Saturday, February 05, 2005
Accra adopts resolutions en route to Tunis
By David Kezio-Musoke
TODAY marks the end of the Accra regional preparatory conference. As WSIS Africa Agenda goes to print, delegates will tirelessly be putting together a document of resolutions that delegates will adopt and bring to the attention of the other WSIS preparatory conferences before they are carried to Tunis.
WSIS Africa Agenda highlights some of the resolutions made by various working groups and caucuses on some of the pertinent issues that are likely to be adopted by the conference this evening.
Representatives within the framework of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) made resolutions on financing the information society and bridging the digital divide, first by welcoming the decision taken by Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo in his capacity as president of the African Union (AU) to the launch the Digital Solidarity Fund DSF in March 2005.
They resolved that the AU should take the necessary measures to bring the resolutions adopted today to the attention of the other WSIS regional preparatory conferences.
Several African ministers, European Union (EU) donors, the World Bank, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Development Bank (ADB) participated in the drafting committee.
They also recommended that a solidarity fund similar to the DSF should be created in each country to provide financing for local, national projects.
On internet governance, a group workshop including representatives from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the African Research Network (ARN) and the ECA resolved that regional organisations representing Africa at international levels, such as the African Network Information Centre (AfriNIC) and the Association of African Internet Service Provider Associations (AfrISPA), should be supported. It was also resolved that the operations of these organisations should be harmonised and coordinated.
They said in their draft that countries should support AfriNIC by raising awareness of the functions of this new organisation.
One of their resolutions on internet governance said “African countries should reinforce the continued role of the private sector in developing infrastructure, capacity building and doing it jointly with governments.”
“This will develop education and create a conducive regulatory environment to secure investors and enable them to invest in Information Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure and ICT applications in Africa”.
They also said policies should be created to help remove the barriers to ICT education and training. The barriers they mentioned include gender, language and cultural barriers.
In a working group on the implementation of the WSIS Declaration and Plan of Action (PoA), delegates resolved that African nations should ensure that national statistical offices are involved in the collection and dissemination of information on the implementation of the WSIS Plan of Action.
Ghana’s minister of communications, Albert Kan-Dapaah chaired this group that included the minister of information and communications from Mali and various other ministers.
The ministers resolved that African states should set up and activate the national WSIS committees called for in the Bamako Declaration. Mali hosted the first regional preparatory meeting in 2002.
The ministers also resolved that African states should establish an international mechanism to monitor and evaluate the progress of the information society and implement the Geneva action plan for the period 2005 to 2015.
On African languages and open source software, more than 60 participants from 23 African countries attended a pre-conference workshop which resolved that the African Academy of Languages (ACALAN), should encourage linguistics and IT specialists to harmonise their efforts. ACALAN is a specialised institution of the AU.
This group said its resolutions would be adopted immediately after the Accra conference even if they are not given priority in the final report of resolutions.
“The organisation of the ‘2006 Year of African Languages’ should be supported through the implementation of projects to promote the presence in cyberspace of at least one major cross-border, supra-regional language for each African region,” they said.
“This cross-border supra-regional language will be a medium for communication through the internet or a website,” they added. They also resolved that advocacy for open source software and efforts to increase awareness of its importance should be pursued.
One of their other resolutions was to support the African Association of Software Users (AASU) initiative for the establishment of the African open source software observatory.
They recognised that the second phase of the WSIS should consider the linguistic digital divide as one of the factors to be eliminated in order to build an inclusive information society and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
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TODAY marks the end of the Accra regional preparatory conference. As WSIS Africa Agenda goes to print, delegates will tirelessly be putting together a document of resolutions that delegates will adopt and bring to the attention of the other WSIS preparatory conferences before they are carried to Tunis.
WSIS Africa Agenda highlights some of the resolutions made by various working groups and caucuses on some of the pertinent issues that are likely to be adopted by the conference this evening.
Representatives within the framework of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI) made resolutions on financing the information society and bridging the digital divide, first by welcoming the decision taken by Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo in his capacity as president of the African Union (AU) to the launch the Digital Solidarity Fund DSF in March 2005.
They resolved that the AU should take the necessary measures to bring the resolutions adopted today to the attention of the other WSIS regional preparatory conferences.
Several African ministers, European Union (EU) donors, the World Bank, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Development Bank (ADB) participated in the drafting committee.
They also recommended that a solidarity fund similar to the DSF should be created in each country to provide financing for local, national projects.
On internet governance, a group workshop including representatives from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the African Research Network (ARN) and the ECA resolved that regional organisations representing Africa at international levels, such as the African Network Information Centre (AfriNIC) and the Association of African Internet Service Provider Associations (AfrISPA), should be supported. It was also resolved that the operations of these organisations should be harmonised and coordinated.
They said in their draft that countries should support AfriNIC by raising awareness of the functions of this new organisation.
One of their resolutions on internet governance said “African countries should reinforce the continued role of the private sector in developing infrastructure, capacity building and doing it jointly with governments.”
“This will develop education and create a conducive regulatory environment to secure investors and enable them to invest in Information Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure and ICT applications in Africa”.
They also said policies should be created to help remove the barriers to ICT education and training. The barriers they mentioned include gender, language and cultural barriers.
In a working group on the implementation of the WSIS Declaration and Plan of Action (PoA), delegates resolved that African nations should ensure that national statistical offices are involved in the collection and dissemination of information on the implementation of the WSIS Plan of Action.
Ghana’s minister of communications, Albert Kan-Dapaah chaired this group that included the minister of information and communications from Mali and various other ministers.
The ministers resolved that African states should set up and activate the national WSIS committees called for in the Bamako Declaration. Mali hosted the first regional preparatory meeting in 2002.
The ministers also resolved that African states should establish an international mechanism to monitor and evaluate the progress of the information society and implement the Geneva action plan for the period 2005 to 2015.
On African languages and open source software, more than 60 participants from 23 African countries attended a pre-conference workshop which resolved that the African Academy of Languages (ACALAN), should encourage linguistics and IT specialists to harmonise their efforts. ACALAN is a specialised institution of the AU.
This group said its resolutions would be adopted immediately after the Accra conference even if they are not given priority in the final report of resolutions.
“The organisation of the ‘2006 Year of African Languages’ should be supported through the implementation of projects to promote the presence in cyberspace of at least one major cross-border, supra-regional language for each African region,” they said.
“This cross-border supra-regional language will be a medium for communication through the internet or a website,” they added. They also resolved that advocacy for open source software and efforts to increase awareness of its importance should be pursued.
One of their other resolutions was to support the African Association of Software Users (AASU) initiative for the establishment of the African open source software observatory.
They recognised that the second phase of the WSIS should consider the linguistic digital divide as one of the factors to be eliminated in order to build an inclusive information society and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
