide.
Dubbed as the “Summit of Solutions”, the Tunisia phase of the WSIS will build on the achievements of the Geneva phase to build an inclusive information society for all. The document outlines in detail the required actions, benchmarks and the policies that will contribute to accessing the information and communications technologies (ICTs), required to speed up development and economic growth in the continent.

By Emrakeb Assefa

ACCRA- One of the two main, unresolved issues of the first phase of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in December 2003 relates to the question of who pays the bills for bridging the digital divide between the haves and the have-nots.
As such, the financing question is on the top of the agenda at the African Regional preparatory conference for the WSIS opening today in Accra, Ghana where delegates will look at the report of the Task Force on Financial Mechanisms set up to facilitate the discussions on the subject.
Called “the Report of the Task Force on Financial Mechanisms for ICT for Development”, the 123-page report, published in December 2004, reviews all existing financial mechanisms and their efficacy in meeting the challenges of ICT for development.
In terms of agreements reached during the first phase of the two phase WSIS process, governments, civil society and the private sector are implementing the Plan of Action adopted by world leaders in Geneva, in December, 2003. At the same time, two working groups have been set up to find solutions and reach agreements on financing mechanisms and internet governance.
The first phase, which was concluded in Geneva in 2003, recommended that “while all existing financial mechanisms should be fully exploited to make available the benefits of information and communication technologies, a thorough review of their adequacy in meeting the challenges of ICT for development should be completed by the end of December 2004”.
African countries are very concerned about a Task Force recommendation, contained in the final report, regarding the creation, effectiveness, and feasibility of a voluntary Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF). The bad news for African countries, the major force behind the DSF, is that the fund did not receive a green light to become part of the WSIS process. The report says that Task Force is “not in a position to assess DSF’s role among the various ICT financial mechanisms” since the mechanism is yet to be operational and its goals and objectives are still evolving.
The good news is that though not an officially recognised body, the DSF has received voluntary contributions from various sources as well as the support of many city and national governments. The fund has so far received more than five million Swiss francs, while 120 cities have committed themselves to implementing the “Geneva Principle”. This document stipulates that public calls for bids in the field of ICT shall include a digital solidarity clause requiring the successful company to contribute one percent of the value of the transaction to the Digital Solidarity Fund.

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.

By Haru Mutasa

ACCRA- In rural communities of Africa owning a computer is out of the question. Where computers do exist there aren’t enough or are too expensive for everyone to use.
Subsistence wages do not begin to cover the cost of hardware, software or computer lessons that facilitate access to information on the economy, education and healthcare information that could help improve living standards for millions of people around the world.
This inequality of knowledge, among and within countries, is known as the "digital divide" - the gap between the technology haves and have-nots. In 1998 the International Telecommunication Union, on the recommendation of the government of Tunisia, placed the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) on the United Nations agenda. The summit was to be a platform for the international community to come together, debate and agree on a common vision for the Information Society with the ultimate goal of bridging this digital divide.
Plans were put in place to hold the summit in two phases, the first in Geneva Switzerland in December 2003, and the second in Tunisia, in November later this year.
Preparations for the summit took place through open-ended, intergovernmental Preparatory Committee meetings or PrepComs. PrepComs define the agenda of the Summit, participation of other stakeholders, and finalise both the draft Declaration of Principles and the draft Plan of Action. Four PrepComs have been held so far, three ahead of the Geneva summit, and the last one, to prepare for the second phase, took place in Hammamet, Tunisia in June this year.
The first African regional conference, known as Bamako 2002, was held in Mali. The meeting sensitised African countries to the importance of the WSIS process and laid down the foundations to formulate Africa’s vision for building an inclusive, information society.
The second African Regional Preparatory Conference in Accra will launch regional preparations for the second phase in Tunis (November 2005). Participants are expected, among other things, to come up with a regional action plan on major ICT issues affecting the continent - including the remaining two unsolved issues of the Geneva phase, namely internet governance and financing the information society.
The next WSIS PrepCom, is set for Geneva Switzerland later this month.

By Angella Nabwowe

ACCRA- Ghanaian President John Kufuor is today expected to officially open the Africa Regional World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) preparatory meeting at the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC), Ghana.
The meeting precedes the second phase of the WSIS to be held in Tunis, Tunisia in November, 2005. The theme for the three-day conference (February 2-4, 2005) is, “Access: Africa’s key to an inclusive information society.”
About 1000 delegates, including the secretary general of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Yoshio Utsumi, Rwanda's president Paul Kagame, the president of the 2nd phase of the WSIS preparatory meetings, Janis Karklins and the prime minister of Tunisia, Mouhamed Ghounnushi are expected to attend.
Parallel workshops feeding into the main conference discussions about policies and regulatory interventions will take place simultaneously at the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence and the British Council offices in Accra.
The conference, which started with a series of pre-conference workshops on January 28, seeks to review progress achieved in implementing the Plan of Action adopted at the first phase of the WSIS in Geneva, Switzerland in December 2003. It will also debate methods of financing information and communication technologies in Africa and various aspects of internet governance.
Delegates are expected to come up with concrete solutions and recommendations aimed at reducing poverty, broadening access to health care, education and to bridge the technology gap between Africa and the developed nations. The key issue here is to understand the powerful potential of ICTs in promoting socio-economic development. A major platform, dubbed the “Information Communication Technology for Development” (ICT4-D) has been put in place to showcase ICTs by representatives of local and international businesses, governments and United Nations agencies.
The media was identified as a key role player early in the WSIS process. Many local and foreign journalists are expected to ensure that the meeting of African ICT experts receives wide coverage.
Two innovative news organisations, Simbani Radio News Agency and the Highway Africa News Agency (HANA) are reporting daily on the conference. Simbani produces radio current affairs programmes throughout the day, while HANA is distributing news articles and photographs to online subscribers throughout the continent.
The conference is organised by the Ghana Ministry of Information and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), in partnership with over 50 national and international sponsors.